“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
Mike has been telling everybody that he can that he’s going to be fighting on March 29th. The rediculous thing is that only one person out of all of them has been encouraging. Everybody else has either laughed or suggested that he change his mind because he’s “going to get his ass beat.” Do these people actually think that it’s so humiliating to lose a fight that it’s better to just avoid it all together?
Mike and I discussed this yesterday. He said, “I wish I hadn’t told anybody that I was fighting. Everybody just keeps saying how I’m gonna get smoked, that if I lose all of those cocksuckers are gonna feel like they were right.”
”Yeah, Mike, but this is a personal thing. Who gives a shit if you go out there and lose? None of them even have the balls to try. Win or lose, you’re still way ahead of any of them.”
“I know; if I lose, I won’t be all that upset about myself. I just don’t want to have to deal with all of them laughing at me and feeling like they were right. I can’t lose now. I am going to have to destroy this motherfucker, so I can go tell each and every person that doubted me to go fuck themselves with a hot sautering iron.”
Mike is a good athlete with years of experience of wrestling and ju-jitsu, and people are still acting as if he is a fool for even trying to fight MMA – imagine what they would say to me. My parents and brother don’t know, most of my friends don’t know, and my girlfriend has only a vague idea that I plan on fighting mixed martial arts at some point in my life. If I lose, I just never mention it to them. If I win, I can casually mention, “Oh yeah, I fought in a cage fight last night,” and watch everybody revel in my manliness as I regale them with a tale of courage and valor. I think this is the best way to deal with these types of people; shove your success in their face, but keep your failures from their vision.
Theodore Roosevelt called them “timid souls that know neither victory nor defeat.” Next time you’re thinking of critizing somebody, look to yourself; if you’re not willing to do what they’re doing, then either offer encouragement or shut the fuck up.
There is nothing more worthless than a passionless critic.
