Today I’m going to show you how I get out of a lousy mental state in a matter of seconds!

A lousy mental state is a state that feels bad, like depression, frustration, anger, sadness, being pissed off or being annoyed.

The most important thing to understand is focus.

Focus is super important.

Focus determines what you pay attention to.

If you focus on something specific with all your attention everything else blurs to the background. Only the object being focused on stays in sight.

When I am in a lousy state if I indulge in this state and don’t do anything about it, it just spirals out of control and gets worse. I simply feel terrible. It seems like it’s never going to stop.

But once you understand that it’s all a matter of focus and perspective you can change your state in seconds. Literally!

What I like to do when I find myself in this kind of state is to take a piece of paper and start writing what I’m feeling, describing what the state I’m in feels like. This forces me to focus on description. And in a matter of three or four sentences everything changes almost instantly. If you don’t believe me I don’t blame you, I couldn’t believe it myself when I did it the first couple times. But when you see the results it’s amazing! You may need to write a little more than four sentences but it is well worth it.

Another thing that works extremely well is changing your physiology. If your sitting, get up, run around, do some kind of physical exercise, do something goofy, something that forces you to change your state.

With practice, once you get used to doing this you’ll be able to shift your state faster and faster. This is a habit. You need to cultivate it.

The next time you feel down, unmotivated or depressed, simply remember that all you need to do is shift your focus.

I have realised something that I’ve actually known for a while but have never wanted to face. The fact that I’ve deceived myself big time. The fact that I believed I can have something without putting in the work. After falling for this trap over and over many times, I am beginning to see this illusion with a clarity I have never had before.
Believing I can make $1000 simply by paying $1000. Believing I can buy clarity, that I can buy self-knowledge. That I can pay for information and that that information alone will give me what I want without me ever having to put in the work. The fantasy of the get-rich-quick scheme, of everything falling into place with no effort what so ever on my part. The illusion of short term rewards. The illusion that somehow it will all work out even if I do nothing.

I realise this might seem completely absurd and stupid, that it’s easy to think that any rational person would never think like that, but it doesn’t work like that. This is real. This is a serious thing. Millions fall for this idea that you can have something for nothing. It’s such a seductive idea. An illusion you don’t even see. A matrix.

Realising this leaves an acrid taste in my mouth, a taste of disgust. How could you ever fall prey to such an illusion? To such foolish thinking?
It feels disempowering when in fact it is empowering; it gives me the control. I control my efforts.

This feels so bad because it forces me to wake up and see that I was sleeping. To see that I’ve been fooling myself and that I have fucked up.

It is actually hard to admit because it means looking at myself for real. Seeing how badly I’ve messed up. That I’ve been misleading myself. That I thought everything would just be handed to me, a job, money, a fulfilling life. But that is an illusion!

Now comes the scary part. I have realised this and now I fear falling down the same downward spiralling staircase called illusion and fantasy because it is the easy thing to do.

It’s soooo easy! Terrifyingly easy!

All I have to do is … well … nothing. All I have to do is keep doing what I’ve been doing up until now. Avoiding the problem. To continue believing in the fantasy because it is reassuring and so much easier than dealing with the problem and facing the reality. To distract myself with movies, fluffy ideas and total nonsense. Shattering a fantasy you’ve taken comfort in for so long is painful. Not pleasant at all. Scary even.

But  it is a necessity now. I need to get out of this illusion. To stay clear of this easy, quick solution that is not a solution. To think long-term instead of short-term. To figure out how to get out of this illusion for good. Because one thing is for sure, if I do nothing, I will be lead astray once more.

Writing this article is a first step for me. What are you doing to get out of this?

There is this quirk in human nature that doesn’t serve us. The fact that we are wired for instant gratification. The easy route is the easiest to do. The one that gives pleasure right now. And often, the easy route is not the best choice. We fall for the fantasy of the quick fix, the immediate solution, the possibility of not having to work to get what we want, and ultimately we get nowhere.

How do we go against millions of years of evolutionary programming designed to keep us alive?

This is something I am struggling with constantly, that I have thought about a lot recently and have discussed previously. Reading Homo Deus and The 48 Laws of Power have sparked some interesting ideas. Here is my take on how we can deal with this.

From a evolutionary perspective this makes sense. Your main goal is to survive and continually perpetuate the species. To do that, you need to take care of immediate needs such as hunger, thirst and sexual drive.

But today, survival isn’t as big of a concern as it was thousands of years ago. Or even a couple centuries ago. Food and water are abundant. Medical advances increase life expectancy. You’re more likely to die from overeating than from starvation.

In our modern world survival is taken care of. It’s easy. The problem then is what do you do next?

If you live your life only to survive, it doesn’t have much meaning. And if there is no meaning, why keep on living? You have to create meaning. It’s up to you. You can’t expect someone else to do it for you. 

You want something. The catch is, you need to improve to get that. You know what you need to do (Even when you say you don’t, you actually have an idea of the first steps you can take). But you don’t do anything. It’s so much easier. Change is easy to understand, but very difficult to make happen. Insecurities, fears and worries rise to the surface and do everything they can to stop you from changing. Often they succeeds and you are left in a spot that is no better than where you started. Nothing changed. You’re in the same place. But you still want more. How paradoxical.

Can you imagine? Sacrificing short term pleasure, something you can have right now, for some uncertain possibility in the distant future? How absurd, right? Who in there right mind would want go forego something they are sure to have for something that isn’t even certain? Well, I believe that thinking is fundamentally flawed.

Though I do agree the future is uncertain, I believe it is worth thinking long term. To plan, to sacrifice immediate gratification for delayed gratification.

This is counter intuitive and certainly uncomfortable. The problem that comes up is that we are not wired to do that. We are programmed to think short term—it feels good. Thinking long term doesn’t. It goes against millions of years of evolutionary programming designed to help you stay alive, procreate and avoid danger.

The challenge then is choosing long term over short term. This choice, in and of itself, is a long term decision as we will see further on.

Choosing discomfort over comfort; new over old; pain over immediate pleasure for delayed gratification. Resisting temptation. Choosing change over sameness; hard versus easy; growth over stagnation; and ultimately Life over Death.

Over the years many studies have shown that delayed gratification is more beneficial to us humans. Most notable being the Stanford marshmallow experiment, in which children were told that if they resist eating a marshmallow for 15 minutes they could have a second one. Later studies showed that there was a correlation between resisting the temptation of immediate gratification and better life situations.

What will you choose? And yes, this is a choice, it is not an innate skill, it is something you can learn to do. You need to train yourself to choose wisely. You need to change your perception.

Humans react to two different stimuli, pain and pleasure. and the important point is that we will do more to avoid pain than to experience pleasure. So, if you want to start thinking long term instead of short term you have to leverage this behaviour. You have to imagine the short term behaviour as painful and make long term behaviour more appealing. Especially the consequences of these behaviours.

Choosing the easy route for me represents indecision, complacency, stagnation, decay, absence of meaning, anxiety, depression and ultimately death.

Long term, however, represents growth, opportunity, challenge, meaning, struggle, delayed gratification which is more pleasurable, work, the journey and ultimately a fulfilled life.

You need to repeat this to yourself constantly. You have to believe it. It has to become a part of your gut. Deep in the marrow of your bones. A habit of thought.

The trap is to be overwhelmed by the possibility of pleasure right now and be blinded to the consequences of these acts.

I don’t think life is supposed to be easy and pleasurable. I believe it is to challenge you, to make you push past failure, past pain and come out of experiences having grown and experienced what it means to be alive. Life to me has more meaning with the struggle than without. It is the force that resists you that ultimately benefits you if you choose to push back instead of succumbing to the force, cowering, settling for mediocre. We have need for resistance. You can even experience a kind of perverse pleasure from going through pain.

But to get to a state where you choose long-term over short-term repeatedly takes time. It takes repetition. And a lot of it. You need to start practicing these decisions more consciously. To ask yourself when faced with a decision, if it will benefit you in the long run, or if it is mere self-indulgence and destructive behaviour.

The thing is that it can be very hard to tell two apart. It can be deceptively seductive to choose pleasure. You might not even what to admit it to yourself.

The first step then is becoming aware of your choices. For if you are not aware there is no way you will ever change. It starts with awareness. Then progressively, you start to change, little by little. There is no quick fix. You need patience. This can be very frustrating. It’s a dilemma between understanding that you need patience but still wanting it now. This is particularly frustrating the younger you are because time doesn’t pass at the same speed. I am aware that what I am talking about is long term and that it takes a lot of effort. That is why it is very probable you will do nothing after reading this. But I am also aware that if you want it, you will recognise what you need to do and start doing it. That is why it is said that a student cannot be taught unless he is ready to be taught. Similarly, you cannot change unless you are ready to change.

Ultimately it’s a question of life or death, even if it may not seem like it. And that is why it is so difficult to change, it doesn’t seem to be a question of life and death. So if you want to change, make it a matter of life or death. Another thing to keep in mind is that as long a something doesn’t appear necessary, you won’t do it. Necessity spurs action. That is why people it dire circumstances will fight more, that is why a soldier will fight three times more vigorously if it is a matter literally of survival. You decide how you perceive world. You decide what you want. If you want to change, perceive it as a matter of life and death.

So what do you choose? Long-term or short-term?

If you’d like some more help deciding between the two I wrote a post on How To Choose Between Instant Gratification And Delayed Gratification that could be of service.

I would love to know your thoughts in the comments below. Do you agree, disagree? Do you have anything to add?

Today I’d like to share with you what I consider to be one of the most important traps that exists, the biggest self-deception of goal setting that nobody talks about.

Idea : The half-way mark is not the half-way mark.

I will be using physical goals to illustrate this principle, because these are the easiest to grasp, but this totally applies to goal setting in general.

You have a goal :

• 2000 meters
• A marathon
• 10k
• 100 meters
• 100 push ups
• Any other goal of your choice

So, you’ve prepared, trained and are ready. You start.

What happens when you get to the half-way mark ? Have you ever thought about it ?

Do you think, I’ve only got half of the way to go ? or This is unbearable how did I ever get myself into this ? or This is easy, the rest of this race is a piece of cake, or What am I going to eat after the race ? or I can’t possibly finish, I’m going to explode before the end.

I can tell you, I’ve thought all of this before during races. And I still do occasionally. The best thing I have found to remedy this is to focus immediately on your goal and to let go of those distracting thoughts.

But today I’d like to examine one of those thoughts in particular, the first one :
When you pass the half way mark, you’ve only got half of the way to go, right ?

Well I have found that to be one of the biggest self-deceptions you could pull off.

If you have 2000 meters, or even 100 push ups to do, it is natural to assume 1000 meters or 50 push ups is the half-way mark, and thus that you only have to repeat what you have done another time to finish. From a numerical stand point it’s true.

But it’s not true from a more practical point of view, here’s why.

Recently I started doing 100 push ups in the morning again. And I can tell you that for now it is difficult. But I must finish the 100 push ups. And I get to observe myself and my thinking as it varies throughout the challenge of reaching my goal. I had the same experiences when rowing or running.

And, what I found was that 50 push ups are easy, but once I pass 50 it gets hard all of a sudden.

And I also noticed I kept telling myself you’re half way there it’s almost over. But this never helped. And I kept thinking it.

Believing that you’ve done half the race at the half-way mark is terrible thinking psychologically speaking.

You deceive yourself into thinking the effort you put in to do 50 push ups is is going to be the same amount of effort doubled to do 100. That simply isn’t true.

I can assure you, the effort needed to go from 0 to 50 is not equal to the effort need to get from 50 to 100.

For me, 50 to 80 is the most difficult mentally, then 80 to 100 is the most difficult physically.

And both of those difficulties I didn’t have before 50.

When you get to the half-way mark, you believe the effort that got you there is the effort that will get you to the finish line. You see that it wasn’t that bad, so you relax, you become complacent, and ultimately you lose, because you realize that wasn’t true.

When you pass the half-way mark you need to shift gears and step up your game—both mentally and physically.

I believe the 80/20 Pareto principle applies to goal setting and races of any kind.

When in a race I would rejoice when passing the half-way mark, and tell myself that I had only half left. But when you think about it, since you have only experienced half of the race, if you tell yourself there is only half left, you tell you mind that you only really have a fourth left. Even when you mean half, you subtly tell you brain it’s only a fourth. Everything we do we compare to what we have experienced.

And then, when you pass the three quarter mark you feel your getting to the limits of you capabilities, that it’s getting too much, and if you aren’t ready for it, you crack.

The next best thing to think would be to tell yourself, let’s do it again, or one more time, instead of only half left, but even that would be wrong.

What seems the best option to me is to think that the real half-way mark is the 80% mark.

I have come to dread the 50% mark, but I look forward to the 80% because i know that from then on it’s much easier, you think of what you’ve accomplished (80%) and compare it to what’s left (20%) and you feel good because you know you can do that.

Sport is a mental game. 20% physical, 80% mental. You had better train your mental game and be careful how and what you think about. Life is a mental game too. The same thoughts apply there too.

And depending on the intensity of the race or task, you may find that the half-way point is more like 90 or 95%

The 50% mark is when doubt creeps in. And that can destroy you. It’s the first kind of resistance you will encounter. Then, once you get to the 80% mark you start feeling the toughest resistance of all. Your body starts complaining, you start getting bored, you procrastinate, you want to go do something else. But here you can compare what you’ve accomplished to what is left and 80 trumps 20 every time.

So remember the half-way mark is not the 50% mark, it’s the 80% mark.

A race isn’t won because you completed the distance first. A race is one because your mind won. Your mind won over your body. Your mind pushed it’s limits, it’s perception is enlarged. You learned something new. That is when you win.

You learn more from your failures than you do from your successes.

When you fail it feels bad, it can even hurt. But there is always something to learn. You simply have to look for it. I think failure teaches you more than success precisely because it feels bad. It hurts, so you don’t want to make the same mistake anymore. You have to do something about it to not get hurt the next time. So you adjust. If you win all the time, there isn’t that same necessity to improve, you can become complacent. That is a trap. Success can easily go to your head.

In a race if you finish fourth and aren’t on the podium, you’re not going to be happy about it, especially if the third place was right under your nose. You’re going to want the podium even more.

You make a mistake. You get hurt or ruin something. Accept what happened. Then, learn from it. The other alternative is to bitch about your losing and identify as a loser. That is obviously the more destructive attitude. Rather identify as a learner.

You’re allowed to feel bad. But it’s your resilience, your ability to get back up and try again, that makes you great. It’s not how high you go. The man who wins a gold medal once but then stops, doesn’t have the same character as the man who finishes last, comes again, improves, looses again, comes back for more and progressively works his way up the podium.

When you loose you have to come back for more. Fear of failure is normal, but unnecessary if you embrace it.  As Mark Twain once said:

“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”

Success and failure are win/win situations. If you win, it’s a win. If you loose, it’s a win. You can perceive it as a loss but I find it most helpful to think of it as a win. You get to learn something.

If you lose money, think of it as a win. What ever you lose, think of it as a win. Figure out what is there to be learned. There is always something to be learned. Always. It may not always feel like there is something, but there is. You need to find it. It may be a while before you recognise what you learned. You have to be open to learning.

We only hear what listen to.

We learn much more rapidly when we fail, because we have to adapt. Success can become comfortable and turn into complacency, thus stifling your growth. When you succeed, you can look for that thing you can improve or that you didn’t do as well as you wanted. But before you do that you have to celebrate your success.

So remember, there is always something to learn. It’s your job to figure out what that is.

We live in an information age. Information is available quicker, and more easily than ever before. There is so much content. The Youtube statistics for May 2017 were 300 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute! That’s more than the TV industry creates. There are billions of posts on social media platforms every day!

With so much information it’s easy to start drifting and drowning if there is no way to deal with it. Most of you readers won’t even finish reading this post, you’ll be on to the next piece of information.

It’s so easy to get lost online, to get lost consuming. That’s the trap. You’ve probably already experienced it. You watch one video, then another, and another; you read a blog post, go to Facebook, back to Youtube, Instagram, Snapchat, and all of a sudden your day is done and you don’t remember anything because you’ve spent your time doing mostly meaningless stuff.

Our attention is what is sold to advertisers. Everyone is vying for it. creating distractions to get a hold of it.

There goes another day of your life, and you’re never getting it back. Another twenty-four hours where you gave away your attention to others, instead of using it strategically, for your goals.

Then you get frustrated because there is so much information.

And then . . .

Alert! Alert! Information overload! You feel overwhelmed! You can’t control it! You know something has to change. But you need the info, right?

Do you really? Is it not mostly your ego telling you you need more info? Seeking information all the time is a form of procrastination.

Information is not the problem. Information is more abundant than ever before. As said at the beginning of this post, it’s the information age. Information isn’t as valuable as it used to be.

What is valuable is your attention and your work. That’s why advertiser’s pay for your attention and why you are paid to create value.

So if information isn’t the problem what is? Seriously, if we have access to incredible amounts of information, why aren’t we in drastically better situations compared to a few decades ago?

The thing is, we are still human, and humans make stuff, they do. What is lacking is action. We have so much info the problem is that it consumes our attention non stop if we aren’t careful. We don’t have any left to make stuff. We need to filter information. We have to filter through the pile of crap. We can’t just consume everything and anything. We need to be picky. What is important to you? Do you really care what that celebrity said? Or how that other person you don’t know is living their life?

There is no problem with consuming all the time if that’s your thing. But if you want to be doing stuff and using your time as best you can, it might be a good idea to question what is happening to your attention and how you’re using it.

So, if you’re like me and you want to do things, have an impact on the world and help people, rather than consume content all day, how about you go do something that doesn’t consist of passive consumption.

If you actually finished this reading this post and didn’t skip to the end, I congratulate you. And whether or not you skipped to the end I thank you for your attention. Now share this post and go make something.

Here I my main take aways from New York City. Keep in mind that this is what I experienced so you might experience things differently.

You have to see NY at night. It can be day at night. That is specific to time square at night. It’s  unbelievably bright with all the advertising panels. It’s quite a sight to behold. That’s when you understand why it’s called the city that never sleeps.

Getting around on foot can be tiring quite quickly. It’s a big city. Use the subway. Stay away from the cabs, they’re expensive. A bike or something else is a good idea. The bike is an amazing energy saver.

Central park is a refreshing bit of nature in the middle of a city of skyscrapers, building of steel, concrete and glass.

When it rains, people stay inside.

When you buy something you need to ADD TAX. In Europe I’m used to paying the price I see on the tag. The added tax is quite annoying because it feels like customer manipulation. You think your gonna pay 3 x 25 = $75 but they charge you $83. You don’t understand, then your remember: Tax.

The skyline is very impressive.

The Anastasia musical is great.

So are the Museum of Modern Art and of Natural History.

Today’s post is short sweet and simple.

Simplicity is often the best way to make a point.

The fluff is unnecessary. I’m going to end this post here otherwise my point is going to be too fluffy.

Keep it simple.

Sometimes you just don’t feel like doing it. Whatever it may be. Right now, I don’t feel like writing this post. But I made a commitment to do 30 days at least. I can’t break that commitment.

The thing is, when you don’t feel like it, you just have to start. That is something that took me a while to learn. And now I use it as often as I can. Once you start, you build momentum, and momentum keeps you going. At the beginning of this post, I had no idea what to write about. So I just started by saying I didn’t feel like it. Then, all of a sudden, I have a paragraph. I start getting in the flow. Now, it’s much easier.

The blank page can be intimidating. But it doesn’t have to stay that way. Write one word and the page isn’t blank anymore. Do one thing and you’ve successfully gotten out of your head and into doing mode. You can either think about everything you want to do, have elaborate debates in your head of the pros and cons, or you can simply do something.

When you do something, don’t set your expectations very high. The entry cost has to be minimal. The bar has to be as low as possible. That way it’s easy for you to reach for it. Once you’ve got a grip on it, move it a little higher. And then, a little higher still. The little steps count. If starting isn’t easy you won’t do it. So make it easy. As easy as you can think of. Don’t worry if it seems ridiculous, just do it, no one will ever know.

Also, never expect your stuff to be perfect. It never will. Accept that it will probably suck at first; that it might be terrible. It will probably suck for a while. You have to be willing to be vulnerable.

Vulnerability is uncomfortable. And like anything that is uncomfortable our natural instinct is to stay away from it. If you want to grow, lean into your vulnerability, get uncomfortable, admit you might be wrong and that what you do might not be the best.

Then, be grateful that you took action. What you have produced might be terrible, but at least you made something, instead of endlessly thinking about it. You can come back tomorrow and make it better. And as you keep this in mind, don’t forget that tomorrow isn’t guaranteed, so appreciate today.

Today I was enjoying the warmth of the sun in Central Park. Then I thought, hey, I’m going to go get a book to read and then I’ll come back to the sun. I took the subway, and when I get out from underground it was pouring rain outside.

In that moment, I was reminded of a simple fact. Nothing is guaranteed. I was acting as if it were going to be sunny all day. But no, it started to rain.

Then I remembered this advice I picked up somewhere: Enjoy everything as if it were the last time you were ever going to do that thing, see that person, experience that moment. Don’t expect things to last. They never do. Everything is always changing. Change is one of those things you can always count on.

When you start living more consciously this way you see the world in a whole new way. You will be more grateful, and, overall have a greater sense of joy and wellbeing. Take the time to appreciate the present moment. That’s the only thing you will ever truly have, even though the present moment is fleeting and slipping away from your grasp at this very moment. The past is forever lost. The future is never guaranteed.

Try spending a couple moments a day, thinking, this could be the last time I ever do this. See how much more you appreciate those moments; when you know they are temporary. You must pay attention if it is temporary. Otherwise you let it slip consciously.

The goal is not to be aware of every single thing that happens, but to increase the number of moments a day that you truly experience.

Remember, tomorrow is not guaranteed.

It’s so easy to complain.

What if you did something about it?

Complaining isn’t necessary. If you start complaining, listen to what you really what, what’s the real problem? You have no right to complain if you don’t do everything you can to fix the problem.

Complaining to get attention from others is useless. I don’t like hearing others complain, so why would I impose myself on others? Odds are, you don’t either.

Sometimes you need to complain, you need to let it out, to gather your thoughts and clarify the problem. But chronic complaining is not necessary.

Do something about your complaining.

Don’t complain if you don’t do anything about it. How could you ever expect it to get better, if you do nothing about it?

Instead of complaining, do.

Distractions.

We seek them out all the time. Or they come to us.

We can’t stand boredom.

We indulge cheap entertainment.

An easy movie. A glance at a social media feed. Just checking the time on your phone. A youtube video.

It’s easy to waste time without having to think about it. An easy way to numb the feeling of boredom, to numb life.

Everything is grabbing for your attention. A blinking light here, a colourful poster there. Buy now ! FREE! Two for one!

I can spend a day glued to a screen without feeling a day has gone by, and having done nothing productive. There is so much information you need to filter it out. Eliminate.

Your attention is precious.

If you want to do creative work, boredom is important.

It’s often in the boring moments that ideas have the time and space to surface in the fog of your busy mind.

The next time you get bored, sit in it. Think twice before reaching for your phone. Just stay with it. Experience what it’s like. Listen to your mind. Develop self-awareness. Observe how you embrace the discomfort. Let your busy brain cool down. The world isn’t going to melt if you don’t check your phone. Take a look around. Think. Listen. Feel.

See what happens.

Car.
Train.

Angoulême

Start.
Stop.

Start.
Stop.

Start.
Almost Final stop.
On my feet.
Off balance.
Stop.
Wait.
Dock.

Charles De Gaulle Airport.

Escalator. Up.

Shuttle.
Where to?
Terminal one.

Hunger.
Sandwich.
Finally.

What section?
Section 4.
Bye bye bag.

To section 4.
Escalator. Forwards.

Customs.
Done.

Now, wait.
Wait . . .

A book.
A computer.
People.

Wait . . .

Bathroom break.

Wait . . .

Bad news.
Flight delayed.

Now, wait . . .

Hunger anew.
Sandwich.
Done.

Wait . . .

Tired.

Flight landed.
Finally.
A little more wait . . .

Gate open.
Papers please.
Thank you.

To the plane.

Where to?
Oslo.

Then?
New York City.

A camel and a dromedary are alone in a desert talking to each other.

The camel starts laughing.

“Why are you laughing?” asks the dromedary.

“Because you have a hump on your back!” replies the camel. “It looks so funny on you.”

The dromedary confused and a bit embarrassed looks at the camel. He does not know what to say. Then, after a moment of thought remarks “And you, have two.”

The camel taken aback stops laughing. He had never seen that he had two humps.

Have you ever looked ahead while reading to see how far the end of the chapter was? Right now I’m working on doing less of this, especially when reading fiction. Here’s what I’ve observed about this phenomena.

It’s natural to want to know where you are. How far am I from the finish line? This is particularly useful when racing. Usually though, when racing, you always know just about how much distance is left until you cross the finish line. Generally, reading is not a race. So knowing how far the finish line isn’t terribly important.

When reading, especially if you are reading a book for the first time, you don’t know when it ends. Well, you know the end of the book is the last page, but you rarely read the whole book in one sitting. Usually a book is divided into chapters and those feel like good places to stop. I for one, like to finish at the end of a chapter if I can. I don’t like leaving a book in the middle of a chapter.

So, when first reading a book, I don’t know when the chapter I’m currently reading will stop. And, me not knowing makes me want to know. Sometimes, I want to finish quickly, take a break and not leave in the middle of a chapter, or I simply wonder how many pages are left, so I skip ahead to know. I just want to know. It makes me feel good.

Rationally, if I want to get it over with, the quickest solution is to continue reading. But no, I look ahead. To reassure myself. And in so doing I take more time to complete the task. It doesn’t give me important information to look ahead and see how many pages are left in the chapter. But I do it anyway. It takes away the uncertainty of the end of the chapter and gives me a sense of certainty.

Then in life I want to look ahead. But I’m always disappointed. The future is always unknown. It can  be frustrating, especially since there is no rational reason to be. Patience is hard.

This natural urge has been tended to with mobile devices as they often indicate at the bottom of the screen how many pages are left to the chapter. So you just have to glance at the bottom of the screen to scratch that itch. But if you decide to read the physical book, you will experience this desire to know, this desire to look ahead.

Now, I do my best to not look ahead and see if the chapter is almost finished. I continue reading. I finish in the middle of a page if necessary. Keeping myself in the dark, gives a new thrill to the story. I no longer know when it finishes. I savour the unveiling of the story.  I suppress my expectation of the chapter ending in precisely 3 pages. I tell myself: Don’t worry, you will get to the end of the chapter soon enough. So to in life, continue doing, the end will come soon enough.

I have always had the ability to understand things quickly and learn rapidly. School was easy and still is as of now. Growing up I was a good student. I was top of the class for 8 years straight, scoring high test results and having academic success. I even skipped a class since it was so easy (the 7th grade). I had to work maybe 30 min a day on homework, rarely more. While some of my classmates studied way more than me but performed worse. I didn’t understand.

I say this not to brag, but to set the context.

By all academic standards I was a top performing student. Exemplary. A teachers dream, I often heard. Everybody found it was amazing. Many people wish they had my abilities.

The only problem: I don’t give a shit about academic achievements and am not satisfied. I found and still find it meaningless. I passed by baccalaureate with 18,71/20 (4.7 GPA). To me that was a number that didn’t mean anything. Heck, I was a bit disappointed because I didn’t get 19/20. Then on top of that, when you see that everyone around you is struggling while you have it relatively easy, you think something is wrong with you. It starts toying with you head.

I went through school without any real challenges. Everything I attempted schoolwise was always easy and the good grades came in without much effort.

I passed the medical school entry exam in France, quite easily too. I had to work a lot more, but I still performed well, working at most five hours a day in addition to the four hours of courses per day during the week.

I learned to make of game of figuring out how to get the highest grades with the least amount of work. That was my way of not getting bored. Once you’ve done that for a while, though,  it gets boring. You don’t see the point any longer.

So now this year, my second year, I pull off the same thing. Minimal work, just enough to pass. But it gets annoying to not exploit your capabilities. It feels like I’m at the verge of sabotaging my work to make it more interesting. That, I know isn’t a good idea. I literally spent a couple weeks not working more than an hour a day or not working at all, just to see what would happen, watching movies all day. It turns out staying cooped up all day has some negative social consequences.

The psychological state you get in when you aren’t challenged can get pretty bad.

It feels as if every door is opened to you, you never have to do anything, and you secretly wish someone would slam the door in your face for once, just so you could experience what it’s like.

You wish it were harder so you would have to work some more, and not be so bored all the time. Up ’til med school I compensated this with sport: I rowed. This was a great way to fill up my time in a meaningful way. Then I stoped. That was bad. Psychologically, it was bad, it still is right now.

I understand that people who aren’t “gifted”, in the sense where you learn stuff easily and understand things quickly, wish they could have it easier. Wouldn’t it be great if I had to work less to get this. But the irony is that those who have it easy think the opposite. Wouldn’t it be great if I had to work more, if I actually had to struggle to achieve something.

I find myself it the “gifted” category. I want it to be more difficult. I can actually sabotage myself to put myself into difficult situations, just to work more to get out of that situation. I understand how crazy this sounds, but it’s what happens. It is destructive to not exploit your potential. Right now I’m struggling with this. How do I get to exploit what I’m good at? Then, when you want to talk about it with friends, how do you talk to the person who wishes he had your abilities and explain you find everything dull and boring and easy?

A realisation I had today after much psychological struggle:

I need Resistance. Resistance is crucial. I need someone/something to push towards me, so that I can push back. If I have it easy and everything seems easy, then, problems arise.

To develop you need resistance.

The most visual illustration I can think of is weight lifting.If you lift air, your muscle doesn’t grow. To grow muscle you have to lift weights, you need resistance. When you become accustomed to the weights you need to up increase them, if you want to grow even more muscle.

It is the resistance that forces your effort. You need to develop energy to resist the resistance. And in doing so, you grow.

The little steps count.

Something is greater than nothing. However small that something may be, it will always be bigger than nothing. 1>0.

Suppose you have two jars. You decide to put a couple grains of sand into one, and nothing into the other. You do this every day.

At first, the two jars appear the same. They are both empty.

Then there is just a few grains of sand at the bottom of one. You say, that’s nothing really. But it isn’t nothing. It’s a few grains of sand. Big difference, you think. That difference is BIG, it makes all the difference.

You continue every day for a while. You add some sand in one jar, and nothing in the other.

Over time the jar with sand forms a little mound, and the one with nothing stays empty. You begin to see progress. You see that your efforts and consistency are starting to pay off. This motivates you. You continue.

Then, as the pile of sand gets bigger, every grain of sand you add becomes ever more insignificant in relation to the whole. You can’t see your progress. It gets tiresome and you think it’s pointless. But you continue.

You know that if you continue long enough, the jar of sand will fill up and overflow. But the catch is that you have to continue and persevere. Time is your ally.

Whenever you have something and think, this is nothing what am I going to do with this, or, what I’m doing is insignificant I can’t see results, remember that it is with time that the insignificant becomes significant.

The little steps count. Compounded over time, they give great results. Be happy to put in a little work. Do one simple step. Repeat that regularly. With time it will accumulate. Looking forward it is hard to see results when you have nothing. Looking backwards, when you have something, it is as clear as day.

Trust in your ability to show up. Trust in Time. For in time, it will pay off.

There is this experience I have had only two times in my life so far, while reading a book. It is a remarkable experience. The first description that comes to mind is that you can literally feel your mind stretching. It is where you can feel that what you are reading was written by someone who understands way more than you. You aren’t even on the same plane of consciousness.

You have to stretch to grasp notions you never even envisioned. You have to think. Your perception is altered and you know you can never go back to that previous state. You now see more of the world. You were looking at it through a key hole and the author has just opened the door for you. You are sucked into the book. It’s a different world. Utterly engrossing, fascinating and at the same time terrifying. You are in a heightened state of awareness. You feel your understanding growing. A sort of cognitive ecstasy, what Jason Silva defines as “an exhilarating neurostorm of intense intellectual pleasure.”

This is when you can’t put down the book and just have to finish it. The ideas that swirl around in your head are amazing. For a while after leaving the book, you can sense your mind buzzing and thinking but you can’t see those thoughts. You have an unfocused gaze. A sense of wonder. You have this feeling that you could come back to this book any time and you would still find something new every time.

The first time I experienced this was while reading Alamut, by Vladimir Bartol. A novel where a religious leader takes the manipulation of faith and belief to extreme levels, with a rationalisation that is terrifyingly fascinating and makes you think about the world in a completely new way.

The second time was while reading The Power of Myth, by Joseph Campbell. A discussion on the impact of mythology and legends in your life, that guide you in understanding their meaning, while challenging your perception of the world and opening up new avenues for spiritual growth.

I cannot say you will experience this feeling if you read these books. Though, you might. I think it depends a lot on your own previous experiences and interests. It is not something you feel everyday and thus is quite precious.

I would love to know whether you have had similar experiences.

I spend a lot of time reading. My goal was to read 25 books in 12 months, it been less that 7 months and I’m up to 20 and counting.  Currently I’m reading 3 books at the same time. I find it amazing. Not because that seems to be a lot of books, but because I used to hate reading.

As a kid I almost never read. I too, had to suffer those reading assignments and endure those boring stories. Those, so called classics, books from dead philosophers from a thousand years ago. Who reads those anyway? Plays and tragedies. Do people actually like that? Seriously? We don’t even speak like that anymore. That is my younger self criticizing books. I have learned better with time.

But here’s a thing you are rarely told in school. Not all books are like those you were force-fed. Most of them are totally different. You have to experiment to find what you like. Pick out a few books that could be interesting and start reading. There is never an obligation to read the book from cover to cover. If it’s crap, you simply don’t read it. So, you pick a book and start reading…

Then, one day, you find a book that hooks you. It engages your curiosity, captivates your attention and you can’t put it down. You check out more books of the same genre. And all of a sudden you’re reading like crazy.

J.K. Rowling once said:

If you don’t like to read, you haven’t found the right book.

I totally agree with this. It wasn’t until I found books I enjoyed that reading took off for me. Diving into the world of fiction, fantasy and magic was eye-opening. Arkandias, Eragon, and Harry Potter, now there was stuff I enjoyed reading!

After discovering the world of fiction, I added practical books and non fiction as I discovered personal development. As you evolve so does your reading. I got into philosophy and found it had nothing to do with what you thought it was about in school.

Being able to peer into the minds of men and women from different spaces and times is an incredible thing. You can learn from their experiences, avoid similar mistakes. You can live a hundred stories. You can get new perspectives. Feel what it’s like to be alive. It’s a rich and vastly underestimated resource. Understanding things you could not even grasp and elevating your own understanding of the world, with the help of the author is an amazing feeling. A book that challenges you, elevates you, and evolves over time is something only a couple books can do. Finding such books is like finding treasure. Then, of course, a good book can help you relax; it is a source of entertainment. Nobody reads the same way. But the fun part is finding what you like.

Lately, the best fiction I’ve read has been:

Alamut by Vladimir Bartol and A Dance with Dragons by George R. R. Martin.

And the best non fiction has been:

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield and The Crossroads of Should and Must by Elle Luna.

Right now I’m reading The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell, and I find it utterly fascinating, and highly recommend it.

To end this post, as a Star Wars fan, there is only one more thing to add for today’s post:

May the fourth be with you