Making your mark on the world

Mahatma Gandhi, while emptying his piggy bank said, "Be the change you want to see in the world." So I ask you, what is your motivation? What mark do you want to leave as you look back over your shoulder while shuffling off this mortal coil?

I don't know what is worse, aiming low and smashing head on into mediocrities bullseye, or aspiring to walk on the moon, and failing the NASA aptdatood test. Then getting disgruntled, and next thing, “There’s a sniper in the clock tower, run for your lives!” That is how it happens, it's only a small few steps from enjoying camping to get away from the crazy hustle bustle of the city, to brushing the bugs out of your beard while writing the final chapter of your manifesto in your log cabin.


If you do aim too high and actually have a successful moment in your life, you then face the dilemma of experiencing what I have dubbed "the Aldrin curve" named after astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon. The Aldrin curve is the point where you realise that from here on in it's all down hill and everything you will do from this point on will never surmount your yesterday. This is an opportune time to take up story telling and drinking, and not in that order. "Lend me a dollar and your ear and I'll tell you about a time when [hiccup] men were men and we travelled to the starsh."

Perhaps success will be measured in the future, not by actions, but by the number of followers you have on Twitter? “Oh my god, that’s @LazyGirl54, she has over a million followers!” Social media is the equivalent of standing up at the grand final at half time with a microphone and informing everyone, “I had toast for breakfast.” Advances in digital communication have taken us in leaps and bounds down gibberish lane.

Some seem content with a simple life, cave and a curtain, a place to exist, own the dream, buy a boat when your fifty-five, make a speech at your child’s twenty-first, have a hip replacement and die. Leaving drive and ambition in the will for the grandchildren. It was drilled into me when I was growing up that how are we raised is critical to the way we end up… What comes after indoctrasix and indoctraseven? Indoctrinate, that is correct, so don't tell your children they can achieve great things, that one day they could travel to another planet, or walk on the surface of Mars, tell them that one day they could own a large television and watch Arnold Schwarzenegger walk on Mars in the total movie Total Recall after they finish their night shift at the factory.

Don't say to them, "You can be whatever you want to be if you apply yourself." Instead tell them with the state of the world, when they grow up the Australian economy; will have more problems then an Icelandic Air traffic controller, the unemployment queue will be busier then a one-armed brick layer in Bagdad, and there chances of owning their own home will disappear quicker then a fart in a fan factory. Happiness is all about managing expectations.


Jonathan Nolan is an MX reader who wants to leave his mark on the world in ink, like a cheap blue pen leaking in the pocket of life’s new white business shirt.