It’s Nothing Personal

I often hear smart people say “nothing personal” whenever they are beaten in a race. Or whenever they beat someone, whatever I don’t know how to phrase that right. What they have to know is that it is always personal. 

You just left a guy behind, made him see your bike wag graciously as you get farther and farther away from him on that climb and you would say it’s nothing personal.

Personally, I take everything personally. I deal with persons, compete against persons, it has to be personal. I even join competitions just to get personal. And most of the time I don’t know those people.

I don’t like losing either, that is why I rarely race. I am not just a loser. I have a first name: sore. Losing is for losers and I don’t like it.

For me the worst athletes are those secretly conceited athletes. They act like they are cool about losing or when they win they act like they care about losers. I am conceited myself but I am the type who wears my conceit like a neon shirt. I would even place my conceit on a Facebook banner.

What really matters is whether you are conceited or not. Honesty matters more. If you are conceited be open and be humble about it. To be likeable while being conceited, you must:

1. Not impose your “awesomeness” to other people. It’s one thing to post an awesome photo of yourself, it’s another to tag 80 of your friends in it (you don’t even know 78 of those people you’ve tagged because you only have two friends. And one of them is fake, the other one has no choice).

2. Help other people justify their conceit. Some people are just conceited but they got no game. You have to help them get game. Share your training techniques, your diet, and your love life. Who cares if they know how you train?

It’s okay if they do the same things you do as long as you keep doing it better. Share!

3. Do not filter your photos. This has nothing to do with being conceited. I just don’t like filtered photos because most of them are forced.

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The photos from this post are from our ride on 19 January 2013. Sunday. Helipad route in Talamban, Cebu City. We had a good time talking about how Mr. Bourne can kill 30 well-trained agents but cannot handle a rock garden. Chyrel does a better job than you, Mr. Boo.