Where the Wild Things Are

Max’s character makes you think.

As a young child I read the book and thought it was a story with a happy ending. Young boy chooses to leave his family, goes to a far away land, lives out his fantasy and then heads back home.

Caught up in the excitement of the new movie, I went to the bookstore and read the book again. This time the story had a totally different meaning to me. When I finished reading it, I thought: “Huh, I kind of remembered this book having a happy ending?”

Being somewhat older since my last reading of the book, and maybe somewhat wiser, I saw 2 different perspectives on the book.

The Prodigal

Referring to parable found in the bible:

The young man finally comes to his senses, remembering his father. In humility, he recognizes his foolishness, decides to return to his father and ask for forgiveness and mercy. The father who had been watching and waiting, receives his son back with open arms of compassion. He is overjoyed by the return of his lost son!

The Entrepreneur

I shall quote Timothy Ferriss to explain this perspective:

“The New Rich (NR) are those who abandon the deferred-life plan and create luxury lifestyles in the present using the currency of the New Rich: time and mobility. This is an art and a science we will refer to as Lifestyle Design (LD).

I’ve spent the last three years traveling among those who live in worlds currently beyond your imagination. Rather than hating reality, I’ll show you how to bend it to your will. It’s easier than it sounds. My journey from grossly overworked and severely underpaid office worker to member of the NR is at once stranger than fiction and — now that I’ve deciphered the code — simple to duplicate. There is a recipe.

Life doesn’t have to be so damn hard. It really doesn’t. Most people, my past self included, have spent too much time convincing themselves that life has to be hard, a resignation to 9-to-5 drudgery in exchange for (sometimes) relaxing weekends and the occasional keep-it-short-or-get-fired vacation.

The truth, at least the truth I live and will share in this book, is quite different. From leveraging currency differences to outsourcing your life and disappearing, I’ll show you how a small underground uses economic sleight-of-hand to do what most consider impossible.” – Timothy Ferriss, Introduction to ‘The 4-hour Workweek‘.

Perception determines Action.

The story although extremely short, maybe one entire paragraph, is powerful. Who was Max? A wreckless youth, a waster? Or a genius, a creator? You choose, more importantly than what we think of Max, we get to choose what we are. People’s perceptions of us matter very little, It’s all about what we think, and then what we do with our thoughts. Max is an example to us good or bad. The story has a happy or sad ending depending on how you look at it. He is either the returning prodigal or the quitting entrepreneur. Either way, “Let the wild rompus begin.”

The word Static has many different meanings. I am using the following meaning: informal, angry, or critical talk or behavior.

Life is FULL of static!

Life is full of static. I repeat, Life is full of static. It is so prevalent in the world yet it seems to go unnoticed until you try to go against the norm. I like the term to go ‘Rogue’. When others see you in this ‘Rogue’ status they tend to be very critical of you and their behavior towards you changes. They no longer give you the benefit of the doubt, sometimes they wait to watch you fail. Sometimes well-intentioned friends and family can cause more static in our lives than our household dryers (like when you forget fabric softener). Really though, they think they are helpful by’clinging’ to you, warning you, criticizing you, they don’t realize how unhelpful they really are.

So how do we find meaning in all the static?

Static will never cease in your life. In fact it may possibly get worse. But you have control over what it means in your life. For myself, when the static gets stronger than I take it as a sign that I am headed in the right direction and a breakthrough is nigh. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt and say: “This person probably wants what is best for me, but only I know what is best for me.” Hate the static, not the staticky one. Actualy I say think a great meaning behind static is that the universe is telling you that you are on the right track. The static can wear us down and make our goals look impossible, it is up to us to create the meaning for static in our own lives.

Static is static.

I believe that static has no power in and of itself. It is just noise, thoughts, and worries of other people passed on as advice. Let each of us see the static in our lives, attach our own meeting to it, and accept the universe’s compliment to us as we journey to our potential, destiny, and rewards.

Cool little video about perspective. I always enjoy looking at something from a different angle.