https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o5A-4-OE-I
I’m tired and frustrated. I’ve spent the last hour trying to write a decent blog post. Unfortunately, my attempts keep coming out whack. I can’t seem to write anything of substance. I’m kind of pissed. I want to go to sleep.
I’m trying to fight back the evil voice in my head. Close the computer. Relax your eyes. You can get some rest, and then go eat a delicious midnight snack. Why not? Do it homey. Doooo it. Doooo ittt.
My will power reserves are exhausted and I’m on my last stand. Normally I wouldn’t be writing at this point. There’s a reason I recently went over two weeks without posting anything. Normally I listen to the fucker in my head. Normally I lose this battle.
Normally I give in. I mean I did better than most people right? I did what I was supposed to do right? I showed up for an hour and tried to write a god damn post. I started and stopped multiple times, but I just couldn’t do it.
I did what could reasonably have been expected of me. Most people would never have even managed to sit down to write. That’s what I would’ve told myself in the past. I try to hold the idea of being the weakest of the strongest men of all time, but it’s difficult to put into practice.
It’s easy to say you’re going to hold yourself to the same standards as the greatest men to have ever walked this Earth, but in practice It’s fucking hard. Should you pity me for that? No! Should I pity you when you’re literally twitching because you can’t resist not compulsively checking your little Facebook feed? No!
It’s supposed to be hard! Especially in the beginning. If it was easy everybody would do it. Maybe the journey doesn’t exhaust you to the same extent once you’ve already gained some momentum with it, but even then it’s still hard. You don’t get to coast and if you try your ass is going to get eaten up alive.
Even right now I’ve got a million demons screaming in my head.
“You know Cameron, this post just doesn’t have a whole lot of substance. Maybe you would be better just turning in for the night.”
“Dude. You’re 17 years old. You lack life experience and thus the potential to offer anything of value.”
“Shh… look behind you. See, nobody’s watching. If you quit now nobody will notice.”
Ahhhhhh! Ahhhhhhh! Ahhhhhhh!!!
These little rationalizations are clever too and often they even have an element of truth to them. That’s why they’re so lethal. This shit is medusa. The rationalizations seem appealing, but will kill you! Just now I was about to quit.
I was again on the brink of giving up on tonight’s post as I’m not seeing the value here. I honestly just don’t know what you’re going to take from this post. Then something resonated in my ears.
“If you lose sleep doing what you love, you’ll eventually live the dream that you only would have dreamt.” – David Shands
Seriously read it again.
“If you lose sleep doing what you love, you’ll eventually live the dream that you only would have dreamt.” – David Shands
That’s it baby. Awareness of this concept is how you’re going to manufacture passion. The idea isn’t necessarily that you need to deprive your self of sleep, or adopt a polyphasic sleep schedule (though that could potentially help).
What David’s really saying is that if you’re willing to invest every ounce of energy you’ve got into the focused pursuit of your dream, then you can live it.
Summoning Your Vast Reservoirs Of Energy
As I’m writing this post I no longer am able to perceive the passing of time. You know why? Because I’m engaged. I want to deliver and ship the best product I’m capable of. A 5% difference in engagement could be the difference between me motivating someone to pursue their dream or give up.
A couple years ago I heard Tim Ferris say that he sets his goals high for two reasons. One is that there’s less competition. A valid reason and one that isn’t at all difficult to understand.
The second reason is one that I’d always understood on an intellectual level, but never fully grasped on an emotional level. Until now. Tim’s second reason for setting his goals high is because it allows him to summon more motivation in the pursuit of his goals.
Think about it. What would give you more motivation? Setting out to write a mediocre blog post so you can say that you fulfilled today’s writing requirement or visualizing the hundreds or thousands of people that’ll eventually read your post and aiming to produce a piece that’ll smack them on an emotional level and thus motivate them to strive towards living to their potential? It’s not even close.
Do something epic. Make it an adventure. Pretend that your life is a movie and run, jump, and claw your way to making it the most epic plot the world has ever seen.
When you write a blog post really write. Get into it. Don’t use perfectionism as an excuse not to ship a finished product, but really ship your product. Get into the process of creating and make your creation the best it can possibly be.
When you go out and socialize don’t seek to avoid rejection or embarrassment. Aim to make it the funniest, and crazy adventure of your life! When you hit on a girl put yourself completely out there.
If she likes you great. If she doesn’t make the rejection as awkward and funny as possible and get a cool story out of it. When your favorite song comes on stop worrying about what you sound like and just let loose. If you get bored of girls gather a crowd and challenge your friends to rap battles.
You can make rationalizations as much as you’d like, but at the end of the day you either produce a result or you don’t. You either have a great night out or you don’t. You either win or you lose.
Some days are easier than others, but there’s never an excuse. If you have writer’s block write anyway. If you had a long day at work go to the gym and push yourself to the limit anyway. If you’re trying to learn how to have fun but don’t have friends hide behind garbage cans and then jump out and scare people. Do whatever it takes to make things epic!
That’s where the drive comes from. The pursuit of epic is the source of motivation and passion. Aiming to make things epic is what will push you to continue when things get hard and your inner demons are screaming at you.
When the demons start whispering lies in your ear scream fuck you! I’ve got people who rely on me to and I’m not going to give up. I’m not going to let them down. I’m going to use your bullshit as leverage to continue pushing forward. If I go down today I risk setting a precedent that quitting is ok, and that’s one area I’m not willing to compromise.
It may be difficult, but I will persevere at any cost. I will fight for both myself and those around me. I understand that I’m not just fighting for my dream, but I’m also fighting to show everyone else that has a dream it’s possible to pursue and eventually achieve it.
If I give up, not only do I give up on my dream, but I also unconsciously cause others to give up on theirs. No matter what happens, that’s something I’m unwilling to do.
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(Picture taken in Dallas during April 2014)
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