Choose Yourself

by James Altucher

When I was twelve years old I had one purpose in life—other than getting the girl in art group at summer camp to like me. I wanted to be a colonel. And not just any colonel; I wanted to be an honorary colonel in the Kentucky State Militia. Just like my hero, Colonel Sanders. I had to start off slow—Kentucky was the glamour state to be a colonel of. First I started off with Mississippi. I called the governor, Cliff Finch, and interviewed him, because for some reason that I still can’t figure out, he was running in the primaries for president against another former Southern governor and incumbent president, Jimmy Carter. Cliff Finch invited me down to Mississippi. His campaign and my dad split my air fare, about $60 each. It was the first time I had ever been in a plane and I was scared. When I landed everything looked the same but people talked differently. It was a weird feeling. As if I had landed in an alternative universe. The main things I remember from that trip were getting the certificate that made me an honorary colonel of the state (I better get an eighteen-gun salute the next time I fly there!), presenting to Governor Finch how he would win the “youth vote,” and a lot of people asking me what it was like to be Jewish. Then I wrote to the governor of Alabama and I told him my family was moving to Alabama, I had read everything about Alabama and I loved the state and now I wanted to be a colonel there. The governor sent back a huge certificate: James Altucher was n...