Location: Southern Tasmania - Amongst The Mountains.
Subject: Where I’ve Been.
It has been almost two years since I last sat down to write a new article for this blog.
Two years.
Phew, time flies man – and my fingers are a little rusty, but with a some practice, I reckon they’ll be back.
It feels like a lifetime ago that I decided to stop everything I was doing and re-evaluate my life completely – I just woke up one morning, sick of who I was, tired of not feeling fulfilled, and seriously desperate for something more than what I had.
You see I was never completely honest with you, or more importantly, honest with myself, in those older articles.
Even though most of them were hard hitting, balls to the wall, and no bullshit pieces of work that came from my heart – I was not truly living what I was preaching - I was just going broke, betting on a dream that simply wasn’t going to happen like I imagined. I wanted the life of a Professional Blog Artist, but I didn’t realise that I had a few things wrong.
One cannot simply sit down, write wicked shit, and have money fall in their lap. It takes years of dedication, discipline, improvement, and most importantly - it takes living a life that is worth writing about - a life that other people wish they had.
My world started to change for the better, the morning I realised that I had none of those things. All I had was an attitude problem, too many girlfriends, and some money left over from a time when I really did have a life worth writing about.
So I lived in my imagination, ignorant to the reality of my situation - the reality that I was just a wannabe badass, without any direction other than writing articles, training martial arts, and lifting weights.
Without any real skills to earn real money, without any real confidence to go out into the real world and make something real happen – I was just a broke joker with nothing going on, sitting in an empty room in front of a computer screen, drinking coffee and dreaming about what didn’t exist.
And that hurt when I realised it, because I could not accept it. I could not accept that despite everything I had done over the years behind me, despite the adventures, and the fun, and all the “self-improvement” - I was still just a joke.
So I asked myself.
What the fuck?
After bouncing from town to town, unable to do anything consistently, and unable to accept that I really needed to start from zero, I was at a dead end in my life. I couldn’t outrun reality, or escape the truth - none of us can - because no matter how hard we try, what is really real and in need of our attention will never go away until we give it our attention.
Like I said in my old days, problems do not fix themselves, they only grow in size the longer you leave them unsolved. Therefore I started to see what was really there, not what was in my head. I started to look at myself using the mental pain that I was experiencing, and I started to ask - why do I feel like this, why am I not where I want to be, and how can I fix this shit?
With almost no money left in the bank, no solid skills to make more money, and no idea what to do next, I decided to shut the website down, get a job, and just start from scratch. I made a decision that I was going to find a real career to make money, and that I was going to acquire valuable skills that could put money in my pocket whenever I needed it.
But I wanted something badass, something that was not normal, something I could be proud of myself for doing. There was no way I was giving up on my dream, to go be like everyone else.
You know?
Freshly financed heap of shit car, a house I couldn’t afford, and two days on the weekend to pretend I wasn’t a fucking slave to banks, credit companies and some job I hated.
Not happening, your boy is smarter than that. All I needed was more money, and something dope that would get it for me - so I worked at bars, pumped iron, trained Muay Thai and kept thinking about what I could do that would give me what I wanted.
Within a few months I ended up running my own bar in a backpacker’s nightclub, where I sold gallons of piss every night except Tuesdays, to a bunch of legends from around the world. I seen tits from every continent except Antartica, learnt a lot about the drug trade, and made great money until the police shut me down because of some virus thing ruining the world.
Around that time I met a great girl, then accidently fell ass over head in love with her. She was a country girl with a pretty smile, common sense, and clumsy feet - her name was Grace, and I loved that girl like no other - we walked her dog, cooked lots of food, shared stories with each other, and fucked like tomorrow didn’t exist.
One day as I was sitting on the rocks next to a beach, watching her take photos of the waves breaking and rolling through the sand, watching her long blonde & brown hair annoy her, watching her glance over to watch me - I told myself I’d marry this girl and make her mine forever.
Well that didn’t happen. Mostly because I left her, to chase the opportunity that led to where I am right now. Now there are very few things which I ponder at night, when all is quiet, and the world is asleep - but this is one of them.
Great girl, or great opportunity?
I couldn’t have both.
So I chose what was most difficult, and it proved to be the right decision.
A wise old man once told me, when I was younger, that I’d fall in love twice, almost die in my forties, and go on to live a long life. I sure hope he was wrong about the love part, because I wouldn’t mind a third shot at it.
Now let’s go back quite a few years to share a story - because it’s time to talk about what I left my woman for.
As a young gun, my martial arts instructor, who was an ex-Navy man, gave me a book about these guys called Clearance Divers: brave men who fixed stuff, salvaged ships, disarmed bombs, and built cool shit underwater. From the moment I read the first page, I wanted to be like these guys. I wanted to be dangerous - do dangerous work - live a dangerous life.
So within a few months I found myself in the recruiting office of the defence force, wearing a suit for the first time, clean shaven, and looking smoother than cat shit. The recruiters liked my suit, my mindset, and the amount of pushups I could do - but the Doc booted me because I decided to declare on my paperwork that I had smashed my shoulder playing football the previous year.
So I learnt a good lesson, which the infamous Reggie Kray sums up rather well:
You can get away with a lot in life, if you just keep your mouth shut.
And now we’re back to where we left off - me, my Grace, my semi illegal bar, and that intercontinental buffet of tits.
One day, on my way to the bar, I spotted a Scuba Diving shop tucked away on the side of the road, which I had travelled past many times but never noticed.
Inside that shop was a man in an old baseball cap, with stringy dark hair that fell out the sides, an upright posture, a shirt he’d worn a million times, and a smile that reminded me of the country. His name was Julian.
Shortly after introducing myself, and paying for my first basic Scuba Diving course - we got talking about the world of diving. I shared with him my old dream of becoming a Navy Diver.
Then I told him about the book. And I told him how I got rejected because of my shoulder. With a smile he shook his head, and looked down at the floor behind his desk.
“Shoulda said nothing mate”.
“Yeah, I know.”
It was quiet for a moment, cars hummed past outside, a fan rattled inside another room, the sun hammered through open windows.
I looked around the shop, checking out all his gear. He looked at me, and he asked:
“Well, what about Commercial Diving?”
“Commercial Diving, what’s that?”
Julian explained it to me, and talked about these men who worked underwater, sometimes hundreds of meters: welding structures, melting metal with underwater blowtorches, swimming through pipes submerged in radioactive stuff, searching for sunken ships filled with treasure, and diving in frozen lakes.
They lived a life of adventure, they travelled the world, and they also got paid, really well. It’s what he used to do. And let me tell you - it’s what I was gonna do.
That same night at the bar, I was there but I wasn’t really there - I was a million miles away in my own mind. I stared straight through everyone I served, all those boobs mean’t nothing, and I sat quietly - wondering - how could I do it?
Just the tickets to be able to start working as a Commercial Diver, were almost the cost of a university degree. And if I wanted to do it I had to leave everything behind, move to the other side of the country for six months of training, then be willing to call the road home as I travelled and pursued success in the industry.
It seemed ridiculous.
At the time I didn’t even think it was possible for me to go from where I was, to living the life that Julian described. In addition to that who leaves their entire world, and love behind, to chase something that somebody they just met told them about?
Yeah - me.
I made the decision to go. I committed with my heart and soul to make it happen no matter what. And once I made that decision, things got worse before they got better.
My relationship started to fall apart - because neither of us wanted me to go - neither of us wanted our little love story to end - but she wasn’t coming - and I wasn’t fucking staying.
I had made a decision backed by more willpower and focus than I had known in years. A decision that not even love could change, which is exactly why I got what I wanted.
Now maybe, if I did stay: I would be happy, settled and making money doing something else. Or maybe she would have lost respect for me and dumped my ass, for choosing her over my own personal development as a man.
Either way I wouldn’t be a Commercial Diver - and I wouldn’t be living the life that Julian talked about, the life that is now my reality.
Almost two years ago that journey started. And it started on the couch of a family friend’s garage, where I lived because I was directionless and basically broke.
Over that two years, especially through the early months following my breakup and my preparation for the Commercial Diving course - I learnt a series of lessons that have made a deep impact on me.
Lessons that will continue to serve me for the rest of my life, and lessons that I will share with you through my works to come. This is the importance of doing what is difficult.
Do you understand?
Like the old saying goes: nothing that is worth doing is easy. The harder the task before you, the more you will learn and grow from the completion of that task.
This is how life works.
Chasing what is easy, pursuing pleasure for the sake of pleasure, and quitting something because it is harder than you realised - this is the path to being a fucking loser.
One big mistake that young men make, is the same mistake that I almost made: they put their women before their goals, and they get so comfortable that it eats away at their ambition. Until they end up doing nothing, and they end up becoming no-one.
So their women eventually despise them for this, because that’s how it works - and everything falls apart.
If you are a man, your purpose in life is to build yourself into everything you have the potential to be. Your purpose is to build things - you’re a man, and this is what men do.
Men do not to settle down when they have nothing and become a useless piece of shit. I was lucky enough to have older men who were much wiser and more successful than me - make me follow through and pursue what I had decided on.
For this I am eternally grateful, and it is a clear example of the importance that older men play in the lives of younger men. I didn’t believe anything they said to me at the time, because I was blinded by emotion and feelings of love.
I was convinced that leaving was a mistake. But I took their advice anyway, and boy I’m glad that I did. It’s led me full circle, right back to the keyboard where I find my true flow, but with everything I never had before.
What You Can Expect Moving Forward:
I’m not the guy who used to write to you - I’ve undergone a Metamorphosis. One of many to come.
I am a version of that old version of myself - so the same passion and the same character is still within me - but it has merged with the new version of me - who is older, a little wiser, and more able to see both the world and himself for what they are, instead of what he wishes they were.
Apparently success breeds success.
So let’s go ahead and find out if that is true.
Now you can expect more of the same, really, just a little better. Hard hitting, politically incorrect pieces that slap you in the side of the head and make you want to charge through a brick wall. Written from the heart with the sole purpose of bringing yours back to life.
I’m gonna talk about a lot of things on this blog:
My own adventures, my successes, and my failures - the state of this backwards & pussy whipped world - how to find your inner Alpha and dominate your reality - how to build a body that isn’t weak or useless - how to not be broke all the time - and how to get back up after being knocked down countless times.
The plan is simple:
Step One - Offend lots of fannies who can’t hear anything other than what they want to hear without crying.
Step Two - Inspire those among you who are men - to live like men - and make your world a better place.
Sound good?
Good.
I guess one of the biggest things that I figured out through the process of re-inventing myself and building a new world, was that nothing happens instantly. This is quite obvious, but most people including my former self don’t understand it. Everything takes a bit of time, especially things that are big and valuable.
You gotta plant those seeds of success, tend to them daily with water and whatever else you wanna put on em - but you gotta tend to em, and you gotta put something on em, because air won’t do the fucking job. The good life won’t happen on it’s own.
The good life takes work.
Only the life you’re supposed to live happens on it’s own - you don’t have to do nothing for that bitch to become your reality. Just sit back and live in the moment, waste all your time on stupid shit, do what they tell you to do on the television.
You know?
Go into debt, get fat and smelly, work a job you don’t like, and never grow the balls to create the world you desire - just live with the fact that you ain’t shit - live with the problems normal people live with.
Problems like being forever lost, always broke, and spending year after year in an invisible prison doing worthless activities while telling yourself that you were born to be great as you stack shelves at Woolworths.
If that’s you, then I suggest you forget the Disneyland fairytale and do what I had to do:
Look in the mirror - look at the facts - look at who and where you are without any of that self love shit.
Be real with yourself.
And remember that nobody’s born for anything - there’s just some people who decide to become something, and then there’s most people who decide to do nothing but eat Oreos and play with their dick.
Aside from all that, and the rest, one thing is for sure.
It’s damn good to be back.
~ Maverick Brenton
Filed under · Travel Diaries
