All or Nothing Syndrome

You know the difference between a racehorse and a pack mule? It's the same as the difference between a Lamborghini and a Kancil, the same difference between the tortoise and the hare: One performs at extraordinary levels for a short period of time, requiring maintenance and is hard to maintain the rest of the time; The other gets the job done quietly and steadily, requiring minimal looking-after.

Are you a racehorse or a pack mule?

Being a racehorse is pretty good. In a short while you become famous, people look up to your abilities, they gaze at you in awe, realising that even at their peak, they will never be anywhere close to you. The girls love you, the men want to be like you, the jealous ones try to break you down. It is all proof that you are superior, and you have a RIGHT to be.

You perform for only short bursts, accolades keep pouring in, you enjoy life and people even believe you are superior to them. They take your temper tantrums and accept your petty demands.

You become arrogant.

If the arrogance rises to the level of over-confidence, you crash. and you burn, badly. What's worse than being spoilt by fame? Being ignored after you're no longer famous. You realise that you don't even get BAD press. You're nobody. A washout. They don't put you to pasture; They drag you out to the backyard, shoot you in the head, and make dog food out of you.

As you're crashing and burning, you begin to see the pack mules in the audience. The slow and steady ones. They've never won any awards, they've never done anything exceptional, but how the fuck did they arrive at the same level as you?!? They've actually achieved things that you thought were beneath you, but are now so hard to touch that you cringe in mortification for envying them that small success.

It is but a matter of time. They understand their limits, broker their thoughts, and plod along, one step after another, until they've reached, if not the peak of Everest, then at least somewhere along the Himalayan Range, at the end of a (to you) endless amount of time. They never aspire to greatness, and are happy and content at every extra modicum of luxury they achieve. You? You've leaped over Everest, and in your overconfidence thought you could command the heavens. You fall, break your limbs, and are left broken in body and spirit in a dark, unknown valley, barely regarded by your former peers and handlers.

I want to be a racehorse with the consistency and ease of maintenance of a pack mule. It is not an unachievable dream. Imagine the greatness one could achieve, and the speed one could achieve it.....

In a world of functional Volkswagens and twitchy Lamborghinis, I want to be a Bugatti Veyron. Fastest time to maximum performance, GREATEST maximum performance, ability to sustain maximum performance easily and comfortably, and so great that possibly no one else is in the same league.

I will be a Veyron.