What not to do in Life:
What’s up everybody. There are a million things I’d love to do in this life, but I can’t do all of them. Any of these million things could bring something great out of me, and I’d be grateful to do any one of these things. With that, there are things I really don’t want to do in this life, regardless of what I accomplish.
Living outside my means
No matter how much money I acquire over the next ten years, I can’t live through spending. Debt is not an option for me, in whatever form it would be in. I have to live in whatever form is the best for me, but it has to be cheap. I’m not buying a mansion, nor am I renting a penthouse. I’m not going to buy the most expensive cars nor will I eat out every day. I have to live cheap and live healthily. I can’t be a slave to my purchases.
Chasing Anything
Whether it be chasing dopamine or chasing things, I can’t have my life revolve around anything other than myself and the community around me. For me, chasing something means that I am lacking something to make me great, and while that might be true, the things I chase won’t solve that.
Becoming a Juggler
I can’t put a million things on my plate and expect to be great at all of them. I have to be able to constantly triage on my life, and find out what works for me and what doesn’t. I cannot have 80 hours of work in a day.
Living in Ego
Living in my own ideas of beauty and strength while forgetting about the world around me sounds like a terrible plan. I don’t want to live for only myself, I want to provide for the world while putting my desires and ego last.
Never working
I find that working on something or the other keeps me in check. This isn’t something like school or an office job, where I have to be there, rather I can work on myself or a side project that I really want to produce out. Even things like self-improvement can count as work. This doesn’t mean to work until I die for useless rewards (check Playing Zero-Sum Games)
Forgetting Strength
There are three types of strength that I can see; mental, physical, and spiritual. Mental strength is the fortitude needed to learn and keep building out on projects or on companies. Physical strength is for the world, where pushing, pulling, balancing, and flexibility come into play to manipulate the world. Spiritual strength is the connection with the universe and with my community, where I can provide something to everyone around me. Each plays a part in the other two strengths, and I can’t fully build out one strength without activating the other two.
Playing Zero-Sum Games
When one person wins, another person loses. That’s the lesson I’ve taken in subconsciously, and that’s what drove me for a while. I didn’t want to be the person that lost. But it’s wrong. I see now that when one person wins, another person often wins as well. There is an infinite amount of knowledge, strength, and wealth in this world. The zero-sum games I saw out of these fields were status and greed. Both getting into a ‘good’ college or getting a ‘good’ job that not everyone could achieve are zero-sum games, and they aren’t worth it. They aren’t results. Life isn’t completed with that spot. Going through the infinite knowledge/strength/wealth games means there is always something to do. I can set my own bars to leap across, and I can keep playing while getting continuous rewards.
Action Items:
- Living Outside my means: Keep a continuous budget of how I’m spending my money
- Chasing anything: Daily Self-Reflection
- Living in Ego: Make someone’s day everyday, and never make demeaning jokes
- Never Working: Have a project that I can work on daily, get into the flow state every day
- Forgetting Strength: Daily Meditation, workouts, and learning
- Playing Zero-Sum Games: Have a reason why for embarking on any project. Write it down where you can see it every day.
