Tunnels, Carrots, and Tangents

I have been writing the posts in this blog for the me of three years ago. "I come from hard working stock." Three years ago I was just looking for a job that paid more. That's all I wanted. I was always told to "keep a good job" but I have never held a job for more than three years.

I always thought it would be different with the next job. In fact within a month of getting a new job, I usually learned enough to give the veterans a run for their money. I was excited to try something new. I always got big raises, one year it was 50%. And with some of these jobs I made it into management. And until I was 23 or so, no matter of hard work or initiative really mattered at the jobs I worked. For some reason, up to then, only my age counted.

Sometimes it takes moving up the ladder quickly to realize that there is no pay off. A few years of this and I realized that with a degree and and job that paid more, it would have been the same but it would have taken me longer to catch on. It doesn't matter how much you get paid if you don't like what you are doing. And if you have a problem with authority, there is no "job" you like doing.

I could not see out of this tunnel. And when I finally started making money online, it clicked. So many things I had read and that people had told me had a new meaning. There was no tunnel. Despite my anger with my working situtation and the ideals of those who seemed to enjoy their low paying jobs, I had fallen for the trap. The tunnel had slowly constructed itself out of these working class ideals. It didn't take much to have it evaporate, just one foot in the right direction.

I consider myself lucky because I knew it was a series of chance occurrences that woke me up. Ever since then I having been trying to put to words a way to cause that snap without all the work.

Small places have small ideas. Small jobs breed small ideas. If this is all you have to work with, you have a chore ahead of you.

If you do not shake this when you try to take off on your own, it will still be the same. Old voices will taunt you. Old friends may not recognize you with your newly found attitude. And this may cause you to go back to the tunnel.

Or you could start making money online and be so flabergasted by the amount you can make with a few hours of work that you find the real culprit. Or not.

If I gave you a job that doubled your income instantly, how long would the money blind you? How long would you be satified with what I gave you?

The same game your boss played with you is still real and alive in your head. The carrot. But you have become pretty good at playing it yourself, haven't you?

I have gone through many layers of internet marketing from Ebay to product creation to affiliate marketing. Those tangents were just as important to the lesson I have learned. But It took a few years in for me to take the first one.

As I go back down into the depths of the internet marketing machine every once in and while, I see the same people there that were there years ago. They are thriving or else they wouldn't still be there. But they haven't changed much.

And where some people stop amazes me. The tunnel is strong with these people. They still have their eye on the carrot.

So take a few tangents. It really doesn't matter which ones. Each one will show you something new. Do it to cut the string from that carrot. Do it again to make sure it is still not there. Throw yourself in a few times where you don't belong and feel free to make mistakes until you get what I am trying to say in this post. And then do it again.

And if you still don't get it, read Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. It's a short book.

The truth. The carrot never really leaves. You have to fight it whenever you can.