I have said it before, and I'll say it again, when you keep failing at a particular task the only person to blame is you. You tried, you failed, and therefore the blame is solely on you. You need to go back, train more, try harder and keep failing until you succeed.
This rule or "law" or whatever you want to call it, is simply commonsense. You are the independent variable. You are the one that needs to improve. You are the sole entity to blame if there is failure
...except in life there are two rare instances where you will NOT be to blame.
One of those instances is for the young and now full-grown adult men who in their youth failed time and time again when it came to interacting with the opposite sex on social, romantic or sexual grounds. You tried, you failed. It's your fault.
You tried, you failed again. It's your fault.
You trained, tried harder, failed harder. It's your fault.
You changed tactics, experimented, tried really hard, and failed really bad. It's your fault.
You went all out, trying crazy new tactics, rehashing old ones, put yourself in your best physical shape, invested thousands of man-hours, burned millions of calories and failed even more spectacularly than Lehman Brothers. It's your fault.
And after anywhere from 10-25 years of failure (depending on how independent minded you were), you inevitably started daring to ask a VERY arrogant question:
"What if there's nothing wrong with me, but something wrong with everybody else?"
Understand why this is a very arrogant question. For something to be wrong with EVERYBODY ELSE, and NOT wrong with the SOLE INDIVIDUAL implies:
1. You are somehow brilliant or very special.
2. You are also so brilliant you are smarter or better than everybody else
3. Something has universally infected other people, while sparing you, putting you into "black helicopte,r" conspiracy theory territory.
At first you fight this thought that let this possibility enter your mind. And you go back to banging your head against the drawing board to try another thousand slight permutations or variant of approaches to attract some lass. But in the end, by the sheer volume of approaches, experiences, experiments, self-inflection and years of human life spent trying to "succeed" at this challenge, your mind is tortured into forcibly accepting the only remaining explanation:
"No, there's nothing wrong with me. There IS INDEED something wrong with everybody else on a societal level. Don't know what it is, but by god, it's not me!"
Some people call it taking the red pill. (I, however, think to go through the torture yourself and have the courage to make this assumption WITHOUT the benefit of The Manosphere to lay it all out for you, deserves some other title - but that is an aside, NOR is it meant to belittle people who did take the red pill). Whatever we decide to call it, once we entertain this arrogant assumption, it is amazing how everything falls into place and makes sense. NOT because it conveniently benefits us or merely excuses and rationalizes our failures in the past. But because IT DOES EXPLAIN EVERYTHING.
It's akin to fighting on the ground, having no idea where whose lines are, getting shelled left and right, being driven insane by chaos, and then magically being transported to a command center where you have crystal clear satellite imagery with friendlies being tagged with beacons and enemies being tagged by heat signatures, AND proving your hunches were indeed correct all along.
It just took you the arrogance to make such an assumption to get this bird's eye view and save your sanity.
Now, focus all we want on The Manosphere, that is not the topic I'm talking about today. For there is going to come the time many of you, if not all of us, are going to have to man-up again and once again question,
"Is it me, or is there something wrong with everybody else?"
but in a different sphere.
And I'll give you a hint - this has nothing to do with the sexes. Women will have to ask this question too because we're all going to have the honor of being in the same machine-gun strafed boat here.
Anybody get it yet?
Bueller? Bueller?
Alright, I'll tell you.
We're ALL going to have to gin up the courage to ask this question when it comes to our relationship with employers:
"Is it me, or is there something wrong with the employers in the US?"
Again, the two issues parallel each other very closely.
If you have a hard time being reliably employed, you have failed. There MUST be something wrong with you.
You try working for multiple employers, try multiple tactics, you'll still fail. Therefore there MUST BE something wrong with YOU.
You try really hard, volunteer to work more, take on different projects, suggest new ideas and innovations. You still fail (hell, you'll get punished for thinking of new ideas). Therefore there MUST be something wrong with you.
And dare you start to suggest or theorize there's something structurally, fundamentally, or universally wrong with employers, corporate America and our current system of employment/labor market, then you are just (fill in the blank)
....not a team player
....a disgruntled employee
....a slow learner
....somebody who just doesn't "get it"
....a bad employee
....somebody who's just lazy
Never mind you are willing to work hard.
Never mind you did all the right things, got the right degree, got the right certification.
Never mind you came up with ideas that would have saved the company money, or crushed the competition, or heck, saved the entire US economy.
No, there's most DEFINITELY something wrong with YOU, and those crafty HR "generalists" with their scripted "pure-extract of inane" interview questions will be able to smoke you out without you knowing it (even though they themselves have gone through three divorces, 47 failed relationships, host 3 cats as pets, and are the world's worst judges of character).
And, much like you were veritably forced to have the arrogant epiphany about courting when you were 25, you will have to come to the same arrogant conclusion about the realities of the labor market and employer-employee relationships in America. And just like me and a handful of people that have gone before you, you will realize once you make this assumption, you'll see employment and employers for what they are and hereafter be able to make better decisions.
Of course, humility and modesty may intimidate you from making such an arrogant assumption. However, permit me to make several observations about corporate America that may convince you that there is indeed something fundamentally dysfunctional about modern day employers and that, no, you're not a bad employee, and no, you're not insane.
First, let's look at HR. I could write a book about HR, but we'll instead focus on the fact that HR is dominated by women which cannot be overlooked and draws many parallels between The Manosphere "world" and the "working world." Much like dating, women are predisposed to believe that they are the prize and you are lucky if you get the honor to date her. You have to do all the leg work, you have to beg and plead, and if you prove yourself worthy, you will be rewarded with a date. Applying for a job is the exact same.
HR operates from this exact same premise - that the job is the prize to be won and that you should be honored to even be considered for the position. Matter of fact you should thank her for pelting you with inane questions that have nothing to do with the job or the industry. What they fail to realize, in both instances, is it is a two way street. Not only do applicants need jobs, but companies need labor. Yes, they can take some arrogant liberties with an Obama-induced 8+% unemployment rate, but now that I've taken the "employment red pill" I sit in awe when an HR interviewer asks me with naked arrogance
"So why do you want to work here?"
as if it's a given I want to work there.
When I reply in a deadly serious tone
"Money."
the look on their face or the silence at the other end of the phone is hilarious. But it still proves my point. They PRESUME you are the one at a disadvantage and are the one bargaining from a position of weakness. When in reality, you are merely the other and equally important side of the coin.
Regardless, the point is not whether unemployment breeds arrogance on the part of employers, it's the fact we have to endure something as stupid as the "HR screening interview" in the first place. None of the questions have any predictive value as to the future performance of an employee. The "best" answers are lies and the furthest thing from the truth. The person conducting the interview is typically clueless about your profession and anything involving math. It does nothing to find and detect the best candidate. And, no, you're not insane for thinking the same. So don't fret it when "HR" doesn't call back. They were never going to in the first place.
Another aspect of HR is that it's "wishlist" for qualities and traits in a candidate for a job is equally impossible as the typical Ameircan woman's "wishlist" for qualities in a man for courtship. I've spoken of it before, but when they're asking for 5 years experience in a software that has only been on the market for 3, you might as well be asking for a bad boy alpha motorcycle riding preacher, who's an animal in the sack, but only after you're married, who's also rich, but never married, and no children, but wants to take care of your 3 children from 4 other guys.
Again, you're not insane when you look at the list of requirements, do some quick math, and realize in the 6 billion people in the world, 1/8th of a person would qualify.
Second, abandon HR and look at the management in general of companies today. Corporate America is no longer headed up by hardened, WWII vets who are ready to propel corporate America to new levels of greatness. It's headed up by hippie Baby Boomers, followed by the ranks of Gen X middle management. The psychology that comes with this is nothing as simple or logical as achieving greatness, or revolutionizing industries, or simply going out, kicking ass and taking names. It's been replaced by people who are more concerned about maintaining the status quo so they can keep their jobs. To run the firm or their division as their own personal fiefdom. And so when a logical, young whipper snapper like you comes in with new ideas, innovations and creations, understand the reason you're getting fired is NOT because your ideas are "wrong" or "stupid," but because they've exposed just how inefficiently the company or division has been managed and your ideas are likely to result in the layoff of the unnecessary fat - ie - your boss and 40% of upper management.
Third, never discount that fact that unlike you and me, the majority of Americans are HORRENDOUS managers of their own personal finances. They racked up debts going to college. They racked up credit card debts in their 20's. They had kids they can't afford. Ergo, they literally cannot afford the luxury you have to speak out and say,
"Hey, that's a horrible idea! If we introduce that product, then our product will kill 30,000 infants and shave 100,000 kittens!"
No, they have to shut up, not rock the boat, because they need food on the table and little Jimmy needs braces.
Because of the financial mismanagement of the majority of Americans, understand corporate America has the luxury of employing millions of yes-men and yes-women.
Oh, you may be right.
And yes, you may save the company in the end.
But you are rocking the boat with your bachelor and bachlorette ways. And if an employer has the choice between hiring somebody who asks difficult and reality based questions, or somebody who is a slave to their debt, and therefore will never question management, they're going to go with the psychologically defeated automoton every time.
And finally, let's not forget that American employers are spineless. They stand for nothing. They fear everything. And instead of adhering to some code of morals or ethics, they instead cower and fear the slightest bit of criticism in fear they may lose .0003% market share. This allows people like lawyers, sue-happy employees, sexual harassment filers, protestors, nepotists, crusaders and the like to essentially make it impossible for a corporation to hire anybody with a brain or slightly opinionated personality. They hire robots, automotons, preferably the heavily indebted type, as they are the ones with the least risk.
Of course, they're the ones with the least amount of creativity and leadership and innovation, but hey, at least we're not getting sued.
In short, the strategy of American employers is no longer that of achieving excellence or dominance in their field. It's no longer going out, doing your best, kicking ass, taking names and crushing the competition. It's one of self preservation and retaining what little fiefdom they have. If you ask any major (or minor) US company what their "growth strategy" is, it's not to create new and amazing products that will obsolete the competition. It's an amazingly lame, "grow the company outside the US while we bribe congress with our lobbyists to introduce legislation that will give us an edge against our competitors."
Now, you combine all these veritable psychoses that are governing US employers and ask yourself one simple question - can a normal person, with logical thought and the desire to work hard and succeed ever possibly stand a chance to survive in an environment like that? You have a dying domestic labor market where everything is outsourced not just to save money on labor costs, but to lower lawsuit/sexual harassment risk. You have people being promoted not based on their intelligence, ideas, innovations or observations, but by the fact they're enslaved to the company because they indebted themselves to the point they literally had to sell their soul and financially whore themselves out which makes them "obedient" (the most sought after trait in America). You have the primary gatekeepers to employment staffed by the world's ditziest, dumbest people asking questions that have nothing to do with employment, effectively turning away any true leaders, thinkers, innovators, in exchange for somebody who can provide the best rehearsed answer to "have you ever had a difficult situation with an employee? how did you solve it and why?" And the entire thing is being managed by lazy, incompetent aging brats who are so talentless they cannot create their own job security, but instead they must stifle any potential usurpers by maintaining the status quo.
If you consider that, you can't POSSIBLY think there's something "wrong" with you or that somehow you're a bad employee, which only proves my previous case.
Understand, and understand well, that there is nothing wrong with you. You did your best, you did the right thing, you made the right choices, and that's all you can do. If your career is not heading the way you would have liked by now, understand it's not your fault. Even if your boss or former boss lectures you about how you didn't do this minor thing right, or criticizes you on some nebulous grounds of you not having the right "attitude" or not being a "team player," assuming you did the right thing and tried your best, chances are it's more of a criticism of themselves and their inability to lead or make decisions, than it is a legitimate criticism of you.
Yes, this is an arrogant assumption. And yes, it takes a lot of bravado to make such assumptions. But all one has to do is look at the current economic state of the US and realize that is the empirical evidence that you are right. Because if the US economy was booming and US corporate domestic sales were booming, then, yes, you would PROBABLY be in the wrong - the leaders of the various institutions of the US are probably doing something right by the fact the economy is doing well. But since the economy is craptastically stagnant, and the government bankrupt, for employers and various leaders to have the gall to blame their inadequate and incompetent leadership on their employees is laughable. For them to tell you during review time, "well, you really only earned an "average" rating despite your 60 hour work weeks" is hypocritical.
Thankfully, you have the choice as to whether or not to believe them. If you choose to, realize this is doing nothing more than believing a lie. It won't help you in your long term future success, if anything it will hurt you because you are basing your decisions of a falsehood. However, if you choose not to, and realize they're nothing but a bunch of ass-kissing, brown-nosing, debt-enslaved suits, you will be able to make better decisions about who you want to work for, what kind of work you are WILLING to tolerate, and (as I've found out) you TELLING them what you are and are not going to do. It's counter-intuitive, but just ask any girl which guy gets more success:
The compliant yes man who asks her "whatever you want to do dear."
Or the motorcycle bad boy who dares to tell the girl one word , "no."
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