It’s been so long since I last wrote, I just had to brush the dust off my keyboard. Last year ended in a sprint for the finish line during which I bailed out on a whole lot of commitments, including this blog.
Sadly, the hits on this site have suffered as a result and the only comments coming through have all been from bots, each more nonsensical than the last, but I knew this would happen.
I’m prepared to start fresh and grow my readership to what it once was. That’s the thing about your Tiger pal, he’s a tenacious fucker, which is the nice way of saying he’s too dumb to know when to quit.
I started 2013 with a post in which I wrote that my mantra for the year was “Be Braveâ€. At the time of writing that, it was a kind of in-joke that only J-Rab and I understood because she was about 7 weeks pregnant with our first child.
That simple mantra got me through a lot last year, no lies. When you’re staring at the business end of a C-Section as they pull your daughter into this world, all you can be is brave.
And for the most part last year, I think I did live up to that mantra. It might sound lame, but I took comfort in those simple words when shit was getting crazy and so, in keeping up with this tradition, here’s the mantra I’m adopting for 2014:
EAT THE ELEPHANT
Doesn’t quite have the simple elegance of “Be Braveâ€, but there’s a lot of power in those words.
The elephant in question is the gigantic goal you’ve always wanted to achieve. Whether it’s to learn an instrument or get a promotion or travel the world or change your career, every one of us has an elephant in our lives that, just by its sheer size and magnitude, seems impossible to conquer.
This year we eat that fucker. We do it one bite at a time, one day at a time until the entire thing has been devoured.
It’s the “Brushing Your Teeth†approach to life. You brush your teeth twice a day for about two minutes and, provided you’re doing it right and throwing in the occasional floss for good measure, your teeth stay healthy and white.
However, if you had to stop brushing your teeth for a week and then, come Sunday, brush them for a solid 24 minutes, after a month there’d be more green fur in your mouth than rancid felt on a pool table at Stones.
So whatever your big goal for 2014 is, sink some time into it every day, whether that means getting up earlier, waking up later or forgoing your nightly routine of chain-watching your favourite TV shows (guilty), the excuse that there isn’t enough time in the day is a load of shit when you stop to think about it.
In 2014 we fight to get that time back. We stop giving it away and wasting it because time is all we have and once it’s spent, it’s gone for good.
Last year I set myself the goal of finishing my first manuscript for a novel. I ploughed through the first three chapters, hit a wall on the fourth and then made up excuses for the rest of the year as to why I couldn’t continue from that point.
If I’d kept the momentum I had at the beginning of the year, I would have finished my manuscript by November, but I let the elephant trample me instead.
I believe that there is an amazing life we are all meant to lead, one that is at least 80% awesome and is incredibly fulfilling and rewarding, but the only way to lead that life is to remain steadfast, focussed and disciplined when it comes to achieving your goals.
This world owes us sweet fuck all. The sooner we realise that, stop making excuses and start eating the elephant, the sooner we can start living the dream.
So here’s to kicking ass, takin’ names and eating elephants.
Happy 2014 Party People 
-ST
