Heavy pants could be heard from a mile a way.
It was 5:27 am; not too early by Perpy’s standards.
“I can’t do it anymore,” Mike complained as he crouched, putting is hands on the ground, “This is too much, can’t I have a break? Why not exercise like normal people in the evening? I think I’ll improve just the same that way.”
“Your body will improve either way for sure, but you’re missing the whole point,” Perpy shook his head.
“This way, I can’t even stay up late at night! No time for drinking anymore, and the buddies that I have left say that I’m the boring guy now.”
“You don’t get it, do you,” Perpy murmured, “At least, not yet.” But the words weren’t loud enough for his struggling friend to hear them.
He stared at the sky, and slightly shook his head as good ole Mike kept looking at his worn out shoes and heaving loudly.
I’m running out of patient, to be frank, He thought.
However, some old memories rushed back into his mind.
.
.
.
It was Perpy’s first day at local town’s gym. A lanky boy that believed for most of his life that school and books were all he needed to make something out of his life.
Huge men walked around the gym, paying him no attention. However, his eyes darted around the room as he fidgeted while sitting on the lat pulldown machine’s seat.
What if they’re secretly judging me? What if they’re laughing at me beneath those expressionless faces?
Whenever two people converse in a whispering voice that he couldn’t hear, he immediately assumed they were talking about him.
His hands shook as he grabbed the machine’s bar to start his exercise. He didn’t even notice that the weight was too light for him until halfway through the set.
However, he persevered.
Day after day, he kept going to the gym. He was still a bit paranoid at times, and too anxious even by his standards.
Yet, he persevered.
After a certain period of time, he no longer felt those emotions. Ironically, whenever he saw people speak, it was the last assumption on his mind to think that they were laughing at him.
In fact, some people even smiled and waved at him when he made eye contact with them.
It doesn’t matter whether they’re talking about me, or about themselves, or about how our current society is ruine, Perpy thought, For humans see what they believe, and that’s what I did.
In reality, what was happening around him didn’t change all that much; his perceptions did.
When he believe that he didn’t belong to the gym, he saw all kinds of indications to validate that assumption. Inversely, when he was rather comfortable there, he got indications that his presence was welcome.
Consequently, he got more energy, and he became a “gymbro” instead of “that-lanky-weirdo-who-goes-to-the-gym”. Going to the gym and exercising was now effortless to him, because it became him; he was no longer doing an act.
A couple of years went by, and Perpy decided it was time he worked on his social skills once and for all.
“H..H..hi, mister,” Perpy mustered up all his courage and waved at an old man passing by, “how’s your day?”
The old man didn’t even look at his direction, and kept going.
Damn, maybe this isn’t for me after all, he thought, I can attract girls somewhat now that my physique is good, and talking to folks that I’m comfortable with is easy.
“Hello, aunty,” he smiled at a middle-aged woman, “what time is it?”
“Ugghh, I don’t know,” she said as she furrowed he eyebrows and increased her pace. She didn’t even look him in the eye.
She held her smartphone in her hands, and she had a watch on her wrist.
Perpy figured that it was the methodology of his approach that was flawed to begin with. He didn’t have the energy of someone likely to talk to strangers, as such, it came of as weird, creepy, and out-of-character when he did so.
He was socially-uncalibrated. At times he could talk to strangers quite easily, when his inhibitions were gone thanks to alcohol, being surrounded by friends or being in a concert.
However, he couldn’t do it on command; he needed momentum.
Why am I even bothering with this, the effort I’m expending in this could be better used somewhere else with better returns, and I’ve never been a social butterfly anyway.
His brain was telling him that the progress he made so far was enough, and it was partially correct. However, now that he knew of the possibilities, he couldn’t live in ignorance.
He took a couple of days of rest, and made a real action plan instead of randomly fucking around. Perpy needed to break the confines that kept him from working on his social skills.
In his old town, he wasn’t the most popular guy for sure, but many people knew him. So, he decided that for one summer break, he’ll travel thousands of kilometers away to a big city where no one knew him, and grind there.
At times, he felt anxious, and like he didn’t have anything to say. So, he made rudimentary plans for what to go over in the conversation.
His brain rationalized this whole ordeal as too focused on girls and that he should build-it-and-they’ll-come, so he didn’t discriminate and approached people of all varieties, having light-hearted small talk.
He eradicated all the excuses his brain had for him, and with meditation, no longer felt that strong urge not to go through this quest.
Day after day, people reacted embarassingly as if he was the most vile creature they’ve ever seen.
In spite of that, Perpy persevered.
One month in, people were indifferent to him, entertaining him when it was convenient and they had nothing better to do.
Not what I want to see, but progress is progress…
He persevered more.
Three months in, strangers smiled whenever they saw him, and more than half of them were excited to talk to him.
He was satisfited, but he persevered nonetheless. When he first started this, he decided that he’ll do it for the whole summer break, and he wouldn’t stop until the end.
As the last days of his social skills quest came to an end, people were more than happy to talk to him. Women pulled him back, grabbing his hands and suggesting insta-dates when he decided to leave because he genuinely had better things to do.
Old people went out of their way to give him value. Suggesting good eating places, beautiful parks, and some of them even suggested he get married to their daughters.
When he was younger, he would’ve killed for this type of reaction from people.
Now? Even though he enjoyed the light-hearted banter and the human contact, he didn’t want to talk to them more than necessary unless they had something to contribute; he genuinely had better things to do with his time.
He no longer felt other people to be above him with no basis. He didn’t pedestalize women because of their beauty or the attention they received.
He was the prize now. He’s always been, but he only realized it.
When he looked in the mirror, he saw that he had a slight grin unconsciously. He looked like someone you’d want to talk to in the middle of your day. Someone fun and high-value.
All of that difference because of my facial expression…
Yet he remembered, it’s always been like this. Humans see what they believe, and their beliefs shape reality.
A couple of months went by, and he decided to do his first cold approach with the intention of getting the girl’s number.
He spoke to women he didn’t know on the street before, and some of them even suggested they give him their phone number or go on dates with them, and he did witht he ones he liked.
However, at that time, he didn’t have that outcome in mind. Perpy was there only to have some small-talk then leave.
He took a deep breath, and walked ahead. He didn’t have any time to waste, as this woman was all he wanted in a girl, physically. And she was in a library reading a book, meaning she wasn’t an airhead either.
Could be a really good match for me, I hope this goes well…
He walked over, said hi, then asked for her opinion on which books he should read.
Asked her about the book she’s been reading, and it turned out that he’s read some of it before. They spoke about it for a bit, then he sat next to her.
At first, she was happy to talk to him, but her demeanor changed bit by bit. She started leaning back, then she crossed her arms, then she only diverted her attention from her book when he said something that truly interested her.
The approach was out of his control now, so he decided to shoot his shot. He said that he remembered he had something urgent to take care of, and that he’ll be pleased to keep in touch with her.
“Oh, I don’t have social media,” she said, “and something’s wrong with my phone, it can’t receive calls right now. You’ll find me in the library from time to time though, so there’s that.”
Her phone was beeping on the table as notifications trickled in when they talked, yet she claime she didn’t have social media and her phone didn’t work? Sure.
Rejected, move on… He thought.
As he excused himself and walked away, he remembered the interaction and thought about when it went wrong.
After contemplating for a while, he realized that the interaction was doomed from the start.
He invested way more than she did in the interaction, filling the pauses in speech and speaking again and again even when she was clearly more interested in whatever part of the book she’s been reading.
He leaned in, ever so slightly, and smiled like a food whenever she made eyecontact with him.
Perpy was only twenty-two and he wasn’t an expert in human interaction, yet. However, he still considered the way he behaved to be terrible, even by his standards.
He took a deep breath, meditated, then bought a journal from a library close-by.
He decided that as usual, the only way for him was perseverance, not matter what.
Perpy never got something of substance that he was proud of doing things that were easy and ‘enjoyable’.
Every cold approach he made, he wrote in detail in the journal. Highlighting what went well and what went wrong as objectively as he could. Sometimes he was too harsh on himself, and other times, he was too lenient.
Overall, the journal proved to be useful, greatly.
He improved a lot, and a girl being his ‘physical type’ no longer caused him to pedestalize her, because in the end, looks no longer overstimulated him after getting exposed so much.
Instead, he listened well to what they said, hoping to be surprised by their words, or to hear something of value.
More often than not, beautiful girls were boring. Same old things; gossip, make-up, pop artists, and which girls stole which boyfriend from the other girly. Sometimes, a girl surprised him and managed to keep his attention longer than the other ones, but the pedestal no longer existed for perpy.
Yet, he persevered.
After so many tries, he struggled to feign interest unless he was truly captivated, and even then, he was still ready to leave at the slightest sign of a tease,a friendzone or a girl stringing him along not-willing to give him a chance at all.
Sure, he could turn those situations around with a bit of effort, but to the current him, no girl deserved he court her to the point where he’d lose his self-respect.
Still, he persevered.
A year in, and with the help of meditation and his journal, he no longer got rejected.
He knew from the start which girls would reject him; less than thirty percent. And the ones who didn’t reject him were so happy to talk to him that they’d willingly follow him home if he was adamant on living.
It was unbelievable, even to him, but it was what it was.
A couple of years went by, and he had more important things to do than chase poon and talk to strangers on the street.
He had a mission, and he spent all his time to get closed to his goal.
He started his first company, with the goal of solving a certain category of people’s problem.
However, it failed.
He tried again, and he failed.
Perpy persevered nonetheless.
And, he failed.
So many times, he failed.
It was the hardest perseverance in his life, because everything was going well according to what Perpy knew, yet it wasn’t working.
He realized it. This meant that his knowledge of businesses was flawed, and he need to have better frameworks to follow.
Perpy looked around for the best books on the subjects, and bought them all. He made a schedule on which ones to read first, and planned on summarizing each one upon finishing it.
He read the first book, a very popular one that people thought highly of.
However, he retained next to nothing of it.
Distraught with his short attention span, he tried reading slowed and highlighting passages that were most important.
He read that book again, and his comprehension of it was better.
Perpy tried listenting to the audiobook at the same time as he read the ebook, and to imagine the content as he read/listened to it.
He persevered. Perpy did all he could, leaving nothing to chance.
Bit by bit, he understood books and learned from them. He summarized each one and recorded himself as he tried to recite the most important ideas of the book from memory.
Perpy persevered.
After a while, he finished all the books on running a business, and bought all the books on sales.
He finished them all, and bought more and more books.
For a whole year, he devoured all the knowledge he could find. His perseverance was through the roof.
His acquaintances were puzzled as to why he changed his lifestyle so much, not leaving the house only to go walk his dogs, buy groceries, do some cardio, and go to the gym.
“Maaaan, when did you become such a bore? Why not hit the bars with us? I’m sure some latina will fix you up real good,” One of his friends called, thinking that Perpy was depressed. All the people that knew him thought the failures of his companies put him in a bad mood, and they insisted he go out even when he comforted them about his mental health.
Some of them even cut ties with him; they only saw him as someone who got them access to cool places and great opportunities, and that was no longer possible when he stayed at home all day.
Nonetheless, he persevered.
Perpy didn’t know when it happened, but it did. He could read so fast, and with almost perfect retention. To the point that he could finish three books a day if he wanted to.
The problem was, he had nothing to read!
He read all the books he ever thought of reading, even classic novels and religious texts.
He felt like he was a completely different person, and he was.
For the first time in six months, he called the closest of his friends.
“We’re starting a new business; I got this,” he assured them, but they weren’t positive of his ideas’ success.
They assumed he was only saying so because staying at home for so long bored him to the point he wanted to waste the savings he had left on some random business idea.
“Don’t get me wrong, Perpy. You’re a smart guy, and a wonderful person, but an entrepreneur, you’re not!” a dear friend of his suggested, “How about you go back to medical school, finish your degree and start your practice? You’ll make for a great doctor.”
“Yeah, I’m not an entrepreneur,” Perpy shook his head as he feigned sadness, “I’m the entrepreneur, and you’ll understand it when you see it haaha!”
Everyone thought Perpy went nuts, but they followed him along nonetheless.
He built a business, and a year in, it was making millions of dollars a month.
Everyone was shocked.
They weren’t sure whether it was a dream or reality, only that Perpy was the one who did it.
“How?” They all asked.
“Perseverance, it is,” Perpy nodded with a grin, “The only way to go from doing to becoming is to persevered, no matter the odds.”
.
.
.
He extended his hand towards Mike, and called out.
“You’ll be fine Mike,” he pulled him, helping him stand back up, “You just need to persevere a bit more, and you’ll get the hang of it.”
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