Why I Like Steve Pavlina

[DavidDavidDavid]

No, I have no financial relations with the guy, LOL...I'm starting this thread 'cause it's important for me to explain who I am, where I am in life, and how I came to be here (this website, not this planet!):

I'm a "golden boy" kind of character, the "most likely to succeed" high school yearbook dude, good-looking and talented and blah blah blah...so how come I'm living paycheck to paycheck today?

Part of the reason is b/c I was born such a golden boy that I very early on in life became a philosopher/artist and didn't pay any attention at all to the "more objective aspects" of reality like all the numbers involved in daily living! You know, everything from rent and utilities to calories in/calories out...well, now I'm ffity pounds overweight -- but since I'm a golden boy, I don't look it! But my joints certainly feel it. Same thing for my income and just about anything else going on in my life. I was such a "philosopher" or "artist" that I had become really detached and, even, alienated from common everyday life. I was that weirdo you met in the Army who looked like a G.I.Joe action figure but who also counted flowers and butterflies as hobbies.

So anyway, I stumbled on Steve's site like no more than four weeks ago while surfing the web looking for self-employment opportunities. I was thinking of self-employment 'cause I was beginning to realize, more and more, that even I, for all my self-described philosophical/artistic inclinations, was simply living the prescribed life of the socially conditioned! I was still a weirdo, but a pretty conventional one...kind of like how a teenager thinks he's being "rebellious" but in fact is just going along with the crowd!

So anyway, chancing upon Steve's site and reading some of his articles (about twenty now) made me realize how going into business for oneself was not simply another way of earning income, but quite a spiritual pursuit in itself! I can't recall if Steve put it in those terms, but that's what I got out of it all, and I found that fascinating because I had never considered money-grubbing anything but the sign of an unimaginative mind (after all, little squirrels collect nuts all day).

And the more I read here, the more I realize something particularly odd: Steve and I are/have been moving in opposite directions! He seems to have come from a certain business-mindset, which is what I'm trying to arrive at! And he seems to be going into that "other-worldly" mentality (for lack of a better phrase) from which I have been leaving!

It's like Steve is ascending to heaven while I'm coming down to earth! (If you're out there, Mission Control, say something!)

So I don't know if anyone else finds that that's the case -- since everyone I've read seems to be saying how Steve's thoughts changed their lives, etc. -- but for me, there's that added dimension of me and him moving in opposite directions, that our destinations are each other's points of departure!

That's what it seems like, anyway, upon this first acquaintance and reflection.

So, whew, that's all by way of getting to my main point here: why I've been thinking about "competition" lately.

It may be that just as Steve has found, after years of money-making, that he's really not about money-making, I am currently finding, after years of money-avoiding, that I'm really about money-making!

I never thought of it as a game before, but now that I perceive more and more its gaming or sports aspect, I'm more and more intrigued!

I'm still the golden boy, after all -- I just can't starve or die, though I should have many times by now -- and I'm curious whether I'll also do good in business!

So, like, that's why I like Steve's site...even though it's about "personal development," what it's got going in me is "money-making ideas" instead!! I've been reading Erich Fromm, Krishnamurti, Viktor Frankl, and Marcus Aurelius for many years now, so I wasn't looking for personal development and growth...but reading Steve gets me thinking in terms of money! And money as a game, but also money as a dialog involving service, value, a better life (for all, for others, and consequently, myself)...I know I'm rambling, but that's 'cause I'm in that space between words right now due to all the "parallel-thinking" Steve induces (indeed, it's actually hard for me to read his articles in one sitting 'cause all kinds of ideas start percolating)....

Anyway, so, like, that's why I like Steve Pavlina. It's a bit like meeting a long-lost twin or something, like something out of Mark Twain's "The Prince and the Pauper!"