Purposeful people, rich or poor, can do things.

I know no other way to consistency than aligning one’s intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. it’s an unskippable step. I see too many people living lifestyles that they absolutely hate, but forcing themselves to do it, thinking that’s how discipline and consistency look like.

I’ve been asked from time to time “why don’t you live a more joyful life?”. Surprised, I ask the person what they mean, and they often mean they tried to live the life I’m living and they hated it and assume I must hate my life, too.

people see the world as they are, not as the world actually is. it takes active effort to take perspective. it’s probably a skill to develop

this is what a broken education system and culture do to humans. They fail to develop critical thinking skills in people, producing hundreds of millions of high potential yet unintentional people who live life on autopilot and follow others’ until they crash.

I say this with all the compassion in the world, and it hurts me deeply to see so many people around me spend years on things that they visibly had no purpose/intention/interest pursuing, but just did because it seemed like the cool thing to do.

you can’t copy someone else’ life, decisions and action and expect to feel what they feel. you can only copy people’s mental models, but the content of your life is never the same as someone else’s.

you can really only look at your own wants, realities and resources and network and potential and then put them together and produce something that fits you.

this has always been obvious to me but the biggest lesson of my twenties has been the it’s extremely not obvious to most people, even some of the smarter and resourceful people that i know. that people do indeed think they can just outsource the original thinking/life envisioning to someone else and be fine.

it is also a note to myself and the intentional/purposeful people out there: it’s essential to filter our social circles hard and to surround ourselves with people as intentional/purposeful as ourselves or better.

The cost of thinking you, an intentional and purposeful person, and the opposite of you, an unintentional, purpose-lacking person are the same is enormous. we’re not the same.

once in a while i see someone who overlooked that cost and difference, and lived years/decades only to realize it and regret it and i remind myself to be ruthlessly empathetic towards myself first and foremost as I am towards others. im grateful to have met all the purposeful people that i have, and to have dodged all the naysayer, pessimistic, insecure people whose default way of interacting with the outside world is telling you to do/be less and that you can’t do stuff.

purposeful people can do great things.