The 5 habits of Don Quixote
Yes, this is another RANT against stories with this title in blogs, and of course here, in medium.
Today I woke up a little ‘hater’, it’s nothing important, it’s just a habit. It doesn’t directly influence my professional life, I try not to influence my family and friends either, but this doesn’t stop it from happening. On this occasion, the focus of my unjustified and irrelevant, anger are the articles about: “the customs or habits of such a type of X”, normally associated with the current standards of success.
Let’s see, let’s see, because the more I think about it, the crazier it seems to me. Do you really need a 5-minute text to tell you how the actor of the moment has become so popular? Or how a c-level manager/entrepreneur has come to charge so much? Or my favorites… the habits of millionaires/multimillionaires/ton-of-millionaires (yes, it comes from a real ton of billions. Something like, I’m in the Fortune 500). I’m sorry to disappoint the reader, but there’s little chance that what has led the person you admire to become an elite professional at X is anything other than dedicating his or her life completely to X.
Disappointed? tired of the obvious? or maybe surprised? No, a 1000 word text is not going to change your life. It can certainly have positive effects, it can give you useful information, it can be helpful, or it can simply entertain. I trust, at least statistically, that it will bring some value. At least I want to believe that when I write.
However, and returning to the thread of this entry, this type of title seems to me to be misleading. To begin with, does the author himself comply with the stereotype he mentions? Or has he been in contact with enough other individuals who do? If so, it should be like having dinner with the janitor of the mafia, someone with so many friends and so many anecdotes around the globe, that makes one doubt that time is running out the same for everyone.
In this sense, I have doubted the title, the format, the author… the truth is a bit risky without reading each and every one of the entries of this type. The possibility that some of them are really interesting grows as soon as you reduce the criteria. However, I have read enough of them to rule them out in the past, and of course, those I did read have disappointed me so as not to do it again on new occasions.
The real criticism is that the ratio of usefulness to filler, the weight of the words if you can say that, is very low. The feeling I get after reading these articles is… “too much wrapping for so little gift”. Not that I am angry, but the accumulation of suggestions in my medium widget has been enough to inspire this satirical entry.
How to achieve that longed-for X, … in general: well, with a lot of effort and sacrifice. There are things we cannot change, but many others we can, we can transform ourselves with our own resources, always starting with time. Dedicate time to understand this objective and then you will be able to think of a master plan to achieve it. I think for example about being a successful youtuber or a sportsman or writer,… there is a rule about mastering a skill.
You don’t master it until you reach 10,000 hours; and that rule, debatable as everything else, expresses a reality: no effort, no reward.
Yes, I suppose that by adding a paragraph of “self-help” amidst so much complaining, I am sinning the same as criticizing, but I want to believe, that it brings the grain of common sense that is missing in these articles, and really, what I wanted to write was a rant, so everything is correct.
Finally, if you are a specific author or a supporter of this format, you are invited to challenge me on this article. I would love to be wrong and have someone share with me a single article of this type that gives me more than a couple of tips of greater length than a haiku. On the other hand, if you really feel compelled to answer, please don’t, that’s because this topic matters more to you than it does to me.
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