“Left town in a coach came back in a jet.”

– The Weeknd, I’m Good

I keep a notebook filled with nothing but numbers. Weights moved, money earned, money spent, protein consumed, hours slept, and site stats. They’re all lodged somewhere within.

I was feeling like my life was beginning to stagnate. Every day was becoming identical. A routine was developing. I didn’t like it. I began to seriously wonder if taking a semester off had really been a good idea.

In the afternoon I opened my notebook. Starting from the first page, I traced my activities throughout the entire year. The change I saw was amazing. The kid on the first page was a stranger to the man on the last.

My records never showed any kind of drastic growth. In the span of a week I might increase my bench by five pounds, and start making a few extra cents off affiliate marketing. None of what I did could have been measured on a small scale. However, as I progressed all my infinitesimal gains started to accumulate. And from each action, new opportunities arose.

The more experience I acquired the more skills I developed. The more skills I developed the more experience I could acquire. It actually reminded me of the old role playing games I used to own.

While I was constantly improving, my progress wasn’t linear. I caught a terrible cold and my lifts suffered. I made a web business that got no customers. I made mistakes and had plenty of off days. Despite this I stuck with it, the journey’s always more fun than the destination. I went along with the ride, doing my best and seeing where it lead me.

I’m not where I want to be yet, but I’m a lot closer than I thought. After seeing how much I’ve grown, I know what’s in store if I continue down this road. There’s no sense in turning back.

“Laziness is a secret ingredient that goes into failure. But it’s only kept a secret from the person who fails.”

– Robert Half

According to science all my peers erroneously believe themselves to be awesome. Typically this is the point where I’m supposed to argue that young people can do anything and change the world. It’s an opportunity for me to make some fluffy motivational speech about ambition and idealism. However, this time I agree.

Between social media, porn, and video games; every loser can detach themselves from reality and escape into a fantastical realm of electronic opiates. I know plenty of people whose lives are train wrecks, yet they still feel entitled to everything. Some time ago, a guy I know was complaining about not having any money. “Why don’t start a website?” I offered. He claimed that he didn’t know how to. I told him that, if he wanted, I’d come over on the weekend and help him get the whole thing up and running. He responded that it sounded like too much work. That was the last time I ever gave him advice.

My first college experience sucked. I was 16 and went on a campus visit. Everybody I met was optimistic and wanted to save the world and do big things. They all sounded like they’d heard Robbin Williams speech from Dead Poets Society and taken it to heart. At this point I was barely old enough to drive, but I was still able deduce that most of these people would never do anything.

My second college experience also sucked. I was still 16 and spent the weekend at a university. Going in I imagined a cross between Mensa and Van Wilder. Instead I was met with a group of people gossiping about their fellow party goers, and a late night spent beating drunk guys at Super Smash Bros.

Nobody was actually growing up to save the planet or end government corruption, they were too absorbed in their own little world.

For a while I thought that my generation might actually be the laziest and most self-centered, something the baby-boomers always try to claim. Then I hung out with boomers. The only difference between them and us? Age. They’re still petty. They gossip. Their free time is spent watching television and complaining about the state of the world. “Someone should fix things, when I was your age we tried to make a stand…”

I have no problem with activism. There’s nothing wrong with donating time and money towards helping others. With that said, I do have a problem with planning your entire future around changing the world. You’d be far better off focusing on making money and being charitable with the excess, than you would solely pursuing a career in activism. Andrew Carnegie worked hard, amassed a fortune, and gave away $350 million dollars. Some guy who spends his life holding signs and changing his profile picture to the equality symbol will never even have an opportunity to make that kind of impact.

“Not cool. Jokes about forking repo’s in a sexual way and ‘big’ dongles. Right behind me.”

– Adria Richards

While the world was crucifying Pax Dixon one of my coworkers was making a double entendre about “big packages.” He was doing so on the job and in mixed company. No one ran to human resources. There was no scandal. Everyone laughed and went about their business.

Later that afternoon I heard a guy say “I’ve been eying the clock for three hours now.”

Someone responded “you must be one horny motherf*cker.”

No investigation was held. No special committee formed as a response. There wasn’t even a sensitivity meeting.

When I was a kid my dad owned a construction company. While none of his employees were doing anything exceptionally wild, there was plenty of horseplay. Dudes would trash talk each other, play pranks, and talk about guy stuff. It was a genuinely fun environment. Whenever I hear people talk about “the masculine workspace” construction automatically springs to mind. The men were men and balanced hard work with having fun. And, at the end of the day, they had something to show for their efforts.

Growing up I wanted to work in the tech industry. Being 12 years old and seeing live footage of E3 made me want to work for a game developer. I’ve always been a nerd and love nerd stuff. Video games, comic books, and science fiction have always been, in my opinion, the epitome of male fantasy. Saving the world from aliens before having a menage a trois in your private spaceship is hard to surpass.

For most of my life video games and geek culture was geared towards men. It was scantily clad women, guns, fighting, and epic conquest. Now things have begun to change. There’s a huge backlash about nerds being misogynists and the tech industry being “male dominated.”

It’s gotten to the point that any man who says anything remotely offensive, like a possible sexual reference involving “dongles,” is persecuted. I actually feel bad for the next generation of nerds. They’ll all be inevitably fired after suggesting something horribly sexist like making a game too difficult for women.

Fortunately, there are still industries immune the tyrannical grip of equality. Unfortunately, they aren’t glamorous. Factory workers, plumbers, welders, builders, and salvagers; basically any job that involves getting dirty. I’ve had several “unglamorous” jobs over the years, from sweeping floors to scrapping air conditioning units. Surprisingly, they’ve all been a lot of fun.

While working at a Christmas tree farm, I got to shoot AR-15’s with my boss during a lull.

Doing construction at a Burger King, I spent the afternoon blaring “Ruff Ryder Anthem” and hearing raunchy stories about another guy’s trip to Mexico.

Mowing the grass at a cemetery, I was free to do whatever I wanted. I ended up rapping along to Young Jeezy while trying not to run over headstones.

If you’re adamant about not giving into political correctness, there are two things you should do. The first is to start earning money on the side. Create a Fiverr account, write a cheesy eBook under a fake name, run a blog, there’s a million ways to get started. Secondly, while your business is taking off, get a blue collar job. I work in a warehouse, making $10 an hour with benefits. All my work is stress free and pays above minimum wage. It covers my expenses and allows me the free time to pursue my own goals. On evenings and weekends I do manual labor. Chopping wood, stacking bails of hay, building fences, tasks most people would be too good for. Since there’s no competition, I usually walk away with a sizable amount of pocket change. Back in July alone I managed to save up almost $2,000.

If you don’t want to surrender your life to a bunch of idiots who get offended about Mel Gibson quotes you tweeted three years ago, I suggest you start a side hustle and find work in a “working class” trade.