“My whole life I have had this enormous drive to go out there and make my own path. I don’t know where it came from in the first place, but I have always had that, even as a small boy.”
Stay Positive Despite the Hard Times
I grew up in a small village in Eastern Finland. The village was group of island, and that area is called “the national landscape”. Indeed, it is a beautiful place. Rugged hills after one another, narrow sand road, no streetlights and everything is surrounded by that big lake called Pielinen. For little boy it was inspiring environment to grow up what comes to landscapes. There was, however, another thing. Everyone was somehow gloomy, even a bit older kids and adults. Everyone around me had that only one mentality. Work your ass off, keep your head low and don’t stand from the crowd. I heard that kind of thing said hundreds of times, probably few thousand times over the years. I bought that work your ass off attitude, but some how rest of the advice sounded dumb as a flip flop to me. When I went to school at the age of six, the hard attempt of punching the fear of mistakes was daily basis operation run by our teacher. School years were terrible times with all the violence I had go through. But here’s the thing. After the shock was gone and realization kicked in that I just had to keep on hanging on as there wasn’t any option, it freed me to learn things outside the box and start to do my own things. As soon as I learned to read and write I started to read lots of stuff. Within a couple of years my reading style made it possible to read one big world history series book twice within one week. The library van guy didn’t allow me to borrow more than one book per week as he didn’t believe I could read so much. “What stupid man”, I was thinking and went to read the book twice. I learned to turn the negative stuff into positive powerhouse to energize me and keep me going further.
Sculpturing the Body and Mind
All the physical abuse I turned into sports. I ran, did cross country skiing in the winter months, swam, rowed the boat, and played football during the summer months. Instead of feeling sorry for myself, I started my mission to become smarter than that damn school could ever teach me. Another big thing was the physical side. Until last year in elementary school, I just wanted to be the fastest runner and the fastest in cross country skiing. Then I got bitten by the bodybuilding and powerlifting bug. Within two years, I grew from a skinny 60 kg kid who you could hardly see behind the electric pole to a 74 kg teenage powerlifter. After the first year, my hunger grew so much for more, I was lifting weights four times per week, running, stretching, and cycling. I bought all the possible muscle magazines, especially Joe Weider’s magazines, with my pocket money. I remember a funny memory when I was in junior high school and the school nurse invited me to see her. I didn’t have any idea why I was called in, but I went there. I knocked on the nurse’s door and she said to come in. As soon as I opened the door, I was greeted by the school nurse with a deadly serious face. She said, “Jyrki, sit down, we need to talk seriously.” I sat down with a puzzled mind. Then the nurse started speaking. “Jyrki, I’m very worried about your weight. You are only five centimeters taller now than the previous semester, but you have gained 14 kg more weight.” She was dead serious and said everything like I would have been terribly ill. What did I do? I burst into laughter like hell. Now she was also pissed off alongside being worried about my health. When I managed to speak through my laughter, I tried to explain as best as I could that I have developed a lot of muscles due to lifting weights. To my surprise, my speech didn’t sink in, and the nurse stayed worried plus pissed off that I had the nerve to laugh at her. All those doubters and bullshitters at school and elsewhere had a double-edged effect on me. On the one hand, all the bad talks, especially those made behind my back, felt like knife stabs, but on the other hand, I managed to use all that negative, dark energy thrown by other people as motivation and a power plant kind of energy to work even harder. I used the hate feelings I had towards all those undermining, little thinking bad mouths to my advantage. I turned it all into positive power. It helped me to keep on going, developing, and doing my own thing.
That’s what you need to do in life. There are always plenty of people with whatever issues and reasons trying to undermine and bullshit you. I guess it is the nature of some folks whose self-esteem doesn’t have enough to do their own thing and pursue something meaningful in their lives. You have to lift yourself up above all that nonsense and do your thing. You have your own life, which is unique, and there’s no time to waste. Just go for it and keep doing your thing, whatever your goal is. Do you want to get inspired more and get content which helps you to keep on going no matter what kind of hard time you are facing, go push that subscribe button. If you need more help and advice, do not hesitate to reach me out.