What if the middle path is the extreme?
Picture this:
The alarm goes off and you leap out of bed turning it off mid flight. Your towel is hanging ready and you head into the shower to start your day with a 0 kelvin shower. No breakfast. Food is for cowards. Your food must be earned with blood sweat and pushups.
Am I sounding Gogginsey yet? Tatey?
Thing is, if you’re the most disciplined person in the world for just one day it won’t make a difference. Towards the end of 2022 I gave myself a 100 day discipline challenge. I exercised and maintained more discipline over the course of that experiment than I ever had before.
I experimented with how much less sleep I could get and still function eventually getting up at 2:30am about 6 days a week going to bed around 10. I allowed myself no junk food, no takeaways, no games.
You know how long it took me to return to laziyness afterwards? Like a week at most!
Consistency is more important than intensity. If you go at 80% for a year you will achieve more than if you go at 150% for a week.
Discipline equals freedom. It’s the hard way or no way. No more fucking excuses!
There’s a lot of people on social media who say things like this and seem to believe that the only way to achieve anything at all is by way of extreme dedication and discipline. That there are only two paths in life, success through pain and suffering, or failure through ease and comfort.
Sure, a lot of these people have achieved a great deal more than most ever will and at least on the surface level it seems like their methods and philosophies have merit; but is it really true that their way is the only way to succeed in life?
Without even playing around with the a definition of success and just using their definition which ultimately boils down to one thing, freedom; is endless hard work, and toiling and suffering and grinding really the only way to achieve success?
Why grind when you can sail? What would sailing look like? What does grinding look like?
What if my definition of success is being able to spend time with my family instead of spending all my time working for my family but never being there with them?
What if really, when it comes down to it all I actually want is enough money to not have to worry about bills or a roof over my head. To be able to look after my family.
Pathetic? Defeatist? Loser? Unambitious?
For years I was trying to find a way to make money online so that I could work from anywhere and then see my family in the states as much as I like. How many years? More than 10. How many years have I seen then in that time? Like once or twice.
You wanna hear what’s crazy about that? If I’d have just focused on working and saving money instead of signing up to pyramid schemes and scams I could have seen them every year!
After all that time trying to make a living online I’ve learn a very important lesson. Most of the people who get rich online get rich by selling idiots like me courses on how to get rich online. It’s a wonder if they’ve ever even used the methods that they teach.
Does that mean I should give up completely with the whole online thing? No, not really. There are still legitimate and honest ways to make money using the internet. Like actually selling real products for example.
I saw a Tate video once where he was talking about marketing products without even making them and then only making the ones you actually get sales for. Like what? So you’re selling things that don’t even exist? It just feels wrong.
I like to write. So, I thought, what if I could turn that into something that makes me money. How? By filling my blog full of so many adds that you can’t even tell where the adds end and the blog starts?
ABSAFUCKINGLUTELY NOT!!!!!
I hate ads! Everyone hates ads. Even the people making money off them when they’re on the receiving end. I’m not saying we shouldn’t have any ads. But that’s not the way I’m going to do it. I’m learning to write, and I have several books that I’ve started work on including a first draft of a novel and two non fiction books that I’ve started working on.
Eventually once these are done people will be able (obviously) to buy them and they will have something of value that actually benefits them somehow. Also, a percentage of the profits from my books will always go to charity so no matter what, someone other than just me will benefit from them.
When it comes to money management I’m finally starting to learn how to budget, 15years later than I should have done but still not too late to make a difference. I’m starting to save and will make a habit of it despite influencers advice to the contrary.
I have other ideas for businesses that I’d like to start and run and once I have the finds raised and have started them I’ll let you know.
For now though, it’s time for some self studying.
Peace and Blessings upon you and have a great Ramadan!
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I’m giving 50% profits to charity: 25% Palestine and 25% to the Uyghur Muslims of Turkestan. A further 25% of profits will go towards other projects i’m working on that will raise more money for people in need.
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