Building bridges, like most trades, is often times something that gets passed down from generation to generation. It was probably your father or mother that thought to you the importance of laying good foundations, how to support a bridge structure so it doesn't collapse over time and how not to light the damn thing on fire and leave it burning in your wake.

If you're not aware of these things yet, I always blame the parents for that, you're probably in trouble already. Fear not, you may still be able to save yourself with some hefty donations to the "Help Tsu afford stuffz" charitable donation fund and taking a quick crash course of Building Bridges 101 and Building Bridges 102 to get the ball rolling. 

Please remember I'm not a miracle worker... so there's only so much even I can do and at some point, you're on your own here. 

So..

• We know we can't go it alone.
• We know we need help.
• We know we need to reach out and talk to people.
• We know we need to build close personal ties with an inner circle we can depend on and trust.
• We know we need to scale up our reach to build knowledge and awareness among larger numbers well beyond our inner circle.
• We know we need to look at the strengths and weaknesses of others, and ourselves, to better understand, compliment and mitigate them.
• We know we need to analyze those strengths and weaknesses to make more informed decisions on how to tackle the various situations we find ourselves in.
• We know we've various options when it comes to reaching out to others and we know we need to consider which route will be the right one for each situation.

Heh, and you thought you were just joining the mob. Nobody ever told you you'd need a damn PhD in psychology to do it well. We know there are all these things that we should be doing and we know that if we consistently do about 10% of them we'll be doing more than 90% of people manage to do. 

So knowing all the right things we need to try and do, and boy is it easier to talk about doing it than it is to actually do it, I come here today with a slightly different goal. Today we're not going to talk about any of the juicy good positive stuff. We're not going to talk about what makes you great and why the masses fall to the floor idolizing your brilliance. That stuff can get tiresome when you naturally end up comparing yourself to me and end up with that deflated sense of failing to live up to an idol.

Instead, we're going to look at one of the main mistakes that people make, again and again, on our shores.

We're not our parents

It seems pretty obvious, doesn't it?

Yet each and every day a large portion of this thing of ours seems to forget it or outright go out of their way to ignore it. 

This isn't focused on bloodline hunting or anything nefarious like that. It isn't just focused on carrying family grudges against others in this thing of ours. I mean this when I talk about each and every decision we make day to day and the interactions we have.

We're not our parents. We shouldn't follow each decision they made. We certainly shouldn't follow their choices of city, of leader or of family without taking a moment to pause for thought and considering "Is this the right decision for me?". We shouldn't seek out all of their friends and associates in place of building our own, or at the very least we shouldn't fail to supplement their ties with new ones of our own.

We shouldn't follow blindly in their footsteps without stopping for a second, thinking and saying to ourselves "Hmmmm, they probably made some mistakes along the way. If I follow their steps exactly maybe I'll end up making the same mistakes?". Nobody is perfect and if your parent just passed away you can be full sure they weren't, so don't simply follow their path blindly. Step back, look at all the options available and see which one provides you with the greatest benefits.

Sure, that will often lead you down a fairly similar path. It's not that it's bad to join up with bloodlines that your family has known for some time. It's simply a case of not doing it without considering what else you could do.

If there's a powerhouse family, city or tyrant that has killed a member of your family it's human nature for anger to take hold of us and want to seek revenge. However, we need to remember that this is business and not personal. There will be times that people in our line of work are killed for no personal malice and simply as a step in others moving up in this thing of ours. It's a harsh fact, but it's a fact.

So, instead of being blinded by rage, swearing revenge and dedicating a life to the sole goal of seeking revenge for our loved one... a revenge that could easily be stolen from you at any moment by someone else killing the perpetrator... we're far better off remembering we're not our parents, we have our own lives to live and setting our own goals and aims for that life. The person that killed your loved one, one you start speaking to them and getting to know them, could very well have had very good reasons for carrying out the actions they did and you simply weren't aware of the reason or the justification for it. By spreading our wings further, by learning from a mixture of different people with differing points of view and breaking the filter bubble of our own small circles by expanding it greatly with each generation we improve our knowledge, our abilities, and our potential exponentially with each generation. It's a no brainer really.

Sadly, it seldom happens. The same bloodlines join the same families and continue to make many of the same mistakes time and time again. Be it due to poor leadership, poor teaching or simply ignorance the same issues arise time and time again, each time completely unchecked.

Don't let this happen to you. If you're repeatedly dying. If you're falling for reasons that you can't grasp or don't understand... something has seriously gone wrong. Step back. Forget about where your parents stood and who they stood beside and make a decision on where you can learn the most, where you can see different points of view and where you can actually achieve your goals and your aims.

Taking this a step further, if you're one of those that has set out on a path fueled by revenge or seeking the death of an individual... cop the fuck on!

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that in a "Ohhh my god, please don't hurt me or my friends" type of way. That ain't me. I'm saying it in a "Have a real fucking strategy that isn't a stupid childhood wet dream. Where you actually have real aims, real goals and real plans to achieve them and not some arbitrary event like the death of an individual". You shouldn't be aiming to kill an individual and if you are you're fucked. Either you'll fail horribly at your goal, pretty likely once you're setting such poor goals to begin with which never bodes well, or you'll achieve it and have no idea what the fuck to do after it's done. Life is a journey, not a destination. We're like sharks, the minute we stop swimming we drown. A bird in the hand is worth... sorry, got carried away with the shitty clichés there for a second.

Have a goal that's about you, your family or your city. The minute you start setting goals about randomers you're in trouble. Even when you win, you're losing hard. A leader, and we all should be leaders regardless of the position we hold or the suit we wear, needs to know where they stand. They need to stand on their own and not simply be in someone else's shadow. Even if that's the shadow of a corpse, it's showing a lack of foresight or ambition that means they won't go any further in this thing of ours.

If you're lifes ambition revolves around someone other than yourself or your current leader, you need to stop and think. Are you a doormat or a matador? Are you a leader or a sheep? Have you a fucking plan or are you simply going to stop in your tracks and disappear into history like so many nobodies that came before you?   

If you're sitting there and your goal is to kill Bonkers... you're an idiot! You need a better goal and I'll safely say you'll need a better strategy if you've such a shit goal. Your goal needs to be bigger. It needs to go beyond an individual and focus on a result, not an event. It needs to be a goal that achieves your glory and not one that simply ends someone else's journey. Don't let the salt passed down to you from your parents lead you down the wrong path to find some french fries to put with it. Pick your own goals. Pick your own paths. Pick a goal and a future you can be proud of. 

Choose Life. Choose a goal. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big gun. Choose lots of bodyguards with good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest loansharking. Choose your friends. Choose raiding the Durdens. Choose wondering who the fuck you are on a Sunday morning or where the fuck you were on a Saturday night.

Choose your future, not your parents.

Choose life.

These are fine lessons, but they leave me wondering how many people are applying your teachings in life. Personally I don’t and with that I can confirm that not doing it for sure doesn’t build these bridges. For me that’s fine, because I’m not really in that business apart from wanting a healthy relation with my direct superiors.

But aside from that, I do enjoy these sessions as I find there’s truth in what you say. You share some key-aspects to success in this life. It’s advice that I think a lot of people here could use. In turn more people who would incorporate this advice in their lives is something this community could use. Not for creating bridges to maintain peace, but to build more meaningful and professional organisations, so that we collectively operate on a higher level, leading to a more rewarding experience.

I especially appreciate how you suggest young people ask themselves whether they should follow on the path of their parents or try a different route. Working together with those that your parents worked with is perhaps understandable, but it’s also limiting.

My family is never known for making friends, so for each descendant it’s been near impossible to join with a friendly face in this world. But that gave me and those who were before me a lot of good things. My father thought me a lot and I felt very knowledgeable, but joining the son of one of my father’s victims was a refreshing experience where bits of valuable knowledge and insights were added to what I already knew. Venturing outside your comfort-zone offers endless opportunities for growth and new relations.

On top of that, working with new people leads to the fact that everything you have or don’t have is the result of your work in this life and not the work of your father or mother. Because of that I agree with your ending words, ‘Choose life’. Picking your own life leads to a more immersive experiences compared to hitching a ride on the legacy of your ancestors.

I just hope more and more people will agree with that.

Rampage was sitting in his new office as he was trying to score some points throwing papers to the bin from distance. 1st shot and... in, 2nd... in it goes. Can he go for glory? Aaaand out. Oh well, he tried. 

He stood up and searched for some scotch on his cabinet but his curious eyes found some old paper. In it it was reported about some very interesting topic. He digged right in there. This was some good ass writing.

Going on and on, he couldnt help but feel more people had to read about this.

"Hey, Goethe . Come and take a look at this, you'll love it!"

And as he said that he took another glass and filled it. 

Goethe wandered in to Rampage 's office to see what all the fuss was about. On entering he noticed the pile of screwed up paper next to the bin.

Try not to overwork yourself with this new HQ boss, wouldn't want you getting sick from stress or anything.

Directing his attention back to the crumbling newspaper.

Did you seriously bring your stack of old papers with you from Petah 's HQ? I think you might have some kind of hoarding problem...

Anyway, let me take a look.

Reading through the paper Goethe was surprised at just insightful and relevant it was to the world around him. It reminded him of a few things his father had told him that perhaps he hadn't been putting in to practice as much as he should. Although he thought the author might be somewhat underestimating the power of revenge as a motivational force, at least if Goethe's grandfather was to be believed which was by no means certain.

Goethe also noted with a raised eyebrow the positive reference to the "new Godfather Disorder". You didn't often see or hear anything positive about that man these days. Interesting to see what people thought about him when he was getting his start as a Godfather. 

Definitely a good read boss, perhaps all these old papers still have some use after all.