Find Peace and Personal Fulfillment by Not Giving a Crap About Anyone
Sociopathy could be your key to success.
Everyone claims to have the key to success. Some people will tell you the key to success is waking up at a certain time. Others claim that visualizing your goals while staring pensively out a large window is the key to success. Really bold writers will argue that the key to success is hiding within certain foods or buried in your backyard beneath the weeds and hamster bones.
But, before you pick up that shovel, it’s important to understand one thing.
Those people do not want you to succeed.
Why would they? They don’t know you. They couldn’t say what your favorite color is (magenta) or which foods make you puke (kielbasa). They just want you to read their articles and be impressed.
Well, lucky for you, I’m not interested in impressing anyone today. I’ve got my sweatpants on and I haven’t even brushed my hair.
The first thing you should do is to stop listening to successful people. You’re much better off listening to someone like me, who takes five years to book a dental appointment. I have nothing to lose, so I’ll tell you the truth.
Successful people would prefer you wear yourself out waking up at ungodly hours and implementing dumb tips that never got anyone anywhere.
If you succeed, then you will become the competition.
Successful people succeed by destroying the competition.
If the student eventually becomes the teacher, then isn’t the teacher better off locking the student inside a suitcase and tossing it in the river? Circle of life, my butt.
Merriam-Webster defines sociopath as: “Why the hell are you looking up the definition of sociopath for a dumb Medium article? Seriously? This isn’t a fifth grade book report. No one cares. Maybe you should go ask urban dictionary, you dunder-headed barf bag.”
This is the point at which I should inform you that this is not a satirical article.
Sure, there are people here who have accused me of “satire”. Perhaps I snuck a joke into a perfectly serious article about job interviews or clown sharks and inadvertently earned the nickname Sarah Silly Pants. But I am 100% serious about this.
The key to success is not giving a crap about anyone.
That’s how you ascend. On the stacked up corpses of your competitors. Spoiler alert: if it breathes, it’s a competitor. Americans like to pretend this isn’t the case, because we’ve been trained to believe the people with the most money and power are saints to whom we should look for moral guidance.
Ha ha!
America is lying to you.
Think that as a writer you’re immune to all of this? Nope. This principle is especially true for writers! If you’re not treating writing like a vicious episode of Survivor, then you’ll never make it into the 8% of writers on Medium who make more than $100 a month.
Think of how many candy bars you can buy with $100 a month!
Maybe you’re someone with a conscience and this is concerning information. Don’t worry! With enough effort, consciences can be gradually smothered. And, without them, you’ll start to experience peace and fulfillment in doses you never could have imagined.
A lot of misery comes from caring.
Start in small ways, like tripping small children or leaving your trash on the ground at the movie theater.
Then, work your way up. Lie. Steal. Murder. Kill. (Wait, are those last two the same thing?)
Before long, you won’t feel anything at all. Friends will start calling you Lex Luther and your doorman will call you Satan. Sure, a few misguided folks might attempt to sell you on a redemption arc, but redemption arcs are costly! Scrooge wasted so much cash after his “awakening”.
Also, Bob Cratchit ended up framing him for embezzlement and Scrooge spent the last few years of his life in prison while Cratchit took over the business. Dickens left that part out because it was “too depressing” and “not commercial enough”.
Cratchit knows what’s what.
And Tiny Tim is one of those Rich Kids of Instagram now, with a Rolex and a car that looks like it eats other cars.
Sure, you can opt out of the whole game. Decide success isn’t for you. And that’s fine. The world will always need people to make coffee or fingerpaint or clean houses or perform modern dances or write low performing satirical articles on Medium or be sad for a living. The world will always need people willing to die due to increasing costs of healthcare. It’s an important part of a functioning society.
But if you’re reading this because you want to succeed… well, my friend, it’s time to get some boots and start stomping on that pesky conscience.
Just because I’m not doing it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.
Let me know what the view is like from the top.
Thanks for reading! For more great “content” I’m on twitter and I have a newsletter.
