Advice for People Who Check Out

The question: “What advice do you have for people who just check out?” 

The best answer: Die.  

Not German for “the,” but “die” as in “cease to exist.”

There are times when this seems to be the only option.  Perhaps it is more accurate to say that there are times when this seems to be the only option people allow for themselves.

The act of dying is complex.  It comes in many forms.  It is most often hidden from view.  Death in disguise…this is a very sad thing.  Sad yet…we see it so often, don’t we?  We know plenty of people who choose this path of death, who disguise their suicide.  They simply give up.

A man sat behind me the other day and asked another man at the front of the room, “What advice do you have for people who just check out?”  At a time of uncertainty, this is a question on the minds of many people.  The world of work is changing.  Conventional, 20th Century ideas of what it means to have a job and a career…well, these things are illusions that have been exposed for the heat-induced, delusional mirages that they are.  The world of work is changing, and we need to open our eyes to that reality.  

Cyclical?  Sure; there is a cycle of economic expansion and contraction.  But this cycle…it exposes the illusion, the lie.  This cycle drags the lie out of the shadows and into the light.  We can see it now.  Your choice, then, is simple: close your eyes to the lie until it can retreat back into the darkness or choose action based on your newly-acquired knowledge.

I like action.

Nobody will do more for you or your career in this or any other century than you will…or can.  Own your path.  It belongs to you.  When you hand the leash over to someone else, you wind up following them down a path of their choosing.  So, make that decision consciously.

But that’s not why I would give “die” as the answer to the question regarding those who check out.  No, for those who choose to check out, I say that you are choosing to die.  You see, checking out is the opposite of living, of choosing Life.  And the opposite of Life is Death.  Dying.  Die.

You see?  If you’re going to check out, then my advice to you is to do die.  Not literally, but close enough.  If you choose to just check out, to just show up, to just receive that paycheck, to just go through the motions like some sort of literal working stiff, a zombie, then you are giving in to the giving up.  If you’re going to do it, then commit.  Do it well.  Knock the cover off the ball.  Exceed. 

Lay. Down. And. Die.

Or don’t.  And if you don’t…then commit.  Do it well.  Knock the cover off the ball.  Exceed.

STAND. THE. FUCK. UP. AND. LIVE.

That’s what I think.