Things No One Else Can Teach Us

Copyright

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by

HQ, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019

First published in the United States by HarperOne, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007.

Copyright © Humble the Poet 2019

Humble the Poet asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins

Source ISBN: 9780008359652

Ebook Edition © 2019 ISBN: 9780008359669

Version: 2019-09-12

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

FORTUNATELY/UNFORTUNATELY, NOTHING LASTS FOREVER

Open

1. Everything Is Temporary, so Appreciate Those You Have While You Have Them

2. Patience Is Making Time Your BFF

3. You Are Going to Die, and Remembering That Can Be a Good Thing

4. Don’t Cry Because It’s Over, Smile Because It Happened

Close

KNOWING YOURSELF MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE

Open

5. We Can Survive a Lot

6. Service to Others Is Also a Great Service to Ourselves (Sewa)

7. When We Know Our Why, Our How Gets Easier

8. We Gotta Pay Tuition for Life Lessons

Close

DON’T FOCUS ON THE POT OF GOLD, ENJOY THE RAINBOW

Open

9. Focus on the Fun, and Everything Else Will Fall into Place (and If It Doesn’t, at Least You’re Having Fun)

10. The Pot of Gold Rarely Makes the Journey Worth It

11. Give Yourself Permission to Dance on Different Rainbows

12. We All Have Different Rainbows

13. Often, There Is No End to the Rainbow

Close

ZOOM OUT

Open

14. Try to Relate to the Bad Guys in Your Story

15. Chapters End, but Our Story as a Whole Keeps Evolving

16. Judge Less, Understand More

17. You Aren’t That Special, Embrace It

18. We Don’t Own a Crystal Ball, so Stop Assuming the Future

19. Are You Being Pushed by Fear, or Pulled by Love?

Close

ZOOM IN

Open

20. Life Isn’t Black and White, There’s Plenty of Gray in Between

21. Don’t Be So Hyperbolic (That’s a Big Word for Dramatic)

22. Detach Your Self-Worth from Your Choices

Close

LIMIT YOUR SELF-PITY

Open

23. Caution: Social Media Is a Playground for Self-Pity

24. Self-Pity Is Easy and Convenient like Fast Food (and Just as Unhealthy)

25. We Don’t Scream “Why Me?!” During the Good Times, so Don’t Scream It During the Bad

26. Turn Rejection into Invitation

27. Self-Pity Feeds Our Insecurities (and That Leaves Us Bitter and Angry)

28. Getting Offended Is a Form of Self-Pity

Close

THERE’S NO WIN OR LOSE, THERE’S ONLY WIN OR LEARN

Open

29. Stop Calling Them Failures, Start Calling Them Teachers

30. Not Everyone We Lose Is a Loss

31. We Can Lose More Trying to Win

32. Freedom Is Having Nothing to Lose

33. There Are No Time Machines, so Fix It Next Time

Close

Outro

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

Also by Humble the Poet

About the Publisher

INTRODUCTION

In 1998 Snoop Dogg released his third album, Da Game Is to Be Sold, Not to Be Told, and I remember seeing the ridiculously blinged-out album cover and thinking to myself, “What does that mean? Why can’t you just tell me Da Game? Why do I have to buy it?”

I’ve always loved hip hop, and as a youngster, I soaked in as much of it as I could, reading the lyrics and jumping on internet forums to share my thoughts and immerse myself in those of other aficionados. Those early years made me realize how amazing writers and hip hop artists were. I knew then if I wanted to explore my talents as a writer, it needed to be through rap.

So I spent the first years of adulthood writing my own hip hop songs, giving myself the name Poet to make me sound smarter, classier, and more acceptable. As the journey of sharing my work with the world began, my written words began to connect much more than any song I recorded. That’s when I began to flirt with the idea of becoming a writer, well, a REAL writer.

I dreamed of the day I’d become a full-fledged real writer. You know, the type of writer who was published with a major publisher. The type of writer who spent most of his time traveling the world, having promiscuous sex, finding inspiration in cloud formations, and somehow interpreting all those experiences into words[1] that would be celebrated beyond my life.

How romantic it would be to live the life of a real writer. Early morning writing sessions with a typewriter by a lake and perfectly developed ideas floating from my head onto the page. I would see a leaf fall from a tree and convert that moment into an epic chapter about change, expectations, and the circle of life.

I told myself that if I ever got the opportunity to become a real writer, I would take the money the publishers gave me and find a quiet apartment in a quiet city in a quiet corner of the planet and write my epic first, and last, novel. Then I’d go into hiding like J. D. Salinger, live off the royalties, and once in a while reply to letters from high school students who were forced to study my book for their English independent study projects.

Instead, when I signed my contract with HarperCollins, I wrote the bulk of this book on my mother’s dining table at home in Toronto. I walked around the same neighborhood I grew up in, taking familiar routes where the nostalgia fades and gentrification continues to thrive. I politely avoided my wonderful editors’ recommendations to write an outline[2] and spent an entire summer free writing. I then spent the rest of the fall and winter rewriting from scratch, after failing to find a thread that joined all my summer jumbles together.[3]

Being a full-time creative came with other unglamorous challenges. Poor posture and neglecting to do the most basic stretches flared up a preexisting lower back injury, so sitting for more than an hour, whether at my dining room table, in a movie theater, or on a private jet, resulted in pain for the rest of the day. Irony never loses its sense of humor. Sitting down to write became more taxing on my body than my previous life as an elementary school teacher, when I stood all day in front of a class.

I experienced profound creative moments during the writing process late at night, only to forget them in the morning. I began to keep a notebook to flesh out ideas when they struck, but I couldn’t understand my own chicken scratch when it was time to revisit.

Yeah, the glorious life of “real writer” continues to elude me, or maybe I just overly romanticized it in my head. When those romantic ideas didn’t match the life I had in front of me, I began feeling disappointed, betrayed, and generally crappy. In order to feel better, I had to let go of the expectations I had and open myself up to finding, discovering, and creating beauty in the circumstances in front of me and not the fantasies between my ears. And that’s what this book is about.

That’s probably what the story of all of our lives is about.

We all know that great moments fade quickly and bad moments seem to last forever. We promise ourselves that hitting that next milestone will make us feel better, but after a few days, we’re off chasing the next high.

We’re always waiting for that day when everything we’ve struggled with, everything we’ve suffered for, everything that’s ever left us feeling empty is finally magically fixed and we can live happily ever after. We forget that this sparkly moment in our fantasies always has a day after, which presents us with new challenges and problems all over again. It’s a cycle we don’t want to acknowledge, and one that leaves us feeling either lost and hopeless or numb and unmotivated.

We look to others to help “fix” these problems and feelings—maybe a wellness guru who combines common sense with encouraging words on how we can use our personal power to make it all better. The guru’s words feel good as we’re reading them, but they don’t last long enough to keep us away from the bookstore, where we chase a new fix of hollow hope.

There’s a reason we keep finding ourselves in these patterns. When we continue to expect our problems, our mindsets, and our situations to get solved by something, or someone, other than ourselves, we are always going to be disappointed. The truth is, we are responsible for ourselves, and that includes the way we see things. This sounds like tough love, and maybe it is, but it’s also hopeful.

You are the only person capable of creating real change in your life. And you can feel that real change only when you can feel it within you.

I’m not a real writer because I have a book published by a major publisher, or even because you’re reading my stuff, or even because I’m good at it. I’m a real writer because I shifted my perspective about that definition. It’s not about the quiet writing corner or the fancy publishing contract or the stereotypical promiscuous lifestyle of a tortured genius. It’s about the fact that I sat down and, despite my insecurities, lethargy, and short attention span, I wrote. That’s what real writers do: they write.[4] But I realized this only once I recognized my ability to see things differently. And here’s the important part: I had to figure that out myself. No one else could do it for me, and no amount of advice or number of wellness gurus and motivational quotes could have taught me.

I had to explore, experience, and face the things no one else could teach me.

The beauty of changing the way we see things is that we find ourselves in a position to discover and create the beauty we seek, no matter what’s happening in our lives, no matter how dark those moments feel.

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.

—Albert Camus, “Return to Tipasa”

So let’s talk about those dark moments—the heartbreaks, the losses, the embarrassments, the contradictions, and the moments when everything blew up in our faces. Let’s treat them like that leaf falling from a tree and see whether we can find moments of magic, silver linings, lessons, and beauty in them.

Let’s talk about the things no one else can teach us, particularly the big one that it’s possible to start seeing things differently. Like Camus, we can all find the invincible summer within even the coldest of winter nights.

These are my stories, my darkest moments, my happiest of accidents, and my journey to see beyond what was right in front of me. I, like you, have made some bone-headed mistakes, and then repeated them a half dozen times before noticing a pattern and trying to learn from those mistakes. The purpose of these stories isn’t to show you how to live or to tell you what to do like the wellness gurus I just scoffed at. It’s to help you realize you’re not alone in the challenges you face and to help you remember that you can transform those challenges with a new perspective. It’s possible to see the treasure that was always hiding among the trash.

We see ourselves in the stories of others and can free ourselves by writing the story of our own lives. I share my stories not only to help you figure out yours, but to also continue to make sense and find beauty in mine. A voice in my head continues to tell me that my stories aren’t worth sharing and that it’s egotistical to assume anyone would care to read them. But another voice is emerging, a voice that reminds me that we’re all in this together and that sharing my challenges and experiences, and the lessons I have learned from them, will contribute to a world beyond myself. After all, storytelling has been an essential tool for our evolution as a species.

Maybe being a great writer doesn’t include money, sex, fame, and travel. Maybe, just like a construction worker or a Starbucks barista, my skills are best used in service to others.

The more deeply we dive into our own stories, the more we feel like we’re going through it alone. But I’m here to remind you that you’re not alone, even though we each have to do the work ourselves. The deeper we dive, the more beauty we can discover as well. No one else shares our unique experiences, and therefore no one else can show us the light at the end of the tunnels we dig; we can only share our stories and remind ourselves that we already have everything we need to find that light.

These are the things no one else can teach us.

We all have the unlimited power to shift our perspective, and with that, the unlimited power to change the way we feel about life. This isn’t a manual for fixing your life; I couldn’t write one for you even if I wanted to. I can only share how I learned from the experiences I had, and how they taught me to better my life. Through my sharing, I hope you think back on your moments of good, bad, and boring to find, discover, and create something of value from them. Many of those experiences weren’t pleasant, and you may not want to revisit them, but the discomfort, pain, and overall shitty feeling that came from those experiences is the price we all have to pay to gain that wisdom. In some circles, that wisdom is referred to as game.

Da Game Is to Be Sold, Not to Be Told

All the experiences we go through in life are our lessons, all the people we meet are our teachers. What we learn is what we earn from those experiences, and this book is here simply to help you see, discover, and create the silver lining that’s always been there so you don’t discard the unpleasant moments as things you want to forget. Everything we go through is important and puts us up on game to better ourselves and the way we feel moving forward. Wisdom can’t be told or taught by anyone else; only we can mine the jewels of wisdom ourselves. That’s what Snoop was getting at, and that’s what Albert Camus celebrated before him.

That invincible summer doesn’t require us to have certain experiences; it requires us only to open ourselves up to life in a certain way, to see things beyond what’s on the surface.

I can’t promise you “happily ever after,” and that’s not something you should expect or promise yourself either. I can, however, share my stories of figuring shit out on my own by changing the way I perceived things. I encourage you to use a new lens—one not of blind optimism but of empowered opportunism in which you recognize that you have the ability to turn any situation that appears to be shitty into something much sweeter. Once you’ve embraced that power, you won’t be as afraid to face new challenges and setbacks that life will undoubtedly present to you. Simply having a better attitude toward them will show you the sugar among any shit.

Enter

Summers seem shorter

Winters get longer

Friendships end with the seasons

And we won’t always welcome spring

Time stops standing still for us, and the happy-ever-afters never happen

It’s terrifying

Everyone I know and love will be dead

It’s comforting

Everyone I resent and hate will be dead

All ashes

How can we have something everlasting

In a world where nothing ever lasts

Everything comes to pass

Everything is temporary

Even us

How fortunate and unfortunate for us

Death is the only promise

OPEN

It’s frustrating to know that the new outfit you just bought, the one that brings you so much excitement and confidence, is one day going to sit unloved at the back of your closet. When you get around to spring cleaning, you’ll look at it, embarrassed, and wonder, “Why did I buy that? What was I thinking?” Shit gets old very quickly; nothing stands the test of time anymore. Companies make stuff to break so we’ll buy the next generation of stuff, which will also break. This makes the world, and life, feel that much more temporary.

Mother Nature also created us with a form of built-in obsolescence: death. We have an expiration date, and that also makes the world, and life, feel that much more temporary. The longer we live, the more we experience death, in and around us. Many of my childhood heroes are dead, like my grandmother, Nani. I’ll never get to feel her leathery, wrinkly hands again. Growing up, absorbed in her cuddles, I thought she would be here forever. But she wasn’t, and as I stood in the hospital room staring at her lifeless body, I thought of my mother and father and how, if everything plays out as it should, I’ll be watching them pass away too one day.

Nothing lasts forever.

The fact that life is temporary—the happiness, the joy, the hope, the fear, the pain, the sorrow, the victories, the defeats—is the most comforting and terrifying fact of existence.

It always feels like the bad shit pauses at its worst moments, while all the good stuff crumbles into the everyday.

“Nothing lasts forever” sucks when we think of the good stuff, but it’s oddly comforting when we think of the bad. You’ve fought the urge to get up to pee during a movie, knowing the credits will eventually roll and you’ll be free to leave your seat without missing anything. You’ve sat through boring lectures, silly arguments, and never-ending weddings, knowing that these, too, will at some point wrap up. The temporary things in life have brought you peace before. Your heartbreaks have been temporary, your injuries have been temporary, your confusions, resentments, anger, and fears have all been temporary.

Still, realizing that nothing we know and cherish today will last forever can be difficult. We’re on borrowed time. My mother says our number of breaths has been predetermined.[1] Irrespective of the allegory, analogy, or belief, we’re not going to last. Not in the short term or the grand scheme.

That realization might make us want to hide in the nearest corner, assume the fetal position, and scream, “Why bother doing anything? What’s the point if it’s all going to end?”

So now that I’ve massaged your existential dread, I’m supposed to teach you to find beauty in this world of temporary, right? Wrong. You’ve had your near-death experiences and promised to live a new life, only to fall back into your whack habits a few days later. You’ve lost things that mattered to you, people who mattered to you, and you’re still here, knowing that one day you’ll also be lost; no one makes it out alive.

What I can do is help you see how recognizing that everything is temporary can take a lot of the pressure off and help you jump headfirst into life, finding more reasons to be grateful, to connect with others, and most important, to connect with yourself. In the past I’ve written about letting go to gain more. This time, let’s talk about how much we lose from holding on. Let’s talk about the gifts we receive when we lose, and how all of this can help us clean out our closets and keep only what’s most important. Let’s talk about how we should value something because it’s temporary, including our own lives.

Looking at life through the lens of time shows us how patience is a superpower. Loss feeds love and encourages us to look at the bigger picture.

Nothing lasts forever, and that’s both tragic and comic, depending on how we look at it—so how we look at it, our perspective, is the thing we can, and should, control. We can give ourselves a facepalm when we look at that old outfit, or we can try it on and dance around the room summoning up the spirits and smiles of yesterday—a beautiful reminder of how far we’ve come.

Shit had hit the fan. My rap career had launched, but not at the rate I’d expected. I had moved into a condo I couldn’t afford the prior year, planning to pay for it with future funds I assumed would come pouring in. Suddenly I realized I’d spent twelve months sitting in smoke-filled studios, making music whenever inspiration (or the weed) hit me, having no idea how to pay my mortgage. I was broke and uninspired.

Things needed to be different. Not only did I have to audit my bank account, but I had to audit the people I spent my time with. We all go through these times in life, when we have to slow things down, reevaluate, and do some spring cleaning. Yet for me, this spring cleaning was less about holistic renewal and more about clearing my professional path. I decided that if someone wasn’t helping me get to where I needed to be, then that person most likely was getting in my way. I didn’t make any proclamations or write anybody a Dear John letter, thus liberating myself from their harmful clutches. I didn’t say a thing to anybody; I just stopped engaging with people who I felt were standing in my way rather than helping me and I began to focus more on myself.

I started with the people in my life who were less than inspiring, even toxic. The ones making decisions that didn’t feel responsible or sustainable to me. You know the people I’m talking about: the ones who feel like more of a chore or an obligation than a friend.

Purging these kinds of people from my life had immediate benefits. It freed up my time and energy so I was able to spend time with people and things that actually excited me, rather than drained me. Slowly, I cleansed my personal life of all the whack people I was spending time with. It was instantly liberating for me, but shedding friends also became addictive.