Going through the messages that are sent to me, a small percentage of you need to hear this.
You have to take responsibility for where you are in life. You cannot control what happens to you – and sometimes terrible, horrible things do happen that you will never fully get over – but you can control how you respond to those events.
Recognize that there is no cavalry coming. There are no fairy godmothers. The world will be perfectly content to let you sit in your misery, wallow in your despair, marking time until you die. No one – not even your parents, friends, or children – will care about your goals as much as you do. If you want something, get it ethically and honestly. If you screw up, admit it and learn from the mistake.
There is nothing remarkable about this world view. It is an optimal one if you want to have a better life because it results in constant adaptation to circumstances.
Did the factory close? That sucks but don’t waste time thinking about it, instead readjust, find a solution, and alter course. Ship captains don’t sit in the middle of storms, wallowing about the fact that they were so unfortunate to have hit bad weather. It’s part of life. You do what you can do get through it and keep on toward your destination. If you are born on third base, good for you. If you were born in the stands without a bat, being miserable about it isn’t going to help you change it.
[mainbodyad]It’s an amazingly empowering way to go through your time on this particular planet. There are a few things you can’t change – you grow older with each year, no matter how hard you try to stop it, a person suffering from depression can’t just ‘snap out of it’, someone held hostage by a totalitarian regime such as those found in North Korea has severely restricted options available – but most things can be controlled when you live in a free, prosperous society. If you’re poor and you don’t like it, don’t be poor anymore. If you’re fat and you don’t like it, don’t be fat anymore. If you are married to an abusive spouse that hurts your children, leave.
People often counter with, “it’s not that easy.”
Most things worth having never are. Who the hell told you life was going to be easy?
There is a saying that, “Until the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of change, you will never improve.” It is one of the most succinct explanations for what psychologists call “intrinsic motivation”. Nobody else can do it for you. The only thing that works in the long-term is changing your heart so that the you make decisions consistent with your goals.
If something can be changed, and you don’t like it, then do it. Change it. If it can’t be changed, be content with it. There is no other rational way to live. Those are your only two intelligent options. Anything else is self-inflicted poison that achieves nothing.
You can have better. It won’t be easy, but the rewards are massive. The sacrifices I made early in life are paying hefty dividends today that allow me to live how I want. These things take time. Even a farmer planting a crop knows that they won’t come up overnight. If you want a different life in the future, start putting seeds in the ground that will bear fruit one, two, and five years from now. Never lose sight of your goal, be careful not to tell people who might sabotage your efforts, either consciously or subconsciously, and then execute your plan so that little by little, day by day, you crawl your way to where you want to be.
Some of you are wasting your lives. Get up, walk out the door, and go do something. Your time is running out. Nobody else can save you. It may be terrifying, but rise up and live the life you’ve always wanted.
What’s the worse that can happen? You fail and you end up exactly where you are now? That seems like a simple opportunity cost analysis to me. If there is no additional downside, why not reach for the stars? Pride? Who cares about pride? Fail in front of your friends and family. If you can’t, either you have an ego problem or they are the type of people you shouldn’t have around you.
Stop wasting your life!
Reader Comments (8)
Comments are presented chronologically, with replies indented beneath the comments to which they respond.
FratMan
November 28, 2012
On the flip side, let me ask you this (and I know this is mostly theoretical for you since you avoid the big mistakes in the first place). How would you go about fixing a broken relationship? (I feel like this is one of the two dozen or so big questions in life)
Gilvus
November 28, 2012
I'd like Josh's thoughts on this as well. On a broader scale: what do you do when wise words can't stop the emotional bleeding? When depression suffocates the internal fire that drives us to succeed? When normally-motivated people don't have the emotional strength to pick themselves up and dust themselves off, despite knowing that's what they should do?
TheLonelyHumanist
November 29, 2012
"Who the hell told you life was going to be easy?"
This, I think, is a lot of the issue. We have been selling ourselves Horatio Alger stories for so long that we have painfully unrealistic expectations. I keep hearing the phrase, "But I did everything right." I have said it myself. Over the holiday I was talking to a relative who just immigrated in desperation from one of the PIGS. She was surprised by "the naivety" of this notion that if you played your cards right it would all work out for you. Often life is more like a game of checkers where you find that the rules compel you to jump against your judgement because of a strategic misstep three turns ago when the outcome was completely unknown.
In defense of the despairing: I know what it is to be beaten down. Sometimes all the choices are bad and no path leads to happiness. In those times, one must just keep on living and hope that something changes.
We do not get to choose what we want, what we need, or what makes us happy. Much of a person's character is genetic expression. Now we can even measure the energy requirements of exercising will power i.e. psychologists can scientifically observe the metabolic limits of a person's will and character. And some brains are better at navigating modern life than others. One of the things we know humans need is a sense of control over their lives even if it is not founded in reality.
So we come to a quandary: in order to be morally and scientifically correct, and lest we break our psyches upon the rocks of psychotic expectations, we understand that we are all at the mercy of circumstance. And yet to maximize our performance within whatever are our circumstances and to feel safe, happy, and healthy we embrace the empowerment of irrational concepts like free choice and Horatio Alger mythology. To me it appears that choosing one's stance tends to be less about which lens is best supported by evidence and more about which is most useful at making the human feel better. So there will be the same sort of blustering we hear about property and liberty versus equality and safety or what have you. Nevermind that ALL of these are critical to humanity. The solution is balance. But the real challenge is closing on the optimums.
One of the reasons I come here is because there was a time when I felt completely trapped and your blog showed me a glimmer of reasonable hope. I continue to think this is a great place to practice the great art of balancing one's expectations.
Gilvus
December 1, 2012
Replying to TheLonelyHumanist
*slow clap*
Joshua Kennon
November 30, 2012
That is the key - avoiding the mistakes in the first place. You are right that it is one of the big questions.
I would ask a few questions of myself, being as brutally honest as possible.
1. Why is the relationships damaged?
2. If the behavior that damaged the relationship was committed by me, am I willing to modify that behavior, given the opportunity cost, to attempt to salvage the relationship?
3. If the behavior that damaged the relationship was committed by the other person, are they contrite? Are they upset they caused me hurt?
4. If they are not apologetic, am I willing to live with that?
5. Is the relationship something I value and that I desire because it is fundamentally good, or at least was at one time? Generally speaking, I think it is a mistake to try and constantly make up with an abusive parent, for example, simply because the person is your mother or father. Too often people are in love with the idea and not the thing itself.
I tend to rarely get in conflicts with those in my life because I take a lot of abuse. I'm not a huge fan of burning bridges. Perhaps that is my nature, perhaps that is my ego (having the resources to not care, giving me flexibility if I wanted to never see them again), but things that bother most other people don't cause me to lose any sleep. For something to rise the occasion of being relationship damaging for me, which tends to only happen about once every ten years (3-4 times in my life), I'm not interested in reconciliation. The moment that line is crossed, I'm out. The doors close, the phones are blocked, and a total disconnect happens.
If I had to reconcile, the checklist would be simple:
1. Talk, in private, face-to-face with the person
2. Communicate as clearly as possible about what you perceive the problem to be
3. Ask them to communicate to you what they perceive the problem to be
4. Figure out if you are both willing to act in a way that changes that
5. Talk about whether you are both willing to forgive and move on or not
Above all, if it was you who screwed up, and you value the relationship, accept responsibility wholeheartedly, and then recognize that they may never forgive you. That's okay. It is their right.
But don't try to salvage relationships that shouldn't be salvaged. For example, if you have a girlfriend who went to a Frat party, got drunk, slept with someone else, then lied about it, this is not the type of woman you want to be your wife. You're better off letting her go because she is taking up a spot that is reserved for someone far more worthy, and far more valuable.
There's more, but for the sake of the fact this is a public response, I'm going to censor myself because my words might hurt some people who read this and who are otherwise decent but have traits that I would avoid.
fran short
December 1, 2012
It's easy to be miserable. Being happier is tougher- and cooler. (Quote by Thom Yorke of Radiohead)
tearupthebox
January 17, 2014
Hi Josh, thanks so much for the article and your thoughts on personal responsibility. My husband and I enjoyed the advice so much that we shared your link in our own blog (http://tearupthebox.blogspot.ae/2014/01/the-list-of-all-reasons-why-you-are.html) at Tear Up The Box. We look forward to reading more! -Lindsey and Nick
Maria Gaynor
January 26, 2015
What an excellent article. It reminds me of the book Choose Yourself by James Altucher. His main idea is that you have to choose yourself, trust your brain thinking and emotions, not let society think for you and live life on your terms. This is your life to live. You cannot wait for society to discover your talent. You cannot wait for society to choose you for success. He also writes a blog at www.jameslatucher.com.