Member-only story
Internal Success Before External Success
I had to go to the other side of the world to learn it. Everyone else, read on.
A man runs into a bar and frantically motions toward the beer tap and says “Quick! Before it starts!”
The bartender, confused, gives the man a beer, which he quickly downs. He again points urgently toward the tap and repeats, “Quick! Before it starts!”, and the bartender gives him another.
When he finishes that, he says a third time, “Quick Before it starts!”, but the bartender had had enough.
He says to the man, “Before what starts?? But first though, are you going to pay for all these beers buddy?”
And the man looks up at the bartender dejectedly and says, “It starts.”
This was a joke told to me 21 years ago, by a Russian guy in an Irish bar in Japan. I remember it because of that weird context, and also because the Russian guy was my enemy.
That sounds made-up. But the details are true, except maybe the part about the guy being Russian (he might have been Ukrainian), and of him being my enemy (he was more like a rival).