you can start with nothing,

and out of nothing and nowhere, you will find a way

if you sink low enough you could live in a building like this

Although I have been putting them on this blog for ages, I never understood quotations like the one at the top of this page, probably because I didn’t read them properly, and never took the time to think about them carefully enough.  The little bit I thought I understood about self-help, self-development, self-denial, and spirituality I found to be rather twee, overly religious, and happy clappy churchy.  How pretentious of me.

The modern church is producing passionate people with empty heads who love the Jesus they don’t know very well.  ~  Voddie Baucham.

The same dismissive attitude applied if ever I attended a self-help group, but in all honesty I put that down to the fact that I dislike intensely all clubs, groups, associations….. In fact I don’t much like being any place with a bunch of weirdos who have a committee and a ‘chair’ because I very quickly get totally unimpressed.

And yet, I always felt that I was drifting through my dysfunctional life, with just the occasional passage of being; a very cool guy, living a really great life to keep me sane and interested.  I was a mess, and the worst part was that I knew I had it in me to be a far, far better man than I had ever been before.  Some things I had already accomplished, I still have a cool roof over my head living in the garret, I have money in the bank, and generally speaking I’m pretty fit, strong and healthy.  (Admittedly I only just got of hospital, where they said I looked like a bad advertisement for death.)  But, generally, as my school reports and annual reviews at work usually read; He could do better if he tried.

As you’ve sought out my blog, then maybe you think there are some parts of your life that aren’t looking so good either.  And, that you could do a whole lot better if you tried.

The place to start is to stop doing all those things that completely fuck up your life.

• stop lurching from one disastrous relationship after another
• stop all that promiscuous casual sex that makes everyone with even an ounce of morality think you’re a cheap slut
• stop the drunkeness, drug taking, smoking, smoking pot
• give up the gambling, the impulsive buying of things you don’t need or want, spending and wasting a shit load of money you don’t have
• stop driving that junker of a car that gets you a ticket every time a cop can be bothered to pull you over
• stop getting yourself fired, or walking out on jobs you can’t afford to lose
• stop alienating your family and true friends, just because they might tell you the brutal truth about yourself
• stop being a total fucked-up jerk

Some say that there is a little good in all of us.  And, that if you dig deep enough you will always find a treasure.  All I know is that when I stopped being a total fucked-up jerk my life suddenly got much better.

~

jack collier

jackcollier7@talktalk.net

selling yourself and your self-respect isn’t a good way to escape your fucked-up life