So don't even try
I know that's not what the infommercials
and self-help seminars tell you
But f**k it..
They are wrong.
I think the big mistake that most people make
is that they assume that there's this
cosmic
pretedermined
purpose
that is out there
We're constantly surrounded by devices
that are always catering
to our whimps
and everything that we're feeling at any moment
and in a consumer culture
The advertising.. Everything is..
Everything that we're presented with is
presented in such a way that..
It's gonna fix something
It's gonna make us feel better
that we're important,
we're special
our dreams deserve to be achieved
and I don't think any of those things
are necessarily true.
Nor should they be.
It's important
when people get kinda sucked into this,
they start feeling as
they deserve all of these things
they're hearing all the time.
Without necessarily
putting in the work or going through the pain
and struggle that is necessary.
Self-help improvement junkies feel like they need to jump on
every new seminar
read all the latest books.
Listen to all of the podcasts
Lift all the weight
Hire all the "life coaches"
For the self-help junkie
the purpose of self-improvement
is not the improvement itself
Rather it's motivated by a subtle form of F.O.M.O
or a FEAR of missing out.
The junkie has this constant 9 to 5 feeling
that there's still some magic tip
or technique or a piece of information out there
that will create their next big breakthrough.
The self-help junkie
may get to experience
the feeling of growth,
transcendence, improvement
expanding consciousness - over and over again.
But just because you feel like you move forward
doesn't mean you actually do.
And self improvement is therefore
in a weird way
ultimately, SELF-DEFEATING.
The only way one
can trully achieve one's potential
to become fully fulfilled
or to become self-actualized
whatever the f**k that means
is to stop trying to be all of those things.
A lot of times we use our
our dreams and our fantasies
as a way of kind of escaping
what we're dealing with right now.
And I think the other thing
about dreams
is that it's actually very hard for us
to know exactly what we want
So it's easy for people to dream..
and envision like some big success.
You know, we all sit around
and have these big visions for ourselves.
That feels good.
That's great.
The problem is that
what actually produces success
is our ability to enjoy
the struggle involved in it.
It's fun to fantasise
but I think it's also important
to just be honest about what dreams are.
They're fantasies.
They're fun.
But a lof of them are motivated
or they can easily be motivated by the wrong reasons.
Most of us we go through life
fantasizing about all of this amazing stuff that's gonna happen to us.
And we're taught to always chase those dreams
chase that big
great moment
And I think that's a little unrealistic
because success comes from
HARD WORK
It comes from dealing with pain and struggle
So we need to actually choose the struggles
that we enjoy, we need to choose the pain
that we enjoy enduring
Growth is not getting rid of problems.
It's simply
getting better problems.
You never get to this point where you don't have problems in your life
You just trade in
your problems for slightly better problems
Like, that's what basically growth is
The key to living a good life isn't getting rid of struggle
It's finding good struggles
Struggles that invigorate you
Struggles that... feel important to you
Struggles that can contribute to the people around you
It's a never ending thing.