effectiveness + efficiency
efficiency is doing things right, effectiveness is doing the right things - TIM FERRISS
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I have really only given a 27% effort in my life thus far. I lived in a world of bliss - ignorant via the methodologies of procrastination and perfection paralysis - or the simple idea that fear of imperfection delayed me from making the things I want to make. an unrealistic fear where the dreamland of your head does not materialize in reality.
but I have come to realize that almost all ideas once flushed out were almost always one of two things:
an idea that does not conform to the laws of physics in this universe and is thus impossible currently
creations become better manifestations of your dreams because you can experience them in real life
I also realized that my laziness shy’d me away from building the life of my dreams. I wanted wild success while also being unwilling to put in the work - this combined with my aforementioned procrastination and perfection bias crippled me. so I took myself to distractions - food, media, sex, travel - to escape the reality in which things wouldn’t be perfect
this same insatiability for constant distraction and immediate gratification led me down a dark path of addiction and a deep hole of debt.
on top of that I also coupled my anxieties with this inability to do work. every time I tried to dive deep into work my mind would escape to thousands of places - usually negative - to distract me from what I was doing. I let those anxieties control me and suspend my ability to move forward in a productive way. the anxieties had attached themselves to the creative factories of my brain - and thus it made work difficult. I almost wanted to get caught up in it all - I sought the distraction - because it seemed an irrefutable excuse to use as a crutch for my inaction.
but throughout the past few years I spent deep segments of time in my head meditating - working through all of these issues. I began to claw back the life I once dreamed of having - but still let the perfection paralysis and procrastination drive.
I would have these occasional bursts of maximum joy and dreams of the future which would catalyze a drive and desire that would soon be extinguished by procrastination and perfection paralysis.
beyond, I would always try and constantly reset my life - trying to constantly rebuild things that just needed iterative improvement - shunning out previous actions and convincing myself that nothing before mattered and I always had to restart.
I also tacitly believed that I was going to live forever - something I now constantly embrace the antithesis of. this also allowed me to push off all tasks - constantly just assuming there would always be more time, more possibility, and more opportunity.
but slowly over time I came to peace with these motives. they are apart of who I am, and fortunately it leads me to do better work. as they say the deeper you get, the deeper you get. this constant desire to reset is based on my desire to always iterate and evolve as a human being. but I realized that if I had used my previous version as the foundation I could keep refining and coming back better and better.
I am thankful for the time I spent purely ideating all of these visions of my future and building pathways to solve nearly all of the mental factories that crippled me.
although sometimes I look back and see all of the money, time, and energy I wasted not chasing these goals - I quickly remind myself that these moments were paramount to bringing my life to the point it is at now - something I would not trade for anyone else’s in the world. and remember - this was my conscious choice in each of these moments to take those actions.
I appreciate all the thoughts, actions, and motives that have led me to where I am now. I realize that I truly did spend more time building the life I dream of constantly but simply didn’t realize that not only was I on the path the entire time, but more importantly the realization that building anything truly great takes immense time.
I am exactly the person i’ve always wanted to be, and am on the path to become the person I have always dreamt of being. I have been lucky enough to spend most of the time living - seeing the world, meeting incredible people, and doing things for the sake of doing them.
but it is time for me to put pen to paper and truly begin heavy work on building the foundations of my future. that 27% will be transformed into at least 116% effort. my remaining time on this planet will be spent in the absolute pursuit of peace, happiness, and my dreams.
but now, the only thing that stands in the way between myself and that future is work. work on myself. work on my relationships. work on my system, my habits, my addictions, and the projects that are the seeds of my entire future.
it’s time to start believing in myself again, and be kind to my past self. I did not know any better. but these lessons I have learned along the way, actions I have taken in earnest, and dreams I have constantly iterated have all prepared me for something incredible: the ability to build the life I have always dreamt of.
onward and upward.
