Nonfiction | Jim Kelly

Look, I’m no Einstein and I’ll be the first to admit it. Still, I know what I know. I know what I see with my own two eyes. The question is, do you? Let’s talk turkey, you and me. I know how you feel. I know exactly how you feel. A few short months ago I was in your shoes. I too was a frustrated wage slave renting myself out for crap pay. Selling my time, my life for nickels and dimes. For puny, joke amount paychecks. Always bossed around but never being THE boss. Not now. Not anymore. I turned that all around and you can too. 

Ever ask yourself why some people always seem to win while others just keep on getting the short end of the stick? Why does life, for some people, get better and better, while for the rest of us working stiffs it keeps going from bad to worse? The answer, friend, is simple. It’s right before your eyes. What I’m about to give you here, absolutely free of charge, can’t, CAN NOT be found in any book. Can’t be found on any computer screen no matter how many searches you do. You want the answer, you got two choices, friend. Two and two only. Me or The School of Hard Knocks. 

Think about it. You can go out, get beat down, kicked around long enough that maybe you figure it out all on your lonesome. Or, you can let me tell you. Before you choose, remember this. There is no guaranteed graduation date from The School of Hard Knocks. Not by a long shot. And, if you do make it out alive, you think they got placement services? Somebody in an office somewhere with a calculator says okay, you been paying your dues long enough, here it is, here’s the secret to success? Think again.

We’re honest people, you and me. Salt of the earth. So why play games? Why beat around the bush? Don’t worry. Everything we say, and I mean every single thing, stays right in this room. Absolute secrecy guaranteed. Die if I lie okay? Die if I lie. We’re all alone here. We got nobody to impress. Nobody to please. And, best of all, nobody judges us. Nobody to point fingers or smack us around for saying the wrong thing. For thinking what we think. Thinking it and then saying it right out loud.

Here’s my point. If nobody can hear us, why bother saying what other people want us to say? Expect us to say? How about we only say what we know, in our heart of hearts, to be right and honest and true. How about that? Truth the whole truth and nothing but. You with me? Good.

You look doubtful. Uncertain. Unconvinced. Friend, don’t believe me. Don’t listen to a single word I say. Why should you?  We just met. I could be a liar. A lunatic. A thief.

Let me ask you a question here. Simple little question to get us started. Are there things you want? And not tomorrow. Not next week. Not ten years of scrimping and saving from now, but now? Right now? Good. Me too. So if you don’t mind me asking, is anybody you know likely to just up and give you these things? Bang on your front door and hand them all over because you’re such a deserving, wonderful person? I didn’t think so. Same here.

Story time, friend. Close your eyes and let me tell you a story or two. Stories, maybe, to change your life. Give you a whole new way of seeing. Seeing and being, thinking and doing. Imagine a baby. Newborn baby. Baby just arrived out into this bright big world of promise and peril. Risk and reward. Failure and success. Baby arrives howling. Screaming out for what it wants. What it needs. Does this tiny person who speaks not a single word argue the pros and cons of eating? Debate the benefits of delaying, putting off a meal? Napping first, feeding later? Does the baby hesitate? Do good and bad, right and wrong have anything to do with this situation? Anything at all? They do not. Consider what the baby teaches us. I want. I demand. I get. Textbook. All you need to know. Do like the baby and succeed. Ignore the baby, same old same old. Your choice. 

One more little story. Eyes open this time. Story a friend told me. My friend, his wife and their little girl live in a wild place. Mountain top that’s almost completely empty of other people. Only road close to where they live is a switchback, two lane macadam. They built their house half a mile or better up from that road. Their driveway is a steep and twisty, dirt and gravel, rock and root two-track with dense, close growing pine trees on either side. Dark at noon on a summer day, darker still at night. 

Story happens early one morning during the school year. No light in the sky, none in the woods. My friend and his wife are already up and gone. Off to work. Their seven-year-old daughter has the routine down. After breakfast she cleans and puts her bowl and spoon away. Packs lunch. Dresses for the weather. This morning it’s cold. Early fall but too cold to go without a coat. She puts on her red rubber boots, wool mittens, stocking cap and thick, red wool cape that’s two, maybe three sizes too big for her. When it’s time, she walks off down the driveway, more by feel than sight. She gives herself half an hour to get down to where the school bus stops.

She’s about half way down to the main road, but maybe less. Hard to say in the dark. She stops dead still. Freezes in her tracks. Understands, head to toe certain, that she better not move a muscle. Move a muscle or make a sound. Every hair on the back of her neck is standing straight up. What she did next she just did. No hesitation. No debate. No weighing options. Slower than slow. Underwater slow, she turns around. Looks into the unblinking, piss yellow eyes of a full grown, crouched down mountain lion. It is three, maybe four feet, or one good pounce behind her on the trail.

Up on her toes, arms flapping, she starts to squawk and crow, hop back and forth. Her head shoots out and back, out and back, angry chicken style. That too big, red wool cape is a blur, a mad swirl that won’t let up. She keeps on, bird of prey fierce, bird of prey crazy. Within seconds the mountain lion has vanished. Disappeared. Vamoosed off into the dark forest.

Name that knowledge. The knowledge that saved this little girl’s life. Instinct? Premonition? Gift from on high? Impromptu flash of genius? What does it matter how we call or name it? Label or brand it? You have it. I have it. We’ve both had it from the instant we were born. Instant we howled that very first time, howled and got fed.

It saved us both from starvation, friend, just as sure it saved that little girl’s life. Listen to it from here on out and it will save you again. Again and again. Save you from mediocrity. Deliver you to the land of plenty, the land of perpetual prosperity.

You look doubtful. Uncertain. Unconvinced. Friend, don’t believe me. Don’t listen to a single word I say. Why should you?  We just met. I could be a liar. A lunatic. A thief. Listen, instead, to yourself. To what you have always known, in your heart of hearts, to be right and honest and true. Good and bad, right and wrong have no business here. No part, none whatever. Empty words is all they are. Tricks and traps to keep you small and tame. Docile, obedient and broke. Shackles only. Shackles to be smashed, busted up and cast aside.

Want. Demand. Get. That’s it. That’s all you need to know about winning. About turning your life around. Newborn Baby can do it from day one. Little girl in the deep dark woods can do it. So, why not you?

One final thought. Trivial really, but one I wanted to share. Share with you in particular. Last night  I was sitting outside in my backyard watching the stars. I was smoking an expensive cigar. Why not, I have plenty of money now? Now that I’ve turned my life around. Anyway, a mosquito was buzzing around, bothering me. Interrupting my meditations. I puffed my stogie, got the tip red hot, then waved it around to shoo the mosquito, scare it off. Red orange zigzag lines remained where I’d swung the stogie. Glowing, red orange lines. Enchanted, I signed my name on the night sky with looping bold cursive. The garish transience, the colossal impermanence of the gesture delighted me.

What say, friend? Will you too leave your mark? Light up the night sky?  Quit selling your time, your life off for nickels and dimes? For puny, joke amount paychecks? Will you quit getting bossed around and finally be THE boss? Knowing you the way I do I think you just might. You have the tools. You know the way. Choice is yours. So, will you do like the baby and start winning for once? Or, will you ignore the ancient wisdom stored deep within your blood and bones and settle, time after time after time, for just second best? Your choice friend. Your choice. Cigar?