Going ALL IN with Charles Bukowski!

If you're going to try...

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“Find what you love and let it kill you” ~ Charles Bukowski

This dude keeps popping up recently so I thought I’d share a bit of his work. His name is Charles Bukowski and he was a German-born American poet, novelist, and short story writer.

Now, he wasn’t all that successful by all accounts through most of his life… Mark Manson sums it up far better that I could in this article. Here’s an excerpt:

Bukowski was a shameless drinker, womanizer and all-around fuck up. He would get drunk on stage at his poetry readings and verbally abuse his audience. He gambled a lot of his money away and had an unfortunate habit of exposing himself in public.

But underneath Bukowski’s disgusting exterior was a deep and introspective man with more character than most. Bukowski spent most of his life broke, drunk and getting fired from various jobs. Eventually, he ended up working in a post office filing letters. All his life he wrote fruitlessly, a total unknown and a loser. He wrote for almost 30 years before finally getting his first book deal. It was a meager deal. When accepting it, he wrote, “I have one of two choices – stay in the post office and go crazy … or stay out here and play at writer and starve. I have decided to starve.”

The reason for this blog post is I recently heard the following poem again. I had heard it some time ago and thought it quite emotive, and then it reared it’s little head once again. Funny how that happens ;)

It ties in very well with the concept of going ‘all in’. Gary Vee loves to talk about it, Steven Pressfield has written about it and many more have pontificated on it in one way or another.

Dedicating yourself to something 100%. Not dabbling. Not doing a little here and a little there, a bit of this a bit of that. No, throwing yourself in to the road gladly. That is who you are and damned with the consequences, good or bad.

Here’tis, enjoy!

“If you’re going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don’t even start. If you’re going to try, go all the way.

This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. Go all the way.

It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail, derision, mockery, isolation.

Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test for endurance, of how much you really want to do it.

And you’ll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine.

If you’re going to try, go all the way. There’s no other feeling like that.

You will be alone with the gods and the nights will flame with fire.

Do it, do it , do it… all the way… all the way. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter.

It’s the only good fight there is”

Ok, so you may want to avoid freezing on park benches, going to jail and the like but you get the point.

We’re all very half-arsed about everything. Including me. Especially me (shh). It’s fairly epidemic, especially these days with all the distractions and the potential possibilities we’re offered and think on CONSTANTLY.

The above may mainly speak on a career/vocation/life purpose kind of level. But it can also be applied to everything.

For example, I call myself a writer. Yet there have been times when I haven't done all that much writing. Are you a writer or not?! If so, write often and regularly regardless of results and outcomes… just write. If not, that’s fine, but find what you want to do and do that.

Shit or get off the pot.

It can of course apply to the where and the who. The city you live in, the person you’re with, the person you want to be with. You may well have one eye on the other side of the fence. Not necessarily planning to climb over but not 100% committed to nurturing the grass on your side. And that’s a shame.

There’s a time and a pace for having a good look around. Sampling the delights.

There is also a time where you have to stop in your tracks, and make the most of what you have. Go deep, not wide as someone once said.

Interesting character was ol’ Charlie B. Most of us aren’t of quite the same ilk, but we can certainly draw on some of his wisdom.

What are you going all in on??

~ Adam

“Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead” ~ Charles Bukowski

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