How to Win at Life (or Pretty Much Anything Else)

And I won't even charge you monthly installments or make you read my book.  I can pretty much tell you how to win at life in a paragraph.  Now - whether or not you want to actually commit to it is up to you.

Life is merely a tangled web of complicated  (and not-so-complicated) systems.  One of the first lessons we learn in school is about how our body is a complex system.  The next lesson we learn is called aging, in which we learn how those systems continually fuck us over until we die.  There is hope.  Until death, anyway.

Without further ado, here it is - the secret to how to win at life:

1.  Identify the system
2.  Learn the system
3.  Beat the system

It should be further noted that this does not apply to every system in life but I'm going to gauge that save for perhaps 'dating women' this plan is pretty solid.  I know what you are thinking - how can it be that easy?  Well, my friends, sometimes there is a little elbow grease between steps 1 and 3 and that is where we lose people.  The above steps are inherently the recipe for any scheme you will ever encounter.  You have the power to do all of these things on your own.

Everyone is really good at identifying the system.  This is the thing that you want and do not have.  Yet.  Enter our favorite defense mechanism:  excuses.

"Well she's just really lucky."
"She's just always been skinny."
"That stuff is way too complicated for me."

Yeah, you've heard these kind of comments before I'm sure.  They are normally uttered from people I like to call haters.

Haters haven't progressed to step 2 wherein they learn the system, e.g., 'she' is really skinny because she spends 7 hours every week at the gym.  Or, 'she' is really lucky because she plays the lottery every day, and you don't.

Now, maybe you're not a hater.  Maybe you just want in on some of that sweet lucky action.  Three words. Learn.  The.  System.  Find out who is benefits from said system and start stalking them.  Find out what actions they are taking to ensure their success.  More importantly, find out what actions they are not taking to solidify that success.  Find the loophole.  Lo and behold you are likely to learn that luck has very little to do with success.

In my experience, a lot of people like to claim that they try really hard to do things and just aren't successful. However, if you look back at what actions have really been taken in their 'trying hard' arsenal, often it's pretty empty.  If you want to win the lottery, playing once and deeming yourself unlucky is not really trying that hard.  I call bullshit.  Playing every day for three years and still not winning anything might be unlucky.  Let's call it what it is.

Beating the system might entail you getting into some kind of routine.  Maybe it means you go to the gym two more times a week.  Maybe it means you spend an hour entering internet contests.  Chances are, you are going to need to employ some sort of brain power and some sort of strategy.  The fruits of your labor may be a better self-confidence, a more healthy body, or in my case $4,000 worth of prizes in six months and a trip to NYC.

But I'm probably just lucky.

Phone Calls

I think things are always worse when you're dealing with extreme temperatures.  I guess that is not only physically sound but metaphorical as well.  Our air conditioning has been out at work for days (coming off of an earlier week of it being out at home) and the Galileo thermometer is sinking as far as it can, bearing the blatant reminder that it's well over 80 degrees in the office.  The expression 'sitting here stewing' comes to mind.  I'm not sure what it is about being subjected to extreme heat that has the ability to inflate every irritant within my soul but saying that I'm 'frustrated' only begins to encompass what I feel I'm going through.  The heat is just the accelerant.  My woes extend further than the need to feel comfortable in my own office.

I feel like I have been stuck in a web of frustration for some time now.  I have always had pride in my independence and even though I fiercely guard it, I relinquish bits and pieces as pawns in chess games of compromise.  I like to control my own life.  I like to make decisions on my own merit that benefit myself and those around me.  It has come to my attention over the past ten years that taking control of my own life is actually something of which to be proud, since I have seen several people just as eager to have an excuse for failure so that they don't have to be accountable for whatever they do or don't do.  I don't take hits to my independence very lightly and I feel as though I have been walking on eggshells for 'the greater good' for over a year.

We all know in our hearts what we feel is right and what is wrong, but the cold realization is that there is a price on both.  A settlement.  A trade-off.  A limitation of our resources that all of a sudden makes the wrong thing seem more right, due to the circumstances of course.  The wrong thing comes into focus as not as bad when we're not willing to, or have convinced ourselves we can't, fight any further for the right thing.  I guess it's kind of disgusting, and there also aren't any other answers.  People don't like feeling they've died without reason, so they search for acceptable reasons so death doesn't seem so empty.  When there aren't any answers we just make them up as we go.  Maybe we should just stop asking questions.

Don't Call Me Daughter

"But don't you want a child of your own?"

It's a question that I've been asked a lot lately.  Ever since my boyfriend and his young 3-year old daughter moved into my house, I have been playing half-time mom.  But it's not really mom because she already has a mother, and despite how good or bad of a mother she is, you always have to respect the mother.  It's not like she is my step-daughter, as he is already legally married to (yet separated from) her biological mom, and not to me.  She isn't my adopted daughter, as there is no legal paper stating that this is the case.  I can't claim her as a dependent on my taxes, even though she is quite dependent on me, and I can't really call her my roommate because, well, she doesn't really pay her share of rent.  When she is unruly, I have the authority to discipline her and when she wants to play a game, I am the first person she runs to.  I come out of the shower to find her delightfully plodding through the hallway in my shoes that are ten sizes too big for her, and when we go out anywhere she excitedly introduces me to everyone as if I am something awesome that needs to be shared.  When she remembers something I've told her weeks ago, I feel a fluttering of joy.  And, when she is cranky and doesn't want to give me a hug or kiss, I feel a pang of sadness.  We may not share the sacred biological bond, but how far does that go when raising your child?  She is as much mine as my own would be.

I catch myself so many times when I'm using titles to describe all of us.  I am guilty of using 'Mommy' and 'Daddy' when talking to my dog, so naturally having an actual human and calling myself by my own name seems awkward and foreign.  I can't tell you how many times someone else has been speaking to her in these terms and called me 'Mommy' by mistake and then clasped their hands over their mouths the same as if they had said an expletive, mouthing to me "I'm sorry".  People are so drawn to that nuclear family unit, it's almost an inconvenience that we're not 'Mommy & Daddy' to everyone else.


It is a difficult deviation from a traditional family unit to one where it seems as though people that love each other were just seemingly thrown together.  For all intents and purposes, and to anyone who were to observe us in our daily life, we are very much a family.  However, when people start asking questions things get difficult for me.

"Well, she lives with us but she's his child.  Well, 50% of the time.  What?  Oh, no we're not married just living together.  He's married to someone else.  Oh, but they're separated."  

Then the dreadful, "Oh, so you're not her mother."  Is this the same way that adopted parents feel when other peers learn of the adoption?  Oh, so you mean you just fill the mother role, but you're not the mother.  What's the difference?  Labor?  Chins that look similar?  A genetic predisposition for high blood pressure?

Oh wait, let me guess.  "You'll understand when you have children of your own".