About

“You can choose between being a victim of destiny or an adventurer who is fighting for something important.”

-The Alchemist

Feel like your life is pointless and you were born to do bigger and better things? 

Milk the Pigeon is about:

• Killing that “lost” feeling, once and for all
• Living a meaningful life
• Bold, ballsy living (it’s more fun, I promise)
• Creating something meaningful
• Doing the {Supposed} impossible

The Beginning of the End: A Story

In 2009 I graduated from a top US college with a bachelor’s degree in biology, and couldn’t get a job in my field.

No, in fact, I couldn’t find a job at all, so I took the first thing that I could find.

The pay was great, the hours were even more awesome, but by the end of my first year working there I felt like my life was pointless. I had all the physical, material stuff, but life was just unfulfilling. It wasn’t what I wanted.

I had everything I was taught to want. Everything we’re told to go after.

But I wasn’t happy.  And what bothered me was that it wasn’t logical. I had everything I needed and even most of the stuff I wanted.

But still my day to day life felt pretty meaningless.  As time went on, I started going for long mindless drives in my car to keep my depressed head busy.

One day I decided this couldn’t go on for long and that it was becoming a little ridiculous.  It was my life, and I didn’t like it.

I thought, “What the hell?  I have the opportunity to do *anything* in the world and I’m sitting here being miserable?”

So I did what any logical person would do. I moved to China.

Living in China for a year gave me one crystal clear insight: the purpose of life is to live out your own meaningful story, and the only way you can achieve that is by carefully, deliberately crafting it. It won’t happen on its own.

Thus, upon my return to the United States in late 2011 Milk the Pigeon was born.

To milk the pigeon comes from an Old English phrase meaning “to do the impossible” (ever tried milking a pigeon? Yeah, don’t…).

Why? What’s the importance?

I’ve met a lot of people in my time and in my travels (i’ve traveled to over 40 countries and have lived on 3 continents), but have very rarely met people truly satisfied with life. Usually it’s their job, but often it’s a much deeper form of discontent. 

Being a disillusioned youth I thought: “What the hell? This is ridiculous, we’re living lives that we hate in some way!? Screw that… I’d rather live as a traveling hobo and ditch the real world.”  

What I later realized was that I already had most of the first four tiers of maslows hierarchy going. I wanted more from life (and was feeling discontent) because all my basic human needs were being met.

I needed life to be creative, spontaneous, exciting, meaningful and different for me to be fulfilled. The safe secure job was a TINY piece of the puzzle for my own life satisfaction.

I decided then and there that I would do whatever it takes to live the kind of life I didn’t see people living. A meaningful, deliberate, passionate, un-fucking-believably epic life.

That, by many, was perceived as an impossible task. Thus, my mission to milk pigeons.

Milk the Pigeon has three basic principles:

1. Live a meaningful life by writing the story you wish you could read.
2. Destroy the ordinary in your life and live boldly (in every way, shape, and form)
3. Create something extraordinary (your life, a biz, a mission or greater purpose)

Get Started Here:

1. Pick up a copy of my favorite book - The Alchemist
2. Read the 56 page manifesto Killing Your Old Life and Living the Dream,  which will help get you on the road to creating a life that is worth living
3. Read Milk the Pigeon’s rules for creating a conversation-worthy life
4. Read the 12 Commandments of the Revolution
5. Read this post: Young and Lost?  You Are Not Alone

A Milked Pigeon a Day Keeps the Doctor Away

More on Milk the Pigeon: To ”milk the pigeon” is a phrase that comes from an old dictionary in the early 19th century.  The approximate translation is “to endeavor at impossibilities”, which I think is more than symbolic regarding the audience of this blog. Most of us feel trapped into one thing or another – a major life path we’re forced to take, stuck in a crappy 9-5 that has no meaning or significance, or simply going through the motions in a life that has nothing inherently worthwhile about it.

As a result, I hope this blog will inspire people to quit living a life they hate – a life they view as meaningless and pointless – and start living their own personal dream, whatever that may be.

I hope as a community we can start a revolution of pigeon-milking, ass-kicking, inspiring sons of bitches who will truly change the way people view life and everything that comes with it.

Here’s to dreaming like a kid again, and seizing every damn thing you’ve ever wanted from life.

Alexander Heyne

@Milkthepigeon

Alexander / at / Milkthepigeon.com

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