The Guy in the Glass
So I have been doing a lot of thinking lately, looking at my life and where I am at right now. There are a few times I get really melancholic, last weeks of the year is one of those periods, and well… since my b-day is coming up next week and I will be turning 35 it seems like the “appropriate” time for melancholy to set in, although this time it feels different. This time around I feel like facing up and take control.
Today I came across a blog I hadn´t really paid a lot of attention to before, but tonight it completely sucked me in, having me read a lot of posts, watching videos, visiting links they referred to and a lot of thought patterns seem to have been set straight. Doors seem to have opened and are awaiting for me to enter and dig deeper.
About a month or two ago same thing happened to me, I got sucked into the content of a blog and stayed up reading till 4 or 5 in the morning, posted on it and even commented on how strange I find it that a blog of his caliber, with the high quality information he offers to people who want to make money online, “only” has around 2200 feed subscribers, while others in the same niche have thousands and thousands of subscribers offering not even a tenth of the information.
The power of the Internet is huge
Anybody can publish anything, and as long as you put it in a nice wrapping, you might even get a large group of followers, people who believe in you and your words. Add a flashy design, spend money on advertisement and feed greedy readers with what they think they need in order to become a success as well and you have yourself a hit. A money-making machine for yourself, without even having to really share how you make your own money, after all, you want all those gullible people to hang around so they spend more money you can stick in your pocket.
If you read blogs in the niche you can see it everywhere, people either throw in the towel after having tried and tried over again, losing money on shitty products and schemes they were told to buy by their favorite “Guru”, who is showing their huge stats and earnings so he “must know what he is talking about”.
Or they actually open their eyes, start reading between the lines, wake up and smell the coffee so to say and come to realize they are nothing but a money-generating stat for somebody else.
Reading the Blogger Unleashed tonight reminded me of a poem I want to share with you guys. It is a poem I have known for a long time and every time I get into “struggling mode”, I read it, reminding myself of my life credo of being true to myself. It reminds me of what matters to me in life and how I want to achieve things. It also has me reconsider my chosen path and ways to do things.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I do …
The Guy in the Glass
by Dale Wimbrow, (c) 1934
When you get what you want in your struggle for pelf,
And the world makes you King for a day,
Then go to the mirror and look at yourself,
And see what that guy has to say.
For it isn’t your Father, or Mother, or Wife,
Who judgement upon you must pass.
The feller whose verdict counts most in your life
Is the guy staring back from the glass.
He’s the feller to please, never mind all the rest,
For he’s with you clear up to the end,
And you’ve passed your most dangerous, difficult test
If the guy in the glass is your friend.
You may be like Jack Horner and “chisel” a plum,
And think you’re a wonderful guy,
But the man in the glass says you’re only a bum
If you can’t look him straight in the eye.
You can fool the whole world down the pathway of years,
And get pats on the back as you pass,
But your final reward will be heartaches and tears
If you’ve cheated the guy in the glass.
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My name is Mirjam and I welcome you to my blog about personal growth and the things I think about. I´m on a journey of improving my life and I hope you will drop in often and participate. Thanks for visiting!
I have quit jobs because I couldn’t look myself in the eye. Great poem. As long as I can look myself in the eye and be happy with who I am looikng at I know I am ok. It’s those moments when I look and see some one I don’t particularly care for that I know I need to make a change. Honesty with ones self is often the most difficult because it the easiest lie to tell when lying to ones self.
I spent so much of the formative years of my life looking to fit in. I wasn’t really even sure where it was that I was trying to fit into. I just knew that the world around me told I must fit in. So I tired and I tried and I reinvented myself several times over with the notion of now I would fit in.
How wrong I was. I never should have been trying to fit in but to find my fit. Find that place where I fit as myself, just me, no mask, no pretending, no trying so hard. It is a long road some times for those of us that try to find where we fit. Along the way we meet people that either help us find our fit or tell us how we should fit. You my good lady are one those that’s helps us find where we fit not telling how to fit in but trying to help us find our own place where we fit.
It is a noble endeavor and one I hope you never give up. I don’t know how many lives you have touched but I do know of one. One that you have helped find a place where I fit, that is suited to me not me suiting myself to a place. It is a great gift and one I hope you continue to share with us here and wherever else you may go. Don’t lose hope for you have that place that is suited to you yourself and you.
Oh and an early Happy Birthday.
Jim - Just a Guy’s last blog post..What makes a good movie?
Dear Jim,
Your words as always have touched me deeply, and I thank you for that out of the bottom of my heart. Knowing that someone somewhere, finds something worthy to them in the words I send out into this universe is a precious gift to me which I don´t take lightly.
I hope you will have a wonderful weekend with your girlfriend and the dude, I know I will
You’re going to have a wonderful weekend with my girlfriend and the dude?
One of the hazards that’s goes with me. I go from serious to silly in nothing flat.
Jim - Just a Guy’s last blog post..Storms, storms, and more storms
hahaha you wish :P:P it would mean you´d be in sunny Spain
I am here with my eyes watered feeling humble and honored to think that I may have wrote or said something that made you think of such a powerful poem.
Small birthday greeting I read in a card and just found it wonderful.
Next week is the anniversary of the day you were born. There is no reason for you to scorn. It is a day for a party, presents and gifts, I hope this day gives you a lift. But always remember age is only a date and you determine your own fate. I wish you happiness and joy in life and many more birthdays to bring you delight.
Just Have a Glorious Birthday!
Vic
Vic’s last blog post..Challenge To Get Mad
Thank you for visiting and taking the time to write your comment, but thank you even more for the inspiring information you so willingly and widely share on your website. T
The truth hurts at times but also offer a huge opportunity to grow and make changes were changes need to be made. I am glad I returned to your blog last night, it was/is exactly what I needed to open my eyes and go back to the poem I cited in this post.
This birthday will be a big one and I am sure in the future I will look back at it with a huge smile and fond feelings of it being the turning point.
Again, thank you so much for all the efforts and meaning you put into Blogger Unleashed!
ps. Will I now be known as “The Person making the Blogger Unleashed “Ass” (your words, not mine
) have Watery Eyes”?
It seems like everywhere I look lately, I see that Vic has influenced the thinking of bloggers, usually for the better. I hope you had a good birthday, and I hope Vic’s site helped you as much as he has helped me.
Hey Tim!
I haven´t been looking anywhere since I found Vic´s site, his words and videos surely are making a huge influence on my way of thinking at the moment, like all of a sudden you get to see through a lot of other bloggers, which is why I haven´t read a lot of others lately.
I am surely going to give his methods a try, what really touched me was his passion shining through, wanting to really help others and taking it up against the big names of some of the established blogs who have a zillion readers who don´t understand the real plot….
Would love to hear your experiences