(Originally posted on Monday, October 22, 2007)

I have a personal nemesis; someone for whom I have a deep and abiding loathing for. A Lex Luthor to my Superman. It’s not that I hate this person. I don’t hate them. I simply dislike them to such an extent that I would be hard pressed to say anything good about them. And I’m not alone. Many of the people we both know share a similar opinion. However, as much as I would enjoy seeing this person disappear from my life and never return, I’ve come to realize that he does have one positive effect on my life.

Motivation.

A single thought of facing him and dealing with him in the foreseeable future fills me with a drive to improve my self. For me that means furthering my education, training my body and honing my social/networking skills, finding the balance, the Zen, the zone, of who I am and who I can be and bringing that peace into my spiritual essence. He makes me want to be better.

So I can destroy him.

Ok….maybe destroy is too strong a word, but I do wish to beat him at his own game. And I’ve decided to make this desire my motivation to make positive changes in my life.Think of it as a healthy rivalry. That’s probably the closest approximation to what it is. The only difference being that I have no desire to be like him, and every desire to better than him. I have no desire to ruin his reputation (trust me he’s doing that to himself) and every dire to have mine foreshadow. I have no desire to kill his game, but every desire to isolate his moves. I don’t want to hang him out…but I have no problem braiding the rope that he’ll use to do himself in.
Once I reach the point where his machinations are empty, his ploys are useless, and his games, aimed at me, fall apart before they every begin, when I know that there is almost nothing he can do that can effect me or hurt my own plans, then I will be satisfied.

(Insert mad laughter here.)