Acting The Part

I believe your mental game is your game. You've got to know you're going to score before you actually score. You've got to have that confidence. You've got to know you're that fucking good.

Life is a trip like that. It's all about pretending to be something you're not. If you want something you've got to pretend, at least a little bit, that you're already there before you can actually achieve it. You've got to know you're good enough to have it, and that you're that person it just hasn't been realized yet.

Want to be a computer scientist? Act like a computer scientist - do things that computer scientists do. Extend this notion to all your goals. Extend it to interpersonal relationships with other people and yourself - play the part and you'll become it.

I used to be a drug addict. My hobby was altering my consciousness because I didn't want to know myself, I wanted to be something else. Somewhere along the way I decided I wasn't a bad guy, that I deserved better, that I deserved to have good people in my life, and not to allow the negative ones to take up space in my head.

I woke up and wanted to be an athlete. I didn't know what this meant. I didn't understand the dedication that it would involve. I didn't understand the life changing experience that would ensue. All I knew is that I wanted what an athlete had: I wanted something good for myself, something only I could give me. I couldn't purchase it, I couldn't give it away, I couldn't inject it, I couldn't smoke it, I couldn't rail it. I had to work for it.

What kind of athlete did I want to be? Sort of a broad question... deep thought ensued and I decided bikes were pretty awesome. I also look good in lycra so that was a plus. I surrounded myself with people who raced bikes on every level of the sport. At first I thought I wasn't good enough to be better than a category 4 rider. But the more I hung out with other top level amateurs the more I rode and the more the sport grew on me.

All I had to do was wake up everyday and re-commit to acting like an athlete and surround myself with like-minded folks. The goal of being an athlete soon diminished and was replaced with a love for a machine, for pain, and for a minimal amount of glory.

I wake up everyday and I pretend to be a lot of things. Most of these things I would have never seen myself doing six years ago. Most of these things people have told me I would never achieve. But here I am, doing those things, being that person. So to all those people who said you can't or you won't, go fuck yourself - I am and I did.