Ambition

I am not going to be a brain surgeon. Maybe it's because I didn't really like biology at school, maybe it's because I don't like bodily 'goo' and that I have the hand-eye coordination of a Parkinson's patient riding a bucking bronco?

Anyway. An operating theatre is not going to be my workplace.

You can have a lot of talents, a lot of skills. Climbing up difficult rock surfaces, talking people from jumping off bridges or flying people to Magaluf to get drunk and be sick somewhere warmer than normal. It all takes dedication and, as we all know, dedication is what you need, if you want to be a record breaker.

We don't all need to be record breakers, but you should have an aim in life. Even if that aim in life is to be slightly less fat than you are right now, you should have it. Without aims, what are you? You're a drifting dead satellite orbiting a universe full of disappointment. You're a dead labrador puppy enjoying the confines of that sack at the bottom of the canal.

Like Nutbush City, all people have limits. What they shouldn't do, is assume they know them yet. Most people are like an untested, glued joint. You assume there's strength there, but you're too afraid to test it. Go on, test it. What's the worst that can happen? Your No More Nails gives up the ghost and a dado rail needs resetting? Man has boarded the moon, walked over the highest mountains and sailed around the World unaided, and you're afraid of trying a recipe from a Gordon Ramsey book.

Cop out if you want. Live by a routine, never test yourself, let life drive you along until that day you go to work in a box and and people sing to you as you're wheeled into a rather large wood burner, never to risk anything again. That's easy.

Have amibition, and make sure you achieve it. If that ambition is to become a baby factory and spend your days breast feeding, and you do it, that's success. If your ambition is to rule the world, do it. Be happy when you get there and if you haven't got there yet, keep trying.

Whatever you do, don't live without ambition.

This one is dedicated to someone living across some water, a whole lot happier than they were being bullied closer to home.