Two Steps Forward, Three Steps Back
-Kartik Goyal

I’m looking you in the eyes, at least figuratively, and telling you that you don’t stand a chance.
I’m telling you that if you can read this piece, look through this list and not claim it as your own, then you should be a little worried.
Actually, you should be very worried. You should drop everything and immediately question your existence on earth. You should find a mirror, look yourself in the eyes, raise your hand and slap yourself in the face.
Got it?
Now repeat that until you come to your senses and continue reading…
I’m talking about Street Skills Sons!
I’m not talking about the study hard, party light, graduate top-of-your-class skills, neither am I talking about the slack-off, skip class, smoke weed, drink and party but still graduate, skill-set you 8,00,000+ degree has led you to believe (which you will receive in due time).
I’m talking about the, step out your door, make some moves, and get some s*** done, kind of skills! Some, move out your mama’s house, quit your job – say ‘F*** the world’ – and then actually go do it, kind of skills.
The kind of skills you develop in the real world, outside the protection bubble of your parents. Skills that can be had by anyone willing to pay the price to get them. Skills that are quickly becoming extinct. The ones that cannot be taught in the classroom or in a textbook that can only be learned by DOING, by LEARNING how to fly and JUMPING off the cliff. (Now, don’t take that literally)
These are skills that can only be developed when you find your one true self. When you put yourself on the line or otherwise expose yourself to the possibilities of failure. Skills you can develop when you are willing to risk it all in order to do that one amazing thing. Skills that up until now, you thought you had.
Basically, what I am trying to tell you is that in the game of life, you don’t stand a chance…
Because You Have Not Failed Enough
You have become too comfortable in your mediocrity, because you choose not to try, because it is easier to talk about learning that new language as opposed to actually learning it. You thing everything is too hard or too complicated so you will just sit this one out, or maybe you’ll – DO IT TOMORROW!
While you’re sitting around failing to try, the real men are trying to fail (the men here does not exclude the fairer gender amongst us!), challenging themselves and learning new things and failing as fast as possible.
Because I fail, I learn and then adjust my course to make sure my path is always forward. Like the process of annealing steel, I’ve been through the fire and pounded into shape. The shape of a sword with the polished edges and a razor sharp blade that will cut you in half if you are not equally hardened.
Because You Care What Others Think About You
‘I have to fit in’
You believe that being different is only cool if you’re different in the same way that other people are different, because you are afraid to embrace your true self for the fear of how the world will see you. You think that because you judge others, this means that those people must, in-turn, be judging you.
You care too much about the stuff you have as opposed to the things you’ve done.
While you’re out spending your money on new outfits, new cars, overpriced meals or nights at the bar, I’ll be investing in myself. And while you try to fit in the world I’ll make the world fit in with me.
I will recklessly abandon all insecurities and expose my true self to the world. I will become immune to the impact of your opinion and stand naked in a crowd of ideas, comfortable in knowing that while you married the mundane I explored the exceptional and the sensational.
Because You think You are Smarter Than You are
You did what everyone else did, you studied what they studied and read what they read. You learned what you had to learn in order to pass their tests and you think that makes you smart. You think learning is only what people do at schools.
While you are away at college, I am studying life, because instead of learning about the world in the classroom I went out and learned it by living. I know more than any piece of paper you could ever frame from the university, because smart is not what you learn, it’s how you Live.
I could pass your tests if I had to, but you couldn’t stand for a single second in the face of the tests that life has thrown me. Tests that are not graded on a curve or by percentages and percentiles, tests that are graded by one simple stipulation: SURVIVAL!
Because You Don’t Read
You read the things that you are required to read or nothing at all. You think history is boring and philosophy is stupid. You’d rather sit and watch MTV instead of exploring something new, instead of diving head first into the brain of another man in an attempt to better understand the world around you.
You refuse to acknowledge that all the power in the world comes from the words of those that lived before us. That anything you desire can be had by searching the multitude of words that are available to us now more abundantly than ever before.
You may lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.
Because You Lack Curiosity
You get your news from the copy-cat members of the state Controlled Media.
Are you willing to ask this simple question…
“What if all this is a lie?”
Accept the possibility that maybe it is, that just maybe the methods of mass media are under direct order to keep you distracted. You call me a know-it-all but refuse to call yourself a know-nothing-at-all. I thirst for knowledge, regardless the topic.
While you were busy playing candy crush and clash of the Clans, I was reading string theory and quantum mechanics.
Because if we were to go heads up in a debate, I would crush you. I would make it a point to defeat my own argument, from every imaginable angle, in order to understand everything you might be able to use against me. I would dedicate myself to understanding both sides of the argument so thoroughly that I could argue your side for you and win, even after having just handed you a defeat in the same debate.
Because You don’t Ask Enough Questions
You do not question authority.
You don’t question yourself.
You don’t understand the power of properly placed questioning in life, respectful disagreements and standing up for what you know to be right in the face of someone telling you otherwise. Unable to question reality, stuck in a self-imposed survival strategy within matrix-style monotony.
I know you will give me all the information I need to destroy you by letting you talk. I sometimes study human behaviours and you ignore everyone but yourself. I watch how you say the things you say just as closely as I listen to what you say and you say too much!
Control comes, not from spewing your ignorance like some incurable case of cancer or leukaemia, but from properly structuring the context of your question.
Because You Can’t Handle The Truth
You refuse to admit that you don’t even know the things you don’t know. There isn’t an article online that would make up for all the time you have wasted in your life. Because even if I told you everything would be different tomorrow you would wait until then to begin doing anything about it.
You walk around with your head up you’re a**, oblivious to the world around you. Blissfully ignorant of the reality that sits so close to your face that if you stuck your tongue out, just once, you would taste it and realise how delicious the truth actually is.
You would become an instant addict, unable to pull yourself from the teat of truth. Finally able to understand your lack of understanding, and then you would see, and then you would know that the only thing holding you back from doing something truly amazing is you.