Doubling Down

This is unexpected

This week’s blog was supposed to be called “It’s the intelligence, stupid”. But last week’s blog ruffled a few feathers, so I knew I had to address it. At first I thought I’d do it in my planned blog, where I would just open the blog with a few remarks and basically double down on my premise from last week’s blog. Turns out I can’t really do that in a paragraph or two. And although you probably do enjoy a longer read; if 20 minutes is a longer read for you; otherwise you wouldn’t read my blogs, I want to shorten them, at least for now.

It wasn’t really my decision to make this one a whole blog in itself, it was more born out of my inability to make my point without going round in circles or wandering through thoughts and insights, to try to make a point that sometimes, ends up half baked anyway.

I’ll write the intelligent stuff next week. It takes a lot of skill to write a proper blog, and skill requires a lot of practise. So bear with me while I practise.

BAAS — Blogging As A Service

Before I address last week’s assertions, I want to fill you in on my plans with regard to this blog. I’m well aware that the blog, as currently written, does nothing for the business with which it’s associated. And since I’ll start niching down the topics I write about, I’ve decided to separate the blog completely from the BestSites 0x business. There will still be a blog for that business, but it’ll be written by an AI tool, at least 95% of it and it will be about web design and development, digital marketing and SEO. I’ll also crank up the frequency, I think at least 2 articles per week.

I’ll keep writing this blog because I need to practise a lot and I want to live doing what I love. But a few things need to happen before I’m able to write quality, long articles. First, of course, I need to practise, and that takes time, 10,000 hours, someone said. Secondly, I’ve to have the time, and that’s a luxury I can’t afford yet.

4 hour workweek

In order to have the time to do this, I must make my business(es) as passive as possible. I’ll do this by outsourcing most tasks, either by hiring staff or outsourcing, and by using technology to automate every single process and task that can possibly be automated.

It goes without saying that the business(es) must offer something that people want or need. I may eventually start monetising the blog, but I don’t plan to do that to make ends meet. I did manage to drop my book recommendation, did you get it?

Let me say that again

With that out of the way, let’s look at why I got on some people’s nerves and why I’m doubling down. Many people are struggling. Some more than others. Things are definitely difficult at the time, politically, economically, culturally. But people struggling is not a new thing. It has always existed, definitely more in the past than nowadays. And people getting rich both financially and spiritually has also been a constant in our history. And don’t say that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer because that’s just factually false. I know I should now stamp a graph from a reliable source showing the development of global average income or whatever metric to prove my point but I won’t. If you doubt it, go look for the data. You’ll find the rich got richer yes, but the poor got less poor.

For the people who are struggling at the moment, it may be a bit much to say they don’t enjoy their struggle because there’s something wrong with their taste buds. There are all kinds of struggles, some are really hard to overcome and cause a lot of difficulties until we do overcome them, and I’ve to allow for some exceptions where the struggles aren’t to be enjoyed. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t enjoy a struggle and make it a constant in your life.

Wrestling

Some people struggle with mental illness, some with homelessness, some with both. Some struggle with cognitive functioning and the ability to learn, others with social skills that bankrupts their social networks. Others are unable to look within themselves and are at the mercy of what others suggest to them. Be careful with that TV. Financial struggles, emotional struggles, it really does come in all shapes and forms.

Granted, not all struggles are to be savoured, at least not while you’re struggling with them. They’re to be enjoyed after you overcome them. By the way, the same goes for mental illnesses when you’re struggling with them. A good example would be depression. It’s not a struggle that you enjoy, but it’s a struggle that you overcome so that you can then choose struggles that you can enjoy.

Once you cross a certain threshold of mental illness, you don’t really know if you’re happy or not, and you’re probably not struggling either, but the “healthy” loved ones do suffer because of it. A possible way to enjoy this last struggle is to focus on the positives and what we actually know. Why are we suffering for someone that we don’t know is suffering? We don’t suffer because of that person’s condition, we suffer because of what we wanted that person’s condition to be. We suffer because things are not the way we wanted them to be. Does it sound right?

And I’m the Queen of Sheba

Would it surprise you to see a mother of four in Burundi, struggling with hunger and unable to feed her children, smiling and feeling happiness, even if only in brief spurts? Where does that come from? It’s well known that social bonds, a sense of purpose and resilience can contribute to feelings of happiness and well-being. They can contribute, but something has to be in place for that feeling to actually materialise. The woman has to be predisposed to feel this way. For this predisposition to be present, there must be an understanding, even if unconscious, of her inner self.

Think about it: if that woman’s reality is the external reality, she’ll never feel happiness. Not if she secures food for the day, because her reality is that she’ll have to struggle again tomorrow, and not only that: even if she has got herself something to eat that day, she’ll lack everything else. She can feel happiness because our inner reality projects and objectively creates our outer reality. If you think that this woman’s reality is the same reality you see of her, I’ll never be able to make my case with you. If you think that my understanding of your reality is the same as yours, even after you explain your reality to me, then there’s nothing I can tell you and you can save yourself a few precious minutes by going away and maybe coming back next week. I do appreciate my readership.

Silver linings

Let me illustrate this with an example. Two men are working in similar situations. Similar jobs and tenure, family size and circumstances. Both are made redundant because the company they work for is struggling and making cuts wherever they can.

One man is devastated, feels victimised and can’t stop complaining about what just happened. He imagines his life deteriorating: first he has to move, then he probably has to sell his car, then come the relationship problems, and through all this he feels miserable.

The other man is happy that this has happened. It’s a great opportunity to take the step he’s always thought about but never dared because he had a comfortable life and didn’t feel adventurous enough to take on the challenge. He starts making plans on how to take advantage of the situation. He lists all the actions he needs to take. This could include selling the car and downgrading to a smaller one. He immediately thinks it’s about time, because the other car was too expensive and more than he and his family needed. Now both men have to start working quickly or the problems the first man foresaw will actually happen in one form or another.

Both men start applying for jobs and going to interviews. I ask you which man you think has a better chance of getting the best job. I’m talking about chances and probabilities here, not facts. From the outside, the realities of the two men look very similar, but in reality they’re more opposite than similar. Their outcomes are more influenced by their inner self than the external reality they both live in.

Adversity introduces a man to himself

Now for my own situation. Either you’re rock bottom or you’re happy, you can’t have both. The same rationale applies as in the previous example. It’s not the actual situation as you, the outsider, perceives it. It’s how the person who is going through the situation, in this case me, perceives it.

I’m dealing with situations that I wish for no one. Although I’m a humble person I do have my pride. I’m seeing it being stabbed by people and situations and unable to do anything to fend off, at least immediately. I don’t like it, but I have to accept it. I don’t have a choice. But I perceive my situation as very privileged and better than the one I was in not so long ago. I’ll write more about this in a later blog, because I think it will be important for me to do it at some stage, and there’s a chance it will be of value for some people.

But for today I’ll just say that being at rock bottom was the struggle I needed to find my motivation, and eventually my Ikigai. How could I not be happy coming from a situation where I had no motivation and let my demons guide me and my actions? Everything that has happened in my life in the last few months has made me look deep inside and very quickly find the monsters that I feared so much.

Midlife crisis

Can it get worse for me? Yes it can. Will life lose its sweetness then? Although I don’t wish to fall down any further, if I do, when I get out of it, it will only be sweeter. I’ll know where I have been and where I am at that moment. Being where I am at the moment, made it very clear to me what I don’t want in my life and think about what I have to do to make it virtually impossible for it to happen again.

It took me over 40 years to create the man I was until recently. I didn’t do an awful job of it but there’s nothing great in it either. I’m reinventing myself and I will use all the learnings from those 40 plus years to create a new man that I can feel comfortable saying is a great man. I can only do that if I’m not being led by my fears.

If you’re going through hell, keep going

You may think I’m going to tell you to find your demons and fight them to the death. But I’m going to tell you something slightly different.

You don’t need to look for your demons, they’ll appear immediately when you look inside you. They aren’t hiding, it’s you who are hiding them. They want to come out, it’s you who are holding them captive in the dungeons of your mind.

And don’t fight them either, because they’ll probably win that fight. Just bring them out and look at them straight and tall. Choose your demon and work it out before moving on to the next. Do this regularly, as often as you can, but give yourself time to refocus and build up strength. A day or two should be enough. After a few times the demon starts to dim, and you’ll continue until it disappears because it’s no longer a demon.

Imagine you look in the mirror, but the reflection is that of a demon. If you’re afraid and stop looking in the mirror, the monster will always be there and the effect on your life is that you no longer look at yourself in the mirror. So you go out into the world and you have no idea what you look like. If you look in the mirror every day, the demon starts to fade away until one day you look in the mirror and the reflection is your true self. Or another demon, and you do it all over again. Face your demons.

It’s now or never

When you’re not happy, what’s the reason for it? Regardless of what it is, it’ll be because of something of the past or something of the future. It’s never something of the present. When you say “now”, the “ now” is automatically in the past.

It’s never

The future hasn’t happened and no one knows what will happen in the future. You may be 100% sure that something will happen and it never happens exactly as you imagined. What’s the point of being unhappy about something that hasn’t happened and will probably never happen exactly as you imagine it? If there is a high probability that something will happen more or less as you predict, you can do something about it, being unhappy doesn’t help, on the contrary.

Never again

What about the past? It’s gone, it’s no longer reality. Because it has happened, it need have no influence on your happiness.

What if what has happened means that your present has changed into a state you don’t want? You lost your job, a loved one passed away, a relationship broke up, an accident took a body part from you — the list goes on. What about it? That was the past, it’s no longer your reality.

You’re unhappy because your reality isn’t what you wanted? How can it be that in 10 years you’ll still have the same change in your life and yet, very possibly, be happy? You still don’t have your loved one, your ex, your lost limb. Why can you be happy in the future but not now? Because you’re creating a different reality then, the facts remain the same though.

Stop. No, really. Stop. Breath… Look inside and try to be in the present. If you manage to really be in the present and get in tune with your inner self, tell me: are you unhappy? It’s not possible to be unhappy in the present. You’re either in the past or in the future, but not in the present. You may be fearful, but not unhappy.

When in the present, are you happy? Not necessarily. But you’re your true self and you can now work to create the reality you want.

Squeeze it

It’s not easy, it’s not quick and it’s something you have to do for the rest of your life. For my part, I came to a point where I saw only two possible outcomes. Quit the bitter game or find the sweetness within. You’re the baker of your own life. If you don’t understand and don’t want to learn how to bake a good, nutritious, sweet meal, you’ll end up with a failed attempt at life. I’ve mentioned before that we’re all flour from the same bag and yet we turn out such different end results. It’s the same flour, but the way it’s used results in very different end products.

Everyone struggles. My struggle powers my motivation. It gets me out of bed at half six every morning and propels me to take action every day. It gives me the fuel to be able to work 16 hours in a day.

If you think you have it harder than others, then you probably do. Life isn’t fair, but it’s generous and plentiful. It’s not easy, but it’s rewarding. It’s not a game, but you have to learn the rules. It’ll test you, but we all need to be tested. And happiness is not a constant, but you should welcome it and be a good host. There’s no such thing as luck, but if you think you’re lucky, you probably are. I won’t explain.

Closing remarks

That’s my case. I’ve read it a few times already. I’ll read it again while I run it through InstaText, my Grammarly replacement, which ¾ of the time butchers my writing but the other quarter does bring an improvement. I’ll read it again once it’s published. After that, and only after that, I’ll critique it and find some arguments that could have been better explained or supported. Because I know this, there’s no point in editing the text any further at this moment. I hope you like this week’s “doubling down” and be happy.