Lawrence Mooney - Embracing Your Limitations: How to accept your inner loser and win at life

First published in 2022

Copyright Lawrence Mooney 2022

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

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ISBN 978 1 76106 823 2

eISBN 978 1 76118 531 1

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Cover design: Alex Ross Creative

Contents

Enough already with comedians writing books about when they used to be junkies and interesting, or how shit their upbringing was, or their travails in the industry. Who gives a fuck? Me, Im writing a book thats going to be valuable to you because itll make you laughyep, dont forget to do that, comediansand itll change your life.

Im trying to resist the term self-help here because its not self-helpits me-help. Me help you be happier. And its easy. Me Tarzan, you whatever you are. The reason I decided to write this book is because Ive consumed an inordinate amount of self-help content and it didnt help. Sure, I change for a day, I mouth some aphorisms and give change some lip service, then revert back to who I really am: a very angry, very funny, heavy-drinking bon vivant with a lust for life and a massive appetite for joy and fascinating people. I think boring is the worst thing somebody can be, and they are everywhere. Ive read all the self-help books and Ive decided to write my own and I reckon Ive nailed it.

Coming home from a comedy gig almost always entails flying, including the joy of the airport. Im an early airport arriver; I dont like feeling rushed as it puts me in a foul mood, then Im rude and then I spend the rest of the day replaying my rudeness in my head. Why did I have to say that? / I could have said that better / I could have been funnier / I could have been so much ruder and cruel / I should have been / Why are you like this? / Because youre a self-obsessed bastard and a bad person / Etc. So, its better to be early. Plus, being early provides you with the reward system of book buying at the airport Newslink before repairing to the lounge for a scotch and dry. I always fly after midday so I can avail myself of the lounge bar: a few mixed drinks and some exquisite nibbles. After one particular gig somewhere on the continent, I set about returning homeone would hardly call comedy a job, its a joy from start to finishand picked up at the Newslink the self-help book of the moment, the New York Times bestseller The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Mark Manson. (Note: its shit and I wouldnt bother if you havent yet.) It came out a year after the far superior The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a Fuck by Sarah Knight, a comedy parody of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by the magnificent Marie Kondo. (Im also a clean freak and a control freak and so this circle of joy was infinite for me.)

So, I get home with the brash shitty-orange cover of Mansons bookgood surname, arseholeand my wife Lou Lou embraces and kisses me; she makes me feel like a million dollars every time she sees me and wants to know all the things Ive seen and done, and just hear about my adventures. She also spies the book. Lou Lou loves a book purchase; shes always excited for me to be reading. Ive said to her many times that Im buying more books than Ill ever read, and her response always is, Who cares, lets fill the house with bookstheyre beautiful. In fact, thats her response to life: to fill it up. I wont bang on about her too much because over-the-top spousal love is repulsive, but she is the sun at the centre of my solar system and in her glow I thrive. ENOUGH. (She really is tops, but dont take her for grantedshes gnarly, dude.)

Lou Lou grabs the book out of my hands and there is a distinct absence of her normal joy for books. She looks at me and says: this isnt for you, you dont need to read this shit, you already dont give a fuck. You are the person that gives the least fucks out of anybody I have ever met. You called the advertising guru and former partner of Nigella Lawson (who I adore), Charles Saatchi, a cunt on your own TV show on live national television, bringing down a world of opprobrium on yourself. You get into fights, youve had police attend our house to impound your car, you can survive on four hours sleep a night for up to five days: you dont care. If you see a stray dog you bring it home. You stopped and engaged a homeless man in a conversation for an hour and bought him a panini and coffee because he was outside San Lorenzo in Rome and you thought your guardian angel would insist. So you do give a fuck, but you dontyou know what I mean. Your comedy is the edgiest comedy of anybody doing comedy. You dont need this book. This book is for some other bloke your age whos been stuck in the same job since his early twenties and his life is a predictable merry-go-round of worry, disappointment, minor joys and repetition. In fact, you dont need any self-help books. The Power of Now? Youre the most impulsive person Ive ever metyou are now. The Courage to be Disliked? You love being disliked, its your fetish. You should write your own self-help book. What was that idea you told me about ages ago?

And so it was that I pulled up my various Word docs on Embracing Your Limitations and started reading, and you know what? It was funny and it was smart and it made sense. Sure, when I first wrote these bits and pieces and thought of it as perhaps one day being a book, I did so using a character named Dr Perry Semnler, who was an American demotivational speaker from Huntington Beach in California. But my publisher said non-fiction books written by invented characters are a marketing nightmare, so Dr Perry is dead. (Interesting factoid: the first time I ever performed as Dr Perry Semnler was in 1998 on a show called The Loft which aired on community television in Melbourne. The host of that show was Rove, who went on to be Rove. If youre not from Australia and this reference doesnt make any sense, just forget it, its not at all important.)

Anyway, the point of this introductory chapter is: go ahead and be ready to change the way you think about everything. Enjoy my book.

Once youve embraced your limitations (EYL) you will be free. No other New Age, self-help or religious philosophy can promise you that kind of reward immediately. IMMEDIATELYthats how quickly this can work for you. So why read the entirety of this book? Why not just grasp the concept early and move on? Because once youve started to embrace your limitations, you will want to continue down this easy path to enlightenment. (OH MY GOD I used the E word. No, not easyyes, enlightenment.) But you wont have to meditate, go on a diet, start burning incense or saluting the sun. What Im trying to tell you is: this is easy. Youll need no equipment, no groups or prayer or studying.