“Life’s a bitch and then you die.” – Unknown Masses

The closest book in the bible to exemplify this type of thought is Ecclesiastes.

For many years while I was a boundary dispute attorney, this was the book of the bible with which I found most resonance.

Intellectually fascinating, emotionally I was completely without life.

The fear of making a mistake in a legal arena in which the emotional stakes of error were tremendous, whereas the true value of error – no rather the whole project itself – was negligible, had brought me to a place of complete nihilism.

And in a state of nihilism, I drifted at times in and out of suicidal ideation.

No, kidding! On many occasions, I wanted to kill myself and my thoughts ran to and through a myriad of means by which I could achieve that aim.

Importantly, there was only one reason why I didn’t. That reason is: my kids.

While tragic, I knew that if I “offed myself,” my wife and parents would be able to take it in stride at least after the wobble caused by such an event wore off.

As to my siblings, they were going to have to be on their own. And as to friends, “what friends were there?” I had gone through life perhaps touching others, yet not allowing others to touch me.

But my kids? HELL NO!

I was NOT going to straddle them with the emotional consequences of having a father who had committed suicide. That I simply would not do!

I had to bear my own suffering; I was not going to pass it down to them.

There are many people that think that suicide is cowardly. I am not one of them!

I believe these people are judging suicide from a completely uninformed point of view.

Suicide happens when the pain is so great that complete nullification of it appears to be the best option.

Obviously, it’s no joke! But, it’s also not a character flaw for which to condemn others.

Perhaps the worse thing that occurs when people get into a state of suicidal nihilism is that they completely withdrawal.

They withdrawal into their own little abyss and fail to have interactions with others. They believe they aren’t worth it.

Of course hanging out with someone who is feeling like this isn’t a bag of laughs either, so not too many people are going to volunteer to put up with the nonsense either.

And that’s where all the horseshit really gets dumped on the pile of misery.

You’ll start to here something that sounds positive, but is worse than useless like: “Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.” or “Snap out of it!”

Low and behold, it finally becomes evident that nobody quite knows where those damn bootstraps were left and both right and left hands are now “snappily” calloused, it’s time to see the professionals.

Pro tip: Psychiatrists spend very little time with you, but give you access to drugs. Psychologists will spend years with you, but give you access to your tongue so you can yak it up.

I visited both for years and at best my results were to move from pain and misery, through painfully numb, to just plain numb.

Pink Floyd’s “comfortably numb?” No, that never really happened for me.

But this all started to change when I finally decided on October 21, 2018 that I was not going to put up with it any more.

I decided to pull everything out of my office that fateful Friday night and was done “unpacking” it all at my house by that next morning at 6:00.

I needed to do this to honor my commitment to return the U-Haul truck that was already booked out for that day. See, I had successfully begged and promised to return it by that time to secure its use despite the salesman’s better judgment.

Yes, I guess you could say that I had a ‘burning, white hot desire’ which I convinced the U-Haul salesman was not going to be denied me.

See, I had gotten to the point that I would go to three and sometimes four different churches on the Sunday before my work week would begin.

That’s a lot of “spiritual nourishment” just to be able to try to go to the “salt mine” which notably was my own company … a company of composed of that ‘divine trinity’ – me, myself, and I.

So now I am out of the office. But, I still have no idea what I am going to do with my life. And as someone who has done a number of things before, and either got bored and quit or outright failed, I didn’t want to make a false start.

I finally found something which looked positive and I grabbed at it immediately. I became the Proctor Gallagher Institute’s (“PGI”) first client of 2019 by signing on with Arash Vossoughi on January 2nd.

Two weeks later,  I decided I wanted to be a “PGI” consultant – i.e. salesman. The promise was tremendous. I finally had hope again!

What I didn’t have though was skill! I was absolutely horrible! See, I couldn’t sell shit to flies.

Well, actually that’s not entirely true. I did sell one program.

And selling people on personal training? Well, I envisioned that I must look like Dan Foley “down by the river, eating government cheese.”

So, I started to use the PGI materials damn near every waking hour I had for months, then quarters, and then it was a couple of years.

Did this endear me to my wife, my kids, or my parents? Absolutely not!

Each in their own ways helped me to learn how to bear my own cross which I was steadily whittling down to be less and less of a burden.

Was the journey back from hell worth it? Well, if you think of the alternative – suicide – well then yes, yes it was!

I have not made any attempts to sell the programs of PGI for almost a year. And that is unfortunate.

If I had maybe I would have had an opportunity to have a conversation with Bob Proctor.

With his passing this past week, so too has forever past that possibility.

The one possibility which has not passed is for me to help myself and others to achieve greatness.

See, with boundary dispute law, I was going willfully hard in what for me was a completely wrong direction.

I was enabling victims instead of encouraging victors.

Tomorrow, it will be exactly 7 months that I have been working at LA Fitness learning sales. I still have a lot to learn, but my progress has been phenomenal.

My financial remuneration has been pitiful, but to have finally have learned the most useful skill in the world – sales – at the ripe age of 52 has been a great blessing for me.

Where else can I learn about encouraging people to take better care of themselves and to pursue their goals?

Hmm? Now, let’s see. Oh right, the Proctor Gallagher Institute.

I think I am finally ready to start. To have a successful start. And to succeed.

I’m not jumping in blind this time. But, if you want to achieve what you currently perceive to be unbelievable results, believe me, with the materials that I have studied and my experience, I can definitely help you.

I can’t bear your cross!

But, I can teach you how to put it down and go after that which you really want out of life.

And when you are going after what you really want, your passion easily carries you through any temporary agony required to get to the results you want.

In fact, you will find the grind – that which for most is agony – is actually pleasure.

That is the cross that you then bear and with it your life will have meaning…!

If you want to get started, place a comment below and I’ll start you out  by giving you – without cost – unlimited access to Bob Proctor’s “Purpose, Vision, & Goals.”

Do it today! Your life is worth it! It’s the only one you’ve got!