Things No One Else Can Teach Us
Create your own silver linings. SHIFT YOUR PERSPECTIVE. CHANGE YOUR LIFE. Setbacks, disappointments, failures can incapacitate anyone. But they don’t have to. Spoken word artist, rapper, and international bestselling author of Unlearn, Humble the Poet, shares raw and honest stories from his own life – from his rocky start becoming a rapper, nearly going broke to being the victim of racial prejudice – to reveal how a change in mindset can radically alter our outlook. Simple yet profound, Things No One Else Can Teach Us show how our hardest moments can help us flourish, but only if we recognize and seize the opportunity.
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HQ
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First published in Great Britain by
HQ, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019
First published in the United States by HarperOne, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007.
Copyright © Humble the Poet 2019
Humble the Poet asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy for this book is available from the British Library.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins
Source ISBN: 9780008359652
Ebook Edition © 2019 ISBN: 9780008359669
Version: 2019-09-12
CONTENTS
Copyright
Introduction
FORTUNATELY/UNFORTUNATELY, NOTHING LASTS FOREVER
Open
1. Everything Is Temporary, so Appreciate Those You Have While You Have Them
2. Patience Is Making Time Your BFF
3. You Are Going to Die, and Remembering That Can Be a Good Thing
4. Don’t Cry Because It’s Over, Smile Because It Happened
Close
KNOWING YOURSELF MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE
Open
5. We Can Survive a Lot
6. Service to Others Is Also a Great Service to Ourselves (Sewa)
7. When We Know Our Why, Our How Gets Easier
8. We Gotta Pay Tuition for Life Lessons
Close
DON’T FOCUS ON THE POT OF GOLD, ENJOY THE RAINBOW
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9. Focus on the Fun, and Everything Else Will Fall into Place (and If It Doesn’t, at Least You’re Having Fun)
10. The Pot of Gold Rarely Makes the Journey Worth It
11. Give Yourself Permission to Dance on Different Rainbows
12. We All Have Different Rainbows
13. Often, There Is No End to the Rainbow
Close
ZOOM OUT
Open
14. Try to Relate to the Bad Guys in Your Story
15. Chapters End, but Our Story as a Whole Keeps Evolving
16. Judge Less, Understand More
17. You Aren’t That Special, Embrace It
18. We Don’t Own a Crystal Ball, so Stop Assuming the Future
19. Are You Being Pushed by Fear, or Pulled by Love?
Close
ZOOM IN
Open
20. Life Isn’t Black and White, There’s Plenty of Gray in Between
21. Don’t Be So Hyperbolic (That’s a Big Word for Dramatic)
22. Detach Your Self-Worth from Your Choices
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LIMIT YOUR SELF-PITY
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23. Caution: Social Media Is a Playground for Self-Pity
24. Self-Pity Is Easy and Convenient like Fast Food (and Just as Unhealthy)
25. We Don’t Scream “Why Me?!” During the Good Times, so Don’t Scream It During the Bad
26. Turn Rejection into Invitation
27. Self-Pity Feeds Our Insecurities (and That Leaves Us Bitter and Angry)
28. Getting Offended Is a Form of Self-Pity
Close
THERE’S NO WIN OR LOSE, THERE’S ONLY WIN OR LEARN
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29. Stop Calling Them Failures, Start Calling Them Teachers
30. Not Everyone We Lose Is a Loss
31. We Can Lose More Trying to Win
32. Freedom Is Having Nothing to Lose
33. There Are No Time Machines, so Fix It Next Time
Close
Outro
Footnotes
Acknowledgments
Also by Humble the Poet
About the Publisher
In 1998 Snoop Dogg released his third album, Da Game Is to Be Sold, Not to Be Told, and I remember seeing the ridiculously blinged-out album cover and thinking to myself, “What does that mean? Why can’t you just tell me Da Game? Why do I have to buy it?”
I’ve always loved hip hop, and as a youngster, I soaked in as much of it as I could, reading the lyrics and jumping on internet forums to share my thoughts and immerse myself in those of other aficionados. Those early years made me realize how amazing writers and hip hop artists were. I knew then if I wanted to explore my talents as a writer, it needed to be through rap.
So I spent the first years of adulthood writing my own hip hop songs, giving myself the name Poet to make me sound smarter, classier, and more acceptable. As the journey of sharing my work with the world began, my written words began to connect much more than any song I recorded. That’s when I began to flirt with the idea of becoming a writer, well, a REAL writer.
I dreamed of the day I’d become a full-fledged real writer. You know, the type of writer who was published with a major publisher. The type of writer who spent most of his time traveling the world, having promiscuous sex, finding inspiration in cloud formations, and somehow interpreting all those experiences into words
