The shelves of bookstores are filled with self-help books trying to show you how to be The Better You, the you that you wish you could be when you look at yourself in your mirror that you bought with your money that you earned at your job (that you really don’t like).  You.

But who has time to read books?  Not you.

So I’m providing you with a perfectly blog-sized self-help book.  It’s so perfectly blog-sized, in fact, that it’s not a book at all.  What other books can say that?

Enough foreplay, onto the meat.  I present you with my self-help blog post:

Chapter 1:

Make a change in your life.

The End.

(I accept all major credit cards and any form of payment that comes in 40 proof.)

~~
Edit:  My editor informs me that my book is too short and pithy to be of any real help.  I informed him that he could go suck on a potato.

But, fine, for his sake, I’ll elaborate.

The first thing you need to do when you want to make a change in your life is make a change in your life.

That blank look on your face tells me I need to elaborate.

Do you want to get a new job, but you’re not sure how to do it?  Here’s how:  Take your resume, give it to somebody offering a job (one that is different than the one you already have; that’s key) and ace the interview.  If that fails, try it again, with a different job.  And again, and again, and again, until finally it sticks.

Do you want to move to a new city?  First off, take everything that you own in this city and would like to still own in the new city and put it in boxes or suitcases.  Then take those boxes and suitcases to the new city.  I call it my two-step method of moving.  Copyrighted!

The world is hard.

Changing is not.

It’s not easy, always, but it’s not surviving on $1 a day difficult, either.  So, you know, stop being such a bitch.

Not all changes have to be as big as a new job or a new city, but big or small, all change requires one action on your part:  Change.

You don’t like your look, you think your haircut is bad and your clothing is out of style?  Make yourself over.

You don’t like feeling dumber than other people and wish you knew more things?  Read books.  (Mine first, though.)

You don’t like how much time you spend on Facebook (and the internet)?  Stop going on Facebook.

You don’t like how much time your friends spend on Facebook?  Stop going on Facebook.

There are real problems in this world.  There are personal deficiencies that cannot be overcome by pure willpower alone.  In those cases, seek out help.  That’s the change you can implement in your life.

But for most of the challenges in your life, the solution is in the very definition of the problem.

We spend more time making excuses than we do actually working towards a solution.

Oh, and this is going to be a bit of a mind blower, but change requires work.  If you want something better in your life, than you’re going to need to put in some effort.  Smoking weed and playing video games has almost never solved any of life’s problems.

(There was that one time with Winston Churchill during World War II, but who could have predicted that outcome?)

Here is where I get personal:

Every single year, I move to a new city where I know no one and have no employment lined up, and I’m doing it during the worst recession since the Great Depression.  Is it easy?  No, you putz!  But I do it because I don’t want to be the same person I was when I graduated college.

Am I happy with everything about myself?  Hey, that’s pretty personal of you to ask.

But, no, I have flaws and insecurities and plenty of traits I want to change.  And I’m working on it.  Some change is immediate, some is long-term.  All positive change, though, is active.  Passive change is detrimental.  It’s called erosion.

I personally don’t care if you make a change in your life.  The more people in this world who remain inert in their holes only makes the chances for my success all the better.

But I am tired of listening to people whine.  So I’m trying to make a change.  In you.

So, change.  Or don’t.  But, for the love of Allah, stop whining so goddamn much.  You only get one shot at this whole living thing.

Cue the excuses.