Introducing a new member of the team:
This entertaining article was written by James Peach, the latest member of the Esc team – offering interesting insights into what Esc means to him, and how he reckons you can all become your own Premiership footballers.
Peachy is himself a true escapee, having swapped RBS to train as a professional actor (and occasionally to help Esc out). You can email him on james@escthecity.com
How to become a premiership footballer
I want to be a premiership footballer.
Desperately.
I want to be worshipped by stadiums full of fans, drive cars with 6 gears, sign countless autographs, attract silicon-e
nhanced women, have Cheryl Cole in my phonebook (not Ashley), have ‘Heat’ magazine photograph me posing in my pants. But most of all I want total adoration for being a master in a sport that I love.
The reality is somewhat different. No one worships me but my mum and even that is fading, my bike doesn’t even boast 6 gears, the only pictures of me in my pants were taken on a self-timer, and the only people who ask me to sign autographs are Parcel Force. But above all, I am just not that good at football.
I am not alone in this wish. According to last months Careers Advisory Service survey an overwhelming majority of men in the UK feel the same. Why is this?
We want to know what it feels like to wake each morning and know that today we will be paid an (enormous) wage for something we could be doing in the park with friends if we hadn’t taken this path. We want to understand how it must feel to devote a life to an occupation that is pleasure not grind, enjoyment not strife, adoration not unappreciation, a boyhood dream realised, to feel that you are really living a life that makes you feel alive.
In the immortal words from James Bond, ‘What is the point of living if you can’t feel alive?’
Why can’t we all be premiership footballers? Why can’t we find a life that gives us all this and more? Surely we can all realise this state of living without having to marry a Spice Girl?
Escape the City sums up this whole ideal. To move up, down or sideways to a career path that is not only a love and passion but it is realising a dream.
‘Someday’ is a disease
The ridiculous part is that the only thing holding us back from being our own Premiership footballer is fear of the unknown. In life comfort can so quickly become restricting (M&S underpants taught me this). Resistance to change is a huge barrier to career and life progression. Escape the City is a means to leap this barrier by providing ideas, information and evidence of those who have lit the way. Esc hopes to inspire people and give them the confidence to take the first steps in taking ownership of their careers and above all the stimulation to start realising dreams.
If you like the idea of being a Premiership footballer then start thinking about what you really want out of life and what you most want to do with the rest of your time on earth. Then begin taking the first steps.
Of course we aren’t always able to achieve our wildest dreams. I may never become a Brazilian bikini contest judge but I will certainly dream about it and maybe tomorrow I will start learning Portuguese just in case.
Thinking big enables you to advance in the right direction. We are not talking major decisions, just small changes that put you on the right track. So make a tiny change today and be someone who understands the privilege of life and the need to fulfil it.
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