Advice: "What do I do with my life?"

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Another epic Tucker Max gem of advice:

"Here is the problem with your approach: You are placing too much emphasis on external indications of success and not enough emphasis on determining what you actually want to do. Why do you care about going to the U of C? I am an alumni there, I can tell you authoritatively that going there is probably not going to change much of anything for you. You say you will be a force in that school--and that may be true--but so what? Say you get in and are a force for four years...what then? By itself, it changes nothing. Getting into the UC, or any school, does not magically confer some sort of success or achievement on you. It is just a school.

So many people think that if they go to the "right" school and take the "right" major they will get the "right" job and this in turn will lead to the "right" life. But you know what those people realize a few years later when they are sitting in their cubicles doing pointless bull****? That's not the way it works. Success in life does not come from getting into the "right" schools or getting the "right" job or from doing the thing you think you are "supoosed" to do. Success in life comes from figuring out who you are and what you want from life, and then going out and getting it. How does going to the University of Chicago help you achieve that goal? Where does it fit into your larger goals? Do you even know what your larger goals are? If not, how do you know that you need to go to the U of C?

A school is nothing more than a means to an end. It is a place to continue your education and to prepare you for the life ahead of you. Almost everything that I learned at the U of C, I could have learned at other places. The books are the same there as they are anywhere. I learned a lot at that school because I put in the time and the effort and the blood and the sweat, and because of a few specific people that helped me develop into a man. What developed me in to me was my work ethic and the relationships I built. That school had almost nothing to do with making me in to Tucker Max. And I doubt it will have anything to do with making you into who you are.

Your whole rambling diatribe breaks down to this sentence, "I don't have the balls at age 20 to get out of this predetermined, generally understood path I'm headed on. How the **** do I do it?"

If you decide that you do in fact want to get off the path you are now on, the next thing you must recognize is that if you want to find your personal destiny and achieve happiness, you have an incredibly hard road ahead of you. I know exactly what that road is like and what you have in front of you, and man---I can't even begin to tell you how hard it is. It's quite literally an experience that cannot fully be explained. Breaking from the pack and going out on your own is like no other experience. You must commit to the journey. You must be willing to sacrifice and work and strive and suffer more than those who take the standard path. Just know that it will be hard, harder than you can even understand, and mentally prepare yourself. Do not take the road I took unless you are willing to pay the price.

All this being said, I won't just toss you to the wolves and wish you luck. I can't give you a checklist to find your destiny, but I can give you some advice:

-Let go. Just like you can't walk a tight rope if you are clutching the platform, you can't find your destiny if you are clinging to the safety of school, work or family. This doesn't mean that you should drop out of school, cut ties with everyone you know and be unemployed, it simply means that you cannot have both safety and achievement. Achievement requires risk, and risk abhors safety.

-Stop doing what others expect you to do. You are the only one living your life, not your parents, your teachers or your friends. They all have opinions about what is best for you, but what the **** do they know? Their lives are just as ****ed up as yours, and they probably don't even realize it or have the courage to attempt to change it. You cannot cut a path through the jungle of life to your destiny if you are busy satisfying the demands and expectations of others. Love your family and friends, but live for yourself.

-To find you destiny, learn to listen to yourself. A wise man told me when I was only 7 years old that I was going to be a great entertainer one day. I brushed it off because I wanted to be Indiana Jones. For the next 20 years I continued to run from and fight my destiny. I went to the hardest undergrad in the country and majored in a hard science (before switching to pre-law to graduate in three years), then I went to law school, then I tried to run a business. I refused to listen to myself, I ignored all the signs, even though the whole time I was writing, keeping a journal, and often obsessing over skills that would later serve me in my entertainment career but had no application to law or business. It wasn't until I was 26 that I finally stopped doing what I thought I was "supposed" to do and learned to listen to myself and do what I wanted to do, to find my destiny.

The fact is, there is something out there that you should be doing, and it isn't working as a suit at Merryl. You know this, which is why you are so frustrated with your life and why you wrote me that email. I have no idea what that thing is, but my guess is that you probably have an inkling as to what it is. Accept it. Start moving toward your destiny. You don't have to do it all at once, you don't have to drop everything, but you do need to at least start thinking about it now.

But maybe you really aren't sure. Ok, that's fine. Keep on the "prescribed" path for now, but start listening to your soul. It will eventually tell you what it is you should be doing, if you let yourself hear it. The day I knew I needed to commit myself to the entertainment business was the day that I woke up and realized that the only thing getting me out of bed was writing funny emails to my friends and reading great books. I realized that even though I'd spent my classroom time studying economics and law, I'd spent most of my free time reading and writing other things, and that I should stop fighting myself and work in the field that truly interested me.

-One last thing: Have the courage to chase your destiny when it presents the opportunity. If you follow the advice above, it will be difficult, but at some point you will have a chance to chase your destiny. It is a hard road even just getting there, but sadly, that is only the first part of the journey. You must then decide to go after what it is you want. That act--making the conscious decision to step off the beaten path and take the risk to carve your own place in the world--is possibly the hardest thing you will ever do in your life.

I can't definitively tell you how to get that courage. You either have it or you don't. I know I have what it takes; you are reading the very proof of this fact. But I don't know if I could tell you how or where I got it. I do know one thing: The courage to follow your dream has nothing to do with intelligence, race, color, creed, religion, sex or any other way to differentiate one human from another. The strength of character needed to take that risk come from deep within your soul.

I have a notion where it comes from. I think courage is the confidence of knowing that you have what it takes to accomplish your goal, the belief in the rightness of your cause, and the intense desire to get what it is you are after. I don't know though. At the end of the day, it's ultimately one of those things that you feel it or don't.

You started out asking how you can find the balls to do what you want in life. All I can do is point you in the direction you need to go, but you have to make the journey yourself. You have to decide what type of man you want to be. Do you want to be just another number...or do you want to be one of those people who lived their life on their terms, like me. There is very little in life that is a choice, except life itself. Now you have to choose.” – TM

“Convention, tradition, and pre-defined routes to success and happiness have and never will be for me. The first step of my journey down the road less travelled begun three months ago. Selling miscellaneous items on eBay for pocket cash. What began as something small, has become much more ( by choice) my only means for income. Purposely and deliberately, I severed my options for "normal", traditional ways of supporting myself. In Robert Greene's 33 Strategies of War, he discusses "Death Ground". You have to fight like hell to get out alive, fail and you go down. In effect, I have placed myself there. Comfortable jobs, wealthy friends, vague dreams and ideas are no longer resources to turn to.

Why did I choose this path? Perhaps natural gifts/ talents pushed me to this point. The yearning to be different, distinguishable. To create, and build. The constant stimulus and energy it provides. My imagination needs an outlet, a challenge, something to really make me feel happy when I succeed, and dreadful when I fail- a kick in the ass.

My advice to others: You must work harder than you ever imagined, suffer, perservere, and have courage to be triumphant. Your goals must be precise, measurable, and detailed. Setbacks will come, more often than success at first- but you must be able to see past that. Be wary of friends and family- they will doubt you. You can not let their disbelief infect you. Sometimes you will be the only person you can turn to.” - LavaFish