Covert Contracts, Chocolate Cake and Ferris Bueller

Killing Resentment and Replacing it with Gratitude

I can be passionate, intense, opinionated, vulgar, standoffish and a condescending know-it-all. I can also be very laid-back, easy going, compassionate, charitable and grateful.

I am human.

I am complex.

I am not without fault.

I absolutely love this messy existence that we call life.

The Anger Phase

When life goes south and a woman (or lack thereof) is involved, it is easy and quite normal for a man to get into an anger phase. I'm not going to tell a guy not to be pissed; he has every right to be. It is very common for guys to have followed the script only to have the script completely ass rape them at some point. Infidelity, a dead bedroom, a miserable daily life, lack of sexual access are just some of the many reasons men become embittered and lash out, fairly or unfairly, towards women.

This is why this space exists in the fashion it does. It is here to help men when they are at, or close to, their lowest. It exists to help men help themselves, but that doesn't happen with rainbows and sunshine while a man is in his anger phase. In this instance, you will catch more flies with vinegar than you will with honey.

Covert Contracts

There is a lot of work that goes into a man pulling himself out of the shithole he finds himself in and part of that is eliminating Covert Contracts.

Covert Contracts are often misunderstood. Eliminating Covert Contracts aren't a way to acheive ultimate happiness, which is a Covert Contract in and of itself, or to turn it on another as some weird “gotcha” to manipulate another person into changing their behavior. Eliminating Covert Contracts is for you; it is a way to kill the resentment you built in your own head by placing an unspoken expectation on another. To use modern therapy speak, eliminating Covert Contracts are a way of finding inner peace— to stop drinking poison expecting other to die.

Pitfall of “Self-improvement”

If a man puts in the work to improve his lot in life while eliminating Covert Contracts in the process, they tend to move past the anger phase. His life improves and he begins to get what he wants. Unfortunately, putting in the work can itself become a trap.

Obsessively driven by achieving goals a man can become consumed by “progress’ bouncing from one goal to another never resting and finding no peace in life unless there is another hill to climb or dragon to slay.

This can lead to a different form of neuroticism. A sense of self worth that is solely dependent on conquering another challenge while completely forgetting to enjoy the fruits of one's labor. A man will hardwire his brain to constantly search for the next challenge even if it requires fabricating one out of thin air or regressing on a previously obtained goal just to do it all over again.

Life becomes not something to enjoy, but something to overcome. When this happens, you run into the same issue as having a boat load of Covert Contracts: You lose sight of gratitude.

Gratitude is important not because of some mandate from a higher power or a way to signal how fucking virtuous you are, but as a way to put things in perspective and curb neuroticism.

When you never appreciate what you have or what you have accomplished, your life is still a fucking mess; you've just become a much more efficient, competent and “successful” mess.

You'll never be satisfied.

You'll never be content.

You'll never find peace.

Chocolate Cake Gratitude

Admittedly, my mind goes down some bizarre fucking rabbit holes. In doing so however, I developed this trigger for gratitude many, many, many years ago.

I think of how many proto-humans got sick and died figuring out you could ferment cocoa fruit to make chocolate, all the wars fought over territory and trade, all the pieces that had to come together throughout history so all of our collective fat assess could walk into Walmart and buy a slice of chocolate cake.

If you really think about it, very few of us have any real legitimate reason to be discontent. We are so comfortable that we somehow found a way to have that kill us.

I'm not saying that being a useless lazy twat is ideal, but being hyper focused on progress and goals equally shoots past the Overton Window. Everything in life is about calibration and that includes taking a moment to reap the rewards of your success or just appreciate the fact that you've been blessed with this gift we call life. Despite what Jordan Peterson claims (as much as I enjoy some of his work), life is not suffering. At least not for the majority of us that live in developed nations. We could do better, but we could do a hell of a lot worse.

If you haven't seen it by now, Ferris Bueller's Day Off is a fun little movie that reminds us all to be a little less uptight, to find pleasure in everyday existence and find gratitude in the awesomeness that is life.

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it”.