A few days ago, after I finished walking on the treadmill, I went downstairs to continue reigning my usual spot on the couch.
My mother promised that she would talk to me while I walk, but as usual, she did not keep her promise. I couldn’t just go back to doing work without making a quip about that, so I made a remark about how predictable she is.
With onions in her hand, she said, “Oh… I didn’t come… Because I was too busy crying. Crying about how our friendship is no more.”
I raised my eyebrows and asked her if she was crying because our friendship was no more, or because she was chopping onions. With great dismay, she regretted that I had grown up. According to her, I was much easier to fool as a child.
The same day, she told me that she has been experimenting on me since my childhood.
That’s just… nice? Turns out she only stopped in 9th grade, so it wasn’t just my childhood. I don’t recall being stupid back then? But alright… I guess.
She claims her time for “experimenting” is now over - and now I am the one who experiments on her. I do see merit in that statement, but I am not dumb enough to trust her anymore D:
Another “fun” fact: she thought it would be very funny to talk to me repeatedly about Jiddu Krishnamurti’s philosophical beliefs, and how it changed her life. He inspired her to question everything, and most importantly, turn her smiles to frowns, so she decided to pass on her wisdom.
…and that. That was the start of my grindset. A completely original grindset, though.
I’m obviously not going to write an entire post commenting on my mother’s parenting? The only time kids liked me was when I used to wear that one silver jacket everywhere (if you know, you know), so who am I to judge? Also, I try to refrain from publicly humiliating my friends.
So yes, this entire post is just gonna make fun of one person: yours truly.
(Everything after this point is a meme, taking it seriously means you won’t benefit from following my grindset)
Here are just a few rules from my playbook, because (a) I’m generous like that, and (b) I think I’ve been watching too many meme clips.
1. In any given context, NEVER play all of your cards.
Do you have a very important exam tomorrow? Does your entire future depend on it?
Understand that your entire future does not depend on an examination. Human beings are physically incapable of giving their all, so should you try to do your best? No.
There are better things to spend your energy on. The healthiest thing you can do, is spread energy equally, not just use it all over one thing.
Do you trust a close friend and would tell them anything? No one cares. You can’t tell them everything. If you do, you’ll no longer be interesting.
But why is this becoming a problem?
In order to answer this, we must first rigorously define (if you know, you know) what it means to “play all your cards”.
“Playing all of one’s cards”, to me, means announcing what your strengths and weaknesses are to the entire world, or a significant subset of people. When someone gives their all, they think it is a show of strength and resilience, while in reality, all it does is expose weaknesses. If you were desperate enough to put your energy into X, you’ve just shown the entire world that X is extremely important to you. Their next mission will be to strip you away of X. Exposing ALL of your strengths is always equal to exposing all of your weaknesses.
That also means I’m not going to give away my entire grindset. What a loss to humanity!
2. On a related note, never let your friends know exactly how much you care about them.
I’m just going to sound cold and say it, you never know if your friends are going to stay friends with you. As a seventeen-year-old, I’m pretty sure most of my friends today will probably be nothing more than strangers a few years later. Imagine yourself, a few years later, thinking about something in the shower, only to suddenly realize that there’s a stranger out there who knows exactly how vulnerable you are. I would be disturbed, and being emotionally disturbed just hinders one’s productivity.
Instead of regretting it in the future, do the right thing and never be overly vulnerable around your “friends”. Always mislead them into thinking you don’t care at all.
3. Strive to earn respect, not love.
Okay, people love you. Big deal, who cares? We saw what happened to Princess Diana. No one cares about “good people” anymore. You’re not actually getting anything.
There’s a significant difference between respect and love. Usually, someone loves another person due to pure dumb luck. Maybe they remind them of someone, or they share certain traits that they admire. It’s always about being “appealing”. A person someone deems as being worth of love isn’t seen the same way by someone else.
Respect is, in most cases, earned. It is nothing but a culmination of how you carry yourself, and all the work that you have done. Respect earned for any other reason, is, in my opinion, not respect.
When people respect you, they assume you have boundaries. When enough people respect you, you reach the “ungettable” status. Sure, the strength in the definition of “ungettable” varies from crowd to crowd - for example, the most attractive person in your classroom is probably not seen as “ungettable” by a child actor, but is someone you can’t dream of dating (lol rip you). Celebrities are, to most people, “ungettable”.
Which brings us to the next point:
4. You are who your “crowd” is.
Your “crowd” refers to the people you choose to surround yourself with. Like it or not, you are being labelled.
But who cares about labels? No one. Or at least, you shouldn’t.
Here’s an example of why you should be caring about your crowd:
Let’s assume you’re very good at art. You would like to make friends who also enjoy making art as much as you do. You find a few like-minded people, and instantly click with them.
One of these things are bound to happen:
(a) Your artistic abilities are stagnant: Congratulations! You are mediocre, and so are your friends! Stay that way!
(b) Your artistic abilities improve: Congratulations! You just lost your friends to envy. Time to make friends with people who are more talented. But this cycle just keeps repeating itself.
(c) Your artistic abilities get worse: Congratulations! Also, how did you manage this, honestly? Must feel great to be the idiot of the friend group.
The best option here is indubitably (b), but that means your crowd is ever changing. And that is what is healthy.
5. Slow and Steady May Win a Race, But They Don’t Win a War
Honestly, what is the equivalent of a race these days? People aren’t civil enough to “race” each other. “Slow and Steady” is more of an urban myth than Bloody Mary.
From armament races being cold wars in disguise, to college admissions, everything is a war, and that is the sad truth. You only win wars by capitalizing on your strengths and taking risks.
6. Talent > Hard Work
Scenario 1: Picture that one tryhard in your class, who has little to no intuition for something that you are really good at. They want to match up with you, so by definition, they try very hard, and practice every day. You do the same thing as well, and no matter how hard they try, they just can’t match up to you.
Scenario 2: Picture that one tryhard in your class, who has little to no intuition for something that you are really good at. They want to match up with you, so by definition, they try very hard, and practice every day. However, you don’t do the same thing, because you are talented. In this case, you are still talented, but you are an idiot. In most cases, people with natural talent only start trying when they are shocked by the sudden improvement of a tryhard. Like Karma Akabane said, people with talent often have the wrong impression that things will go the way they think.
You can decide to work hard, if you want to. You can’t decide to be talented.
7. There are some things you just aren’t supposed to share: Rasgulla, OTPs, Parottas, and STDs.
That should speak for itself? Also, yes, I stole this from a Discord DM lmao.
8. Actively Disrespect the Grindset
At the end, Jiddu Krishnamurti’s spirit of questioning was right. These rules are meant to be questioned, and broken - go ahead and break them, just like I have, multiple times.