This life caught me on a steady run towards depression. The high-paying jobs avoided me as if I was a risk to them. So did the money. And, as you can understand, so did the women. It all flipped the day I met my old classmate at our high school reunion. I haven’t seen her for fifteen years. Those fifteen years changed her and the change was spectacular: she glowed, she beamed, she radiated! I, on the other hand, sucked the light out of the room.
“What’s up with you, baby?” her left hand fell on my lap. A spark blinded my eye – it was from a huge engagement ring on her hand, “You let yourself loose a little bit, am I right?”
“Yeah, fueling my ass with junk food and street wines. Used to go to the gym, but saving money now… not the best of times for me. You look rad, girl!” I didn’t look in her eyes; mine were concentrated on a half-empty glass in my hand.
“Babe, you won’t believe me, but I was just like you a year ago!”
“There’s no way I can believe something like that,” my tie almost choked me.
“Look,” she took the glass from my hand and showed it to me, “half-full or half-empty?”
I freed my neck from the noose, “Half-empty.”
“See! That’s your problem. It’s the way you look at things. The way you project yourself onto the Universe.”
“Woah, show me reds on your tail! What?!” I stared at the happiest face I’ve ever seen in my life.
“Stand up,” she grabbed me by the hand and led to the mirror. “Look at yourself and tell me, what do you see?”
I told her.
“No! It’s not a fuckface, it’s an adult, grown, and developed male face… with a sexy five o’clock shadow!”
“I’m really not sure about that.”
“Look again and repeat after me, ‘I’m hot.’ “
“Wha? Girl. You’re tripping.”
“Babe, trust me. Don’t resist your inner thinking. Do you know that every thought manifests itself outside of our brains?”
I finished my glass, “I’m hot.”
“There you go! Now, ‘If I were a lady, I would definitely get a piece of that booty.’ “
“No, no, no, that’s a little bit too much! You’re playing me!” I raised my hands towards my former classmate. She was holding a book in hers. “Don’t land this at my head.”
“I’m going to give it to you. It will change your life. Trust me. But only if you tell me that last sentence.”
“Yeah, did it change yours?”
“Man. I was almost broke. I read that book, started doing all the stuff that was in there. It’s the positive thinking technique! If only everyone in this world would do the same, imagine how happy, successful, and rich every single person in this world would be! No sicknesses, no cancer! Every morning you wake up, go to the mirror and tell yourself, ‘I am amazing.’ You won’t believe the things that will happen to you after that.”
The things went as follows:
1. She used the technique.
2. She met some dude with lots of cash.
3. She never worked a day since her engagement, or, as she calls it, she’s an entrepreneur now.
“If I were a lady, I would definitely get a piece of that booty,” I looked straight into my half-drunk eyes in the mirror.
“Now we’re talking. Here you go.”
I held it in my hands, “THAT’S WHY YOU’RE NOT LIVING. Techniques, practices, and strategies for total winning, by Dalai Johnson.”
It’s Monday and I’m unemployed. I woke up at noon. My head was cracking and playing timpani and other percussion, reflecting yesterday’s alcohol consumption. I stepped on the floor and moved slowly towards the goal: the tiniest bathroom in the States.
“A developed face she said?” I stared at it, but it wasn’t. I don’t know what kind of trickery you should perform to force that kind of belief on yourself. I gulped three glasses of tap and prepared myself a nice, hot bath.
“Namaste, my friend. You don’t know anything about me, but I know something about you. You are a loser. Do you agree with me? Say it, ‘I’m a loser, Dalai!’ Sounds kind of shitty, innit? Sounds not worthy of a good life. But you know what? Everyone deserves a good life. No! Everyone deserves the best life! ‘But, Dalai,’ you say, ‘how is it possible for me to rock and roll as hard as you do???’ And the answer is – the best comes to the best. My friend, we are going to carve the best possible version of you. And you won’t believe how easy it is to achieve something just by thinking about it!
Did you know (proven by the best scientists) that every thought manifests itself outside of your brain? I bet you didn’t! What you say? I see those old gears are starting to turn! ‘Dalai, bro, do you mean that I have to start thinking like the best man to achieve the bestship of my life???’
My man, I’m proud of you. What you just did? You reached out towards our first technique!”
I splashed some foam bubbles on the flimsy, brownish pages of the book.
“To think your best, you have to look your best. But what if you don’t think that you look your best? Well, you are the best, you just don’t know it yet. Stand up–“
Done.
“Go to the mirror–“
An enormous amount of water migrated from the bathtub to the floor.
“Look at the best man in the Universe–“
Where?
“Are you looking, bro?”
Negative.
“You are. Spread your shoulders wide.”
My shoulders were never wide, I even had an attempt at football in school to compensate, but the only achievement I got was a concussion. I tried to spread them anyway.
“Lift your chin and shine those pearls!”
Next.
“Say it with the confidence of the best man in the world. Say it loudly. Say it like you mean it, because you mean it, bro.
I.
AM.
AMAZING.”
My barely existing chin got a little bit of mass from my stubble, my teeth shined with a low-temperature color, yet I took a deep breath and projected onto the Universe, “I. Am. Amazing.”
“ROCKIN’! ”
For a week I did the same procedure, just as it was written in the book. Shoulders, chin, teeth, and then, of course, ‘amazing’. I won’t say that I felt any better, but I tried to push away the skeptic thoughts. Sometimes, during the mundane tasks of the day, I told myself, “I am amazing.” That happened after I took out a week of trash and empty ‘Night Train’ bottles. Once I caught the last train to my station and exclaimed, “I’m the best.”
It all started to happen the next Monday. I received an email that told me that I just won a lifetime supply of ****-cola. I checked the email address, but it seemed pretty legit: it read ****-cola.com and I had no intention to argue with that. They dropped the first crate by my door the same evening.
I prepared another hot bath, double-mayoed a ham sandwich, and opened a can of coke, “Man… I can do it every day now!” I spoke to myself, looking up at the ceiling. I felt quite good. No. I felt amazing.
“Rockin’. “
It took me only six months to become a millionaire.
My last sexual experience happened two years ago and it was at a peepshow somewhere between Saint Paul and Minneapolis. The poor girl clearly was struggling at her job and was ‘five’ on the best of nights. Now I had trouble remembering the names of the girls who just left the giant bedroom of my penthouse. But they all were at least ‘sevens’, that I remember.
I hit a hundred million the next year. No matter how amazing you feel, you need to help the people around you. I decided to start from the starving children in Africa. How rockin’ it is to become the philanthropist who solved world hunger? It’s the best.
I grabbed my golden phone from the platinum tray on Miss’ Minnesota belly, “Hello? Is this Blackwater Security Company?”
“Yeah, it’s us, dude.”
“I mean the mercenary guys with guns and, like, B52s?” I still was not sure if that was them.
“Dude, I told ya, it’s us alright? I’m the main guy,” now I definitely know it’s them alright.
“Can you drop some bombs over Somalia? But load them with this amazing book–“
“You mean, the positive thinking techniques book???”
“YEAH, DUDE!” how does he know?!
“Man, this shit is so dope, why do you think ISIS is rolling so high all over the East? Positive thinking, my dude.”
“No way, man! You know what? Let’s drop some over North Korea too!”
“Already rollin’ those babies on our B-52s.”
“Rockin’! ”
My next step was a trip to Italy, because I wanted to taste the difference between Chicago, New York, Cali, and Italian pizza. Some people say that by that time I could’ve probably bought myself an Italian chef and his family but I just love traveling and embracing different cuisines and cultures. They also said that I can acquire a fleet of brand new private jets, but I bought out a full first-class section on one of the A380s, so the people in the business class had an opportunity to witness the undeniable power of positive thinking.
The moment I landed, some dude gifted me a brand new purple Ferrari. I left my baggage at the airport and went for a nice trip. I saw a broken car on the H-way. It was all hot from the smoke and so was I when I spotted the owner – a 5’ 10” model.
“Hey, gorgeous, wanna gimme a ride?”
My brand new Ferrari door popped up. The longest legs on the planet slipped inside, the rest of the perfect body followed.
“What do you do for a living?”
I had no need to lie, “I’m chilling, bae.”
“Wow, really? I’m an Italian supermodel! Wanna have some fun?” her hand grabbed the zipper on my pants.
“Rockin’. “
By the way, the Chicago pizza is the best, for sure.
I rolled across the globe, enjoying the company of the hottest supermodels, tasting the most rockin’ food. The day I came back, my hot Brazilian maid, who used to be Miss Universe, said that my doc called me and the matter was urgent. I jumped into my blue Lamborghini and drove to the clinic.
“Namaste, doc! What’s up?” I popped a can of coke open.
“Sir, I don’t know how to describe this to you, uh…” the man grabbed himself by the flock of his thinning hair, “this is really unusual. Not only unusual but–“
He dropped in his chair and tried to catch a breath; he was clearly out of air. His face was turning all colors of the rainbow, like red, lime, and shit.
“Sir. I never saw anything like this in my life.”
“Doc, bro, just shoot,” I patted the man on his back just to make him feel amazing.
“According to our data… you cannot possibly die!”
“Dude,” I sipped my coke, “Rockin’. ”
I stood in the middle of life splitting traffic with my amazing energy, flowing through the existence of other human beings, gulping the stars and their sexy cosmic juice. My legs stepped all over the continents, projecting the positive content of my metaphysical reality through the technique onto the Universe.
“I’M GONNA LIVE FOREVER, BABY!!!”