Don’t Be a Martyr!

by Rex Apollo

“Work hard and you will be rewarded,” my teachers always told me.  We are often told the more effort we put in, the more we will be rewarded. The more we sacrifice in the process of doing something, the more we will receive in exchange. In schools, this reality often proves true. The student that receives an A on their paper is the one who exceeded their teacher’s expectations.  They put in more work than their classmates. If putting in more effort in school gets higher grades, then one would think the same technique would work in other areas of our lives, but is this really true?

In virtually every organization I have worked for, the idea that one gets rewarded for working more than the others is invoked to motivate employees. While it is not always explicitly stated, those at the top know that people have been socialized with the idea that the one who does more gets more treats. It is a social convention designed to get people to give everything to a job, a cause, or a relationship.

One who gives everything to their job is not just a worker, but a martyr. While some martyrs may get an occasional treat, giving everything to something does not mean you will get an equal amount in exchange. If that were true, then every worker bee would be a millionaire. From my observations, martyrs are often not appreciated at all. The only martyr who seems to have been given his due was Jesus Christ, who got to have an entire religion in exchange for sacrificing his life.

Being a martyr in most cases does not make you better a person or more successful, only the sucker that got stuck with the short end of the stick. It probably means other people know how to take advantage of you and that you do not know how to assert yourself. You are like the slaves who built the Pyramids while the pharaoh got to sit back in his palace and drink wine. Ask yourself who is remembered today: the pharaoh or the slave? So remember, be smarter and not a martyr!  

Rex Apollo is the author of How to Spark Your Golden Age: Tips for Success sold on Amazon.

Did you like reading my article?  Then Like the Rex Apollo Facebook page and follow me on Twitter @sparkgoldenage. Please feel free to leave a comment.

Just as great civilizations can have Golden Ages, so can you!   

Avoiding the Rock

by Rex Apollo

Life is like a river. Not just any river mind you, but one full of rocks to avoid bumping into. Whenever we face the river, we strive not to hit the rock, which could capsize our canoe and have even more dire consequences for us.  No matter how many times you have navigated the river, others around you will expect you to do so successfully again. People do not remember that we nailed it 99 times out of 100.  They can only recall the one time we hit the rock.

While it does not seem fair, we are always judged more by our mistakes than our successes. It is expected that we will succeed. People are thus seldom given credit for it. However, when we make a mistake, everyone remembers. It is as if no one can stop talking about it.

I recall a time in high school when I hit the rock. It involved a ski race in Jackson, New Hampshire. In cross country ski racing, people start races at intervals since the tracks are not large enough for the entire field to begin all at once. My father handed me my number and I placed over my race uniform.  However, later, my father mentioned that it was too hot to wear my undershirt under my race uniform and told to take it off.  I took my father’s advice to heart and complied with his directive. A while later, I walked down to the start of the race a good quarter mile away. Two minutes before my race time, I took off my jacket only to discover to my horror that I had forgotten to put on my race number again. My father told me it was not worth going back to his truck to get it. On the long two-hour ride back to Vermont, he hardly spoke to me. It was to such a degree that his disappointment seemed part of the air I breathed. 

For the rest of the season, all anyone in the ski community brought up in conversation was my missed start. They did not seem cognizant of my countless other on-time starts in my racing career. The one error loomed larger for everyone and hurt my reputation as a serious skier.

People are always searching for chink in the armor. They are far interested in that than the area where it is two inches thick. Our mission is to identify our chink and work on strengthening it. You will not be judged for your virtues but your faults. So whatever haunts you, take action today and iron out your chinks before someone exploits them.

Rex Apollo is the author of How to Spark Your Golden Age: Tips for Success sold on Amazon.

Did you like reading my article?  Then Like the Rex Apollo Facebook page and follow me on Twitter @sparkgoldenage. Please feel free to leave a comment.

Just as great civilizations can have Golden Ages, so can you!   

Book Review

My book was recently reviewed the Club Bohemia newsletter. Here is the link https://clubbohemianews.blogspot.com/

Here is the text of the review by Joe Viglione

A terrific cover photograph and key words in the title set the tone for Rex Apollo’s personal tips for success. Built more as an autobiographical guide towards positive thinking rather than taking on the masters – Florence Scovel Shin, Neville Goddard, Joseph Smith, Napolean Hill, Reverend Ike and others in the “new-thought” movement – Rex Apollo forges ahead to find his own niche, a bit of a shake-up on the tried and true. It’s kind of hard to call the progressive self-help movement “new-thought” as these ideas are based on the teachings of Jesus – a time period over 2,000 years ago, but we could get really deep digressing on the evolution of mystical thinking so let’s assess the content.
Rex Apollo actually doesn’t follow that traditional path, though people who dwell in that arena will immediately get the impression that he does. As stated, it is the personal reflections of a writer in his mid-thirties telling of his ups and downs, and putting a focus on the ups and how to keep on the bright side. On page 82 he says “Our entire life is a game,” which mirrors the title of Scovel-Shinn’s book: The Game of Life and How to Play It (1925,) Rex’s thoughts coming almost a century later.  The author also taps into Claude Bristol’s The Magic of Believing without seemingly ever having encountered the famous writer – said to be a student of Neville Goddard’s.  Bristol was a businessman, a police reporter, a journalist – among other titles – and studied a multitude of belief systems before writing his two classics. Where Bristol collected information and formed conclusions, Apollo’s data is empirical, based on his own life experience and ideas.
    I find it fascinating that someone not steeped in “the movement” writes so eloquently from that perspective, and his title about “sparking” your “golden age” is a new approach to what are now ancient themes. His life experience noting that you can spark, initiate, engage a period that is more fulfilling and beneficial than down periods you may have experienced. And he labels ‘the good times” as a golden age. 

    The term “golden age” is what we apply to films like Gone with the Wind, The Bride of Frankenstein, Casablanca, etc, or catalogs of music – The Rolling Stones, for example, from their Beggars Banquet up to Goat’s Head Soup, or the Beatles from Rubber Soul to everything before and after:  that magical time, a moment, when musicians, filmmakers, sculptors, cooks find the vibrations all spot on; on target for those particular events that the world signifies as remarkable.   Rex Apollo is basically telling you that everyone can find or “spark” a “golden age” of their own, that sweet spot when everything flows your way, naturally and with much good energy.
    The verve and vivacity you seek Apollo believes you can have, as do Shinn and Bristol referenced above, individuals who did so ten decades or so before.  
    What is also intriguing is that  Apollo tucks it all into 99 pages.  From a compelling cover title and photo that says it all, to a succinct look through his own life, and the instructions he offers about finding and maintaining the place where you want to be – take them or leave them.  The shortness of the tome – which you might think is an oxymoron, but it’s not in this context (a tome being a large and scholarly book; I believe the largeness is in the ideas reduced – not to Cliff Notes – but easy handling,) gives the work greater impact.  Shinn’s published works are even shorter, and that the author goes there without knowing her is another identifier for the “new thought” crowd to possibly consider giving Rex Apollo, the new kid on the block, their ear.
     It’s not what you expect.  It is a different kind of writing about positive energy coming from the author’s point of view.  You don’t have to take the advice, but if his journey inspires you to seek your own way through time and space, it’s done its job.