See You on the Other Side!

What if, tomorrow I got to become anyone in the world that I wished? Who would I become?  

I would become Arnold Swartzenegger but instead of his teeth and accent, and most of his personality, I would retain the personage of Rob Lemke as much as possible. The parts of Arnie that would be still used would be his intense desire to be physically all that he could be to the level of Mr. Olympia, etc., and the striving for new challenges all the time.  

Arnie was my hero growing up. I bought his famous weight lifting guide in 1982 and began to use the high school gym to pump up my muscles. I played a lot of soccer in high school as well, so the physio part of things was taken care of. Arnie got to a point in his long workout regimes where he used to look completely ripped before he started his sessions. He was a natural meso morph and I am also, but he stands 6 foot 7 and I stand 5 foot 8 and a half, on a good day. So, the muscle mass that entails Arnie is far more proportioned and massive than any comparison to my look.  

Yes, Tomorrow I turn into Arnie. I will be famous and rich, and I will have gained a Hollywood rooted base of power which will allow me the freedoms that come with that power, riches and fame. I will have my own Jet. It will be a Boeing 787 dream liner outfitted in the classiest of jet setter styles. And mine would be a jet that would be in constant use because, unlike the current Arnie, one of my priority big first goals would be to travel the world and see all the things I could see in the next few years of my life as Arnie. Not the regular tourist spots no. I will instead go and see the remotest and most primitive and most uninhabitable and least explored parts of our earth when I become Arnie. Oh. another trait that would have to be fixed is how Arnie communicates before I turn into him. My version of Arnie would be an orator supreme, a compelling influencer of fellow human beings, my energy for life being the thing that spurred others to action and adventure. And I would hire the best of architects and designers to design for me and my family the house of our dreams. These experts would be paid to spend time with my family to see what inspires motivates and stirs us. Then they would create and design inherently, the house of our dreams around those things they knew about us. 

When I turn into Arnie tomorrow, I will try my damndest to stay out of politics in complete opposition to the addictive attraction to politics that Arnie exhibits now. The promise of power lies there of course and so when I turn into Arnie tomorrow, I would have to consciously, with great effort, channel my lusting after power away from politics and into something entrepreneurially interesting….  

I anticipate the transformation with giddy excitement though I may not show it so all that is left to say I guess is: “see you on the other side – as Arnie”. Happy New Year!  
I write

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Keeping Up with the Jones'

 They tell you not to compare. Do not measure your life against the neighbor’s. Do not chase the illusion of status. Wise words. And mostly ignored by anyone with a pulse. But the one luxury I dream of is not a shiny car or a gadget that glows in the dark. I want land. And a home rooted in that land. A mansion, yes, because why lie about the scale of the vision? Something built to last. Something that cannot be folded into a suitcase or lost the moment a visa expires. Picture this. A wide stretch of earth that belongs to my family name. Soil that remembers the footsteps of children now grown. Trees that rise taller long after I am gone. A house with a high roof and windows that pull in the morning sun instead of shutting it out. A library filled with the books I wrote and the ones that wrote me. A workshop where tools rest not in transit cases but on familiar walls. A kitchen where laughter outnumbers plates. A long table where every seat has a story, and none are borrowed. A pl...
Read more

Humble Pie

 We all have a private accounting system. You put in effort. You expect return. You sacrifice now. You imagine reward later. Neat math. Encouraging math. Math that makes you feel in control. For a long time, I thought I understood that math. I believed that twenty five years working abroad in the Middle East, away from family roots and Canadian soil, would translate into financial freedom. I imagined coming home with savings stacked, investments humming, and a calm sense that the future was covered. Then the bill came due. It turns out life charges interest on distance. On risk. On uncertainty. On raising kids in a country where family safety costs more than anyone back home could ever imagine. On working for companies that benefit from your best years but forget your name the moment the contract ends. And suddenly the numbers did not add up. I found myself staring at a truth harder than I liked. All that time. All that sweat. All that faith in a system. And I was not wealthy....
Read more

Now You See Me

 If I could appear and disappear at will, I would not waste the ability doing parlor tricks or sneaking into bank vaults. I know what it is like to be needed in a moment that decides everything. I know what it feels like to wish I could vanish from a moment that hurts. So here is how I would use my superpower. When my son faced his first night behind a locked door, I would appear beside him. Not to break him out. Not to bend justice. Just to sit. To tell him the walls were temporary and the world outside was still waiting for him. Fathers cannot always fix, but we can always remain. And when the decision came down from a judge with more power over my family than any human should have, I would disappear into my own calm, just long enough not to let fear speak for me. I would appear in the homes of every hiring manager who tossed my résumé aside after fifteen years of loyalty evaporated with the word “redundant.” I would stand right in front of them until they could not ignore my...
Read more