Do I look like a man of power? S3E19 — Fired up

Nick’s wearing a suit. Let’s kick it!

4 min readAug 14, 2021

I don’t like wearing suits or shirts. It’s the corporate world I deeply despise, and I am trying very hard to avoid and get rid off all of that my whole life. Let’s find out why..

It all starts with my father ..

He always had to wear suits, shirts and (bow-)ties for work. Well, and he worked 24/7 and had never really been at home. He had the weirdest working hours, sometimes he would go to work at 6 in the morning or come back home after 10pm. It was always really special when he was home for Christmas, and he has never been at home at Silvester or New Year’s Eve. Wait, that’s not true. He was at home one time over New Years, because he had serious health issues with his heart and couldn’t work back then. Yeah.

So you probably think, well, probably a busy and important man, he worked hard to pursue his dreams. Alternatively, provide the family money, wealth and love. Or some other wicked way of thinking that shows how your own ideas and thoughts about life really look like.

So does it matter to reveal what he was actually working? I don’t think so, as a child all it mattered was that he was never there when I needed him, when I would have needed his help or support. I found the father figure with my grandfather, otherwise that would have never been played out the way it did (A friend recently asked me why I was so close to my grandfather. I think that’s the reason why).

I changed my mind

I am going to tell you about his occupation. He learned to be a waiter and chef, and he was working in (kind of) fancy 4 or 5 star hotels. Yeah, totally glamorous, amazingly paid and family-friendly. I have to admit, I feel such a great innate hate towards the concept of fancy bars, restaurants and hotels, I despise people who visit and stay at these places and really do think that they’re something better.

Yeah, deep in my heart there is a punk in me, who loves equality and who despises elites. Kind of xD Maybe I just learned the worst traits from people my father had to deal with. I mean he never really talked. Like never, about anything. But I saw him sitting in the couch in his 2hour break at home, in a completely silent and darkened room obviously hating himself, his job and all the fucking stupid people he had to be nice to because it was his fucking job. I could throw up just thinking about it.

Note to myself: perhaps my passion for addressing unpleasant truths in groups stems from this. Because I love doing that and fucking up things. xD

Shirts, ties and suits

More than two years ago I bought two suits because I was going to start a job in one of these super-old-fashioned corporate companies. Funnily enough, I never really wore these suits at work, because coming to work with long pants and shirt was enough. Besides that, after 3 weeks I decided to walk away from this job because it made me hate myself so much. So this project ended after a total of 4 working weeks, and I have actually never touched the suits again. Amazing, ha?

So now, once again, I find myself in a super-corporate structure that doesn’t really allow me to unfold creatively, professionally and certainly not personally. It’s very frustrating, because I had different expectations. But since my last very corporate experience, I have grown in a way that allows me to separate these struggles with my innate wholesomeness, goodness and personality.

Back in the days I would have questioned myself, my person, my traits and simply everything that I can blame myself for. But in August 2021, I am better than that. I know I’m fine, I am doing a good or great job. Well, I am certainly not doing the worst job, and I am definitely not doing the greatest job. I guess I am just somewhere in between, which is fine. I obviously have big expectations to myself, but it’s okay not to meet them at certain times, or ever. You know what just popped in my mind? A really lovely quote from one of my mindfulness books:

Every day I remember being alive is enough. Enough.

What just happened?

I think I expressed my hate and despise against suit wearing people and the whole culture of it, followed by the need of hugging myself with a mindfulness quote. To embrace myself with self-assurance. Beautiful. What a treat and experience I just gave myself after watching a freaking New Girl episode. That’s why I am doing this :-)