The choices we make influence who we become and so,
once you realise that then you stop focusing on who you think you are and you start focusing on
the choices you can make and who you can become. And that then puts the responsibility on you for
who you are, rather than on something else.
I think the idea of finding yourself is a really bad idea.
Now, you find information. Right now we're all limited based
on what we're exposed to. So, your knowledge
is different from my knowledge because you've had different experiences and things like that.
And so, there are many things that you discover in the world.
But ultimately, when it comes to yourself, we all have choices,
I can literally choose to just turn off this interview and walk away.
And you'll just be sitting there and be like,
"why did Ben just walk away?" I can choose to do that!
And so, I think that there is a realisation that we must all come to that we are
actually making lots of choices and that those choices determine who we become.
And that we can make choices, I can choose to go to the gym right now,
I mean, I probably shouldn't, given the coronavirus situation and it's actually closed,
but I can choose to eat healthy, I can choose to go and
pound a whole carton of ice cream, and it's just the realisation that
the choices we make influence who we become and so,
once you realise that then you stop focusing on who you think you are and you start focusing on
the choices you can make and who you can become. And that then puts the responsibility on you
for who you are, rather than on something else.
Something that you can point to, whether it'd be traumatic
experiences, whether it'd be your DNA, once you realise that you can make choices
then you can decide what you wanna do. And that's just a far more empowering, but it's
also a far more honest way of looking at life. Cause we all make choices every day. I mean,
you're choosing to do this podcast with me. Anyone who's listening to it is actively
choosing to do it. And so,
then you have to ask yourself, "what should I choose or what would I like to choose?"
But if you have all the time in the world to do something, it's Parkinson's law.
Parkinson's law is the idea that work expands to fill the time you give it.
If you have all the time in the world to live your dreams
then you may not get to them anytime soon. But if you're busy doing important stuff,
but you still have big dreams,
then you're gonna have to learn to use the time you've got.
And you're gonna learn to value an hour here or an hour there,
rather than if you got an hour or five, you can blow it on Youtube.
Once you have less of that time and once you get really committed to your future,
and I think that there are things that can get you committed to your future.
Responsibility is one of those things that wakes you up.
And I think that anyone who wants to be a professional at something,
like a writer, an artist, or musician, or just an entrepreneur,
you've gotta wake up to the reality of time and about how time's gonna slip away
from you if you don't use it well. And if you use it well, you can create more of it.
And so, I think responsibility, the key of it, is that it wakes you up,
it wakes you up to stop being so wasteful
with your time and with your resources, and with your energy, and with your talent.
And so, I think that that's really the key. It is that I needed that experience to wake
me up to the reality of the situation. I then saw an hour here or an hour there,
as not something I can blow on Youtube watching highlights or something,
or sitting and just scanning the internet. But I'm like, "I've got this hour,
I can write this article." And every time you do that, every time you
invest a little bit into your future, you've made yourself more free in the future.
Every blog post I wrote, it created freedom in my future.
It created increased income and success, and confidence in my future self.
And so, you can either waste your time
which makes your future self less successful, or you can invest that little bit of time
because you want to have your future self be more successful and more free.
It's powerful to just get woken up to that reality.