Thread by @TheBrometheus

Hollywood trains young people to believe someday they’ll be uplifted from their mediocre lives for being secretly special.

Harry Potter
Lord of the Rings
Star Wars

Magical old wizard saying “Oh hey, sorry I ignored you but you’re special.”

Are you waiting for a wizard?

Thread

I started out in poverty with fleas coming in through the walls and rats in the ceiling from dirty neighbors. Food stamps, eating food the gas station threw away. I worked hard at school and improving myself and raised my family above poverty.

No one came to uplift me. I worked.

I worked because I realized no rich relative was going to appear and help me. I wouldn’t win the lottery, and politicians didn’t actually care about helping me. It was entirely on me alone.

I realized my choices were stupid and shortsighted and I had to change and be better.

I knew a man who believed he’d die in 2012. Did nothing to advance his life, just porn and video games and cyber sex.

No career. Barely worked. Credit card debt.

2012 came and went and POOF, still alive. What next?

He started working. Built a real life.

We all must work.

No wizard or rich patron is coming to uplift you. Beware the one who tries, because that stuff only happens when pretty young girls are harvested for sex work.

We all must work and make something of ourselves. You are not an identity, you are an accumulation of choices.

If you’re waiting for a magical window to open that grants you help, some mythical “big break,” it won’t happen.

You can work hard and be discovered and uplifted TO MAKE MONEY FOR SOMEONE ELSE, but that still requires work to cultivate a useful skill.

Now, once you’ve worked and risen and shown you’re willing to make changes, others will see you and come alongside you. People who’ve worked hard themselves to improve. Then you’ll have help. Then you won’t be alone.

But when you wallow in mediocrity and laziness, who risks it?

If you want your life to be better than it is, then work for it. Find your skill or talent or ability and dive in after it. Start swimming, not just treading water.

I know it’s hard. I worked 70+ hour weeks with 2 toddlers and a pregnant wife. I still barely made ends meet.

But every month it got better. I saw more fruit. We had more to invest back in. We made new strides. I met new people who wanted to help because they SAW ME WORKING and knew I wouldn't waste their effort.

You can do this too. The only thing preventing you is believing you can’t.

People believe there’s no point. Their work won’t accomplish anything. They can’t do it alone.

They sit and wait for their wizard.

I have never seen a wizard, folks. I’ve seen dirty old men scooping up young girls for sex work, but no wizards.

Don’t wait for a wizard.

Find your capabilities. Find friends who want to work. Your lazy friends are holding you back because your brain says it’s fine to just be a little better than them. Make friends who want to work and your brain will shift accordingly.

Rise up from your mental gutter, and WORK.

Stop waiting for your wizard, folks. He ain’t coming.

Seize the day and become the person you want to be.