(Brace Yourself):

At some point we all must admit the inevitable:

Life is short, not all of our dreams can come true, so we should carefully pick and choose what we have the best shot at and then commit.

We try things. Some of them go well. Some of them don’t.

The point is to stick with the ones that go well and move on, not get upset about every little thing that didn’t go our way.

What we don’t realize is that there is a fine art of not giving a fuck. People aren’t just born not giving a fuck.

Not giving a fuck must be honed over years of deliberate practice.

Finding meaning and purpose is not a five-day spa retreat. It’s a fucking hike through mud and shit with golf-ball-sized hail pelting you in the face. And you have to love it.

You have to laugh about it. To show the world your gleaming bruises and scars and say, ” I stood for THIS.”

No one is going to stand up at your funeral and say, “He fucked like a wildebeest and had the best golf swing I’ve ever seen.”

Life is about loving people, not impressing them.

So with that being said drink your damn coffee, stay true to yourself and have a beautiful day motherfuckers 🤙🏻

Lee ❤️

Ah, narcissists. Checking themselves out in every reflective surface they walk by. Yammering on about that one time they won the third class spelling bee. Thinking they’re God’s gift to the fucking universe after all, why else would He (yes I called god a “he” don’t shoot me 🙄) have put them right in the middle of it?

But here’s the thing: Narcissism is way more complex and, quite frankly, way more annoying than that.

Yes, it’s an inflated sense of self-importance and a hankering for constant admiration, combined with a devastating lack of empathy for others. It’s the “Me, Myself and I” syndrome, where the world must revolve around a single person, and everyone else is just an extra in the movie of their life.

But before you start pointing fingers at your ex or that obnoxious coworker, remember: We’ve all got a smidgeon of narcissism in us. It’s just that some people got an extra dollop. Or five.

So let’s dive headfirst into this bottomless pit of ego and self-absorption, cutting through the bullshit, and maybe, just maybe, we’ll come out on the other side understanding what makes these narcissists tick.

And who knows, we might even figure out how to deal with them without losing our damn sanity. Let’s unpack this sweaty bag of asses together.

WHAT IS NARCISSISM?

First, let’s clarify what narcissism actually is.

Simply put, narcissism is a chronic state of entitlement. A narcissist might believe they are exceptionally extraordinary or exceptionally deprived. In either case, the rules that apply to everyone else don’t apply to them. The narcissist owes the world nothing, while the world owes them everything.

As with most things in life, narcissism comes in varying degrees. No one is 0% or 100% narcissistic. Everyone falls along a spectrum. We all exhibit a few narcissistic traits that is, a certain amount of entitlement on our worst days.

But, at the extreme end, a person might be suffering from a full blown personality disorder. And even those who are clinically diagnosed will fall along a spectrum from high-functioning individuals to complete neurotic messes.

We all engage in at least some narcissistic behaviors at some point or another. The problem arises when narcissism becomes our default mode and we don’t realize we’re behaving like a narcissist.

THE TWO TYPES OF NARCISSISM

I have talked about two types of entitlement before, which are really two types of narcissism. Let’s pick apart each one.

THE GRANDIOSE NARCISSIST

The “grandiose narcissist” is the type we mostly think of when we say that someone is a narcissist. They’re the thin-skinned, attention-seeking, arrogant asshats who are oblivious to the needs of others and will exploit anything and anyone.

Now, we all know someone who thinks a little too highly of themselves, craves attention and admiration a little too much.

They can’t take criticism, they blame everyone else when things go wrong, and they expect to get extra special treatment because they’re above the plebes and schlubs and “normal people” who cower beneath them.

But these kinds of narcissists also often have a charm about them, at least at first. Their outward self-confidence can be refreshing to be around, especially if you aren’t a person who feels a shit tone of confidence to begin with.

But their bullshit quickly sours.The blaming, the gaslighting, the manipulation, the way they constantly turn everything back onto themselves.It gets exhausting.

Some Tell-Tale Signs of a Grandiose Narcissist

• Being arrogant, braggy, and showing off

• Exaggerating accomplishments and/or talents

• Requiring constant admiration and praise

• Believing others are envious and jealous of them

• Having a preoccupation with success, power, brilliance, beauty, and/or the ideal mate

• Taking advantage of and exploiting others for personal gain

• Lacking empathy

• Having a sense of specialness/uniqueness that only other special/unique people can understand

• Having unreasonable expectations of special treatment

THE VULNERABLE NARCISSIST

Let me paint a picture of someone else we all know too.

This is the person who’s much more reserved and doesn’t really seek out attention in all those loud and obnoxious ways. They can be shy at times, and they might even put themselves down a little too much.

Like a grandiose narcissist, they are hyper-sensitive and need constant reassurance. But unlike a grandiose narcissist, they don’t believe they are better than everyone else. In fact, they believe the opposite—they believe they are uniquely victimized or oppressed by everyone else.

Vulnerable narcissism is a more subtle form of narcissism. But it’s still narcissism. The difference is that a grandiose narcissist thinks they’re uniquely superior, while the vulnerable narcissist thinks they’re uniquely inferior.

A grandiose narcissist believes they are uniquely privileged while a vulnerable narcissist believes they are uniquely under-privileged. A grandiose narcissist takes pride in taking advantage of others while a vulnerable narcissist takes pride in being taken advantage of by others.

Like the grandiose narcissist, the vulnerable narcissist thinks they deserve special treatment because of their uniqueness.

These are the self-labeled, perpetual victims. They may be shy and outwardly self-effacing. But underneath that cowering exterior is a sense of grandiosity.

They’ll get offended by the smallest slights and anything and everything distresses them.

Some Signs of a Vulnerable Narcissist

• Appearing submissive

• Putting themselves down

• Feeling under-recognized and under-appreciated

• Being easily offended

• Being envious and jealous of others

• Getting easily distressed

• Not taking good care of themselves like in grooming or health

• Having a sense of specialness/uniqueness that only other special/unique people can understand

• Having unreasonable expectations of special treatment

Though grandiose and vulnerable narcissists are different in important ways, both are extraordinarily self-absorbed and have a fragile sense of self they have to maintain by viewing themselves as exceptional again, either exceptionally extraordinary or exceptionally deficient.

They deny any realities that do not support their grandiose self-perception and as a result tend to engage only in superficial relationships or withdraw from social situations altogether.

At the heart of it, both kinds of narcissists are overly self-entitled individuals who believe they’re special and that different rules in life apply to them.

WHERE DOES NARCISSISM COME FROM?

Narcissism is a pretty complex personality trait, and psychologists haven’t completely untangled how it comes about, but they have found some clues.

For one, certain approaches to parenting appear to influence the development of narcissism.

There is some evidence to suggest that children are at a higher risk of developing narcissistic qualities if they grow up with parents who are authoritarian, highly indulgent, or overly neglectful of their children’s emotions.

Let’s take these one at a time:

1. Authoritarian Parenting

These parents try to control their children’s behavior to an unhealthy degree. They demand strict obedience to rules, while providing little in the way of warmth, support, or open communication.

Authoritarian parents may base their child’s worth on accomplishments and conformity to rules, which can lead children to develop an inflated sense of self-importance to cope with this pressure. They may also develop a deep-seated sense of entitlement as a defense mechanism against feeling unloved or not good enough.

2. INDULGENT PARENTING

On the opposite end of the spectrum, children who are overly validated by gushing parents also tend to end up as narcissists.

Not surprisingly, if a child constantly hears how “special” and “wonderful” and “beautiful” they are (spoiler: you’re not fucking special), they end up internalizing their parents’ inflated views of them and grow up to believe they’re entitled to extra privileges in life.

3. NEGLECTFUL PARENTING

Also known as uninvolved parenting, this style is characterized by low levels of both warmth and control.

Neglectful parents may be unresponsive to their children’s needs and may not provide necessary guidance or feedback. They often fail to validate their children’s emotions or thoughts.

In response, children may develop narcissistic traits as a coping mechanism, using an inflated sense of self-importance to compensate for feelings of neglect and unworthiness.

On the surface, these parenting styles seem wildly different, so how could they all contribute to developing narcissism?

Well, the one thing they all have in common is that they don’t help the child to fully express a realistic, independent identity.

Authoritarian parents are overly controlling and therefore don’t let their children find their own way in life. This makes them seek more and more outside validation in order to feel good about themselves, which could turn into narcissism.

Indulgent parents, on the other hand, provide too few boundaries for their children, and instead contribute to an inflated sense of self that isn’t grounded in reality.

And neglectful parents provide little to no validation for their children’s emotional needs, so they might grow up narcissistic to overcompensate for feelings of shame and inadequacy. Shame, in fact, plays a crucial role in people who develop vulnerable narcissism.

IT’S NOT ALL YOUR PARENTS’ FAULT

Now, before you go off and start hating your parents (or hating them more than you already do…), it’s important to understand that parenting is just one factor that might contribute to narcissism.

Research into the origins of narcissism is still in its early stages. We don’t really know how genetics, peer groups, trauma and many, many other factors might contribute.

And so, while I think parenting is important, I’m not one to blame parents for too much.

In fact, a balance between each of the above parenting styles appears to be the antidote to raising narcissistic kids. Namely, children with parents who encourage their kids, show warmth towards them, set strong boundaries, and also have high standards for them tend to turn out pretty well adjusted.

So it seems that our parents just did the best they could, but they might have focused a little too much on one style over others.

My point is: don’t blame parents for everything. Most (yes I say most because “some” aren’t doing a fucking thing) are just doing the best they can.

THE PROBLEM WITH NARCISSISM

The past decade or two has seen a very public debate about the possibility of a narcissism “epidemic” in our current culture, especially among young people.

The reality is that every culture in recorded history has had to deal with narcissism and the myriad problems associated with it. At the extreme end, narcissism has been linked to substance abuse and a wide range of personality disorders, from bipolar to borderline and passive-aggressive disorders.

Grandiose narcissism tends to co-occur with antisocial traits and paranoia, while vulnerable narcissism tends to be accompanied by depression, anxiety, and suicidal tendencies.

People with grandiose narcissistic traits tend to crave power and those who emerge as leaders can create a pretty toxic environment for the poor souls they reign over.

And though it’s often grandiose narcissists who we see as exploitative, vulnerable narcissists are also not very good at empathizing with others and can be equally dickish.

Worse, narcissism has been consistently linked with violence. Researchers bicker over whether narcissism is increasing in prevalence, but I’d argue this is merely semantics. Narcissism—both as a personality trait and a mental disorder—is as serious a problem today as it was in 1978 or ancient Greece, for that matter.

HOW TO DEAL WITH NARCISSISTIC PEOPLE

The first rule of dealing with narcissistic people is: don’t.

If you can avoid having to interact with a narcissist, then don’t interact with them. Don’t try to convince them, persuade them, change them, fix them, or change their mind. It’s probably impossible and even if it’s not, it’s definitely not worth it.

That being said, sometimes you have to deal with a narcissistic person and if you’re going to have to deal with them, then it’s important to understand how to go about it.

Obviously, how you deal with narcissists will vary depending on the context in which you interact with them; e.g., how you handle a narcissistic boss will be different from how you handle your narcissistic boyfriend and parents. Even in the same context, each individual is different, so obviously, the approach here varies.

But basically, the key to handling narcissistic people is boundaries. Decide how much exposure you are willing to have to them, and decide to what extent you’re willing to interact with them. Decide beforehand what you’re willing to do and not do with them, what you’re willing and not willing to talk about with them, and what you’re willing and not willing to share with them. Then stick to it.

Narcissists have got nothing on you if you have and enforce boundaries in your life, be it with your colleagues, your friends, your partner, or even your family.

Unfortunately, most of us are pretty bad at maintaining healthy boundaries and as a result get embroiled in drama and end up doing things we don’t really want to do.

Having healthy boundaries means taking responsibility for your own actions and emotions—and NOT taking responsibility for the actions or emotions of others.

It’s when your narcissistic colleague tries to take credit for your work and you refuse and proudly stake your claim.

It’s when your narcissistic uncle asks to borrow money because something bad always happens to him and oh he’s so unlucky and you tell him a firm “no.”

It’s when your narcissistic partner tries to bully you into feeling guilty that you stayed late at work that one time and you call them out on their bullshit.

If you can’t avoid having narcissists in your life, surround yourself with boundaries. Draw lines in the sand and enforce them. If you want to deep dive into how, I’ve got just the article for you.

HOW TO DEAL WITH YOUR OWN NARCISSISM

Plot twist: but what if you’re the narcissist? Not sure? Ask yourself the following questions:

• Do you feel that people often don’t (or can’t) understand you or your problems?

• Do you feel that there are many barriers in your life which you have no control over?

• Do you often ask for help from others and/or feel like few people are willing to help you?

• Do you feel like you often don’t receive the attention or appreciation that you deserve?

• Do people often complain that you don’t listen to them, when in fact, you feel like they don’t listen to you?

• Do you feel like most other people have lives that are much easier than yours?

• Do you fight with close friends and loved ones often?

• If so, is it usually their fault?

• Do people suddenly drop contact with you with no explanation and refuse to communicate with you again?

• Do you often feel helpless, like you have little opportunity to improve your life?

If you answered “yes” to most of the above, then you might actually be the problem.

If you recognize and accept you have narcissistic traits, congratulations: you’ve made it further than most narcissistic people ever will.

Clinical narcissism is notoriously difficult to treat. There is no one proven therapy, and the many recommended therapies commonly practiced all require long-term effort and engagement.

In short: seek medical help and buckle down for the long haul baby.

If you’re simply exhibiting traits of narcissism some of the time, I’ve got some tips or rather, some life-altering truths—to help reduce your narcissistic tendencies.

Narcissism boils down to believing you’re special and entitled to be treated differently than others. The antidote and this is easier said than done, is simply to accept that you are not fucking special.

In fact, you’re average at almost everything, most of the time. And that’s ok. You don’t need to be special or great at something to be a worthy person or live a meaningful life.

Instead of weaving elaborate narratives to convince yourself of your specialness, you’ll be much better off avoiding labeling yourself anything and just living.

You don’t know if you’re great or not, and that’s fine. You’ll do your best anyway. You don’t know if you’re a victim or not. That’s fine. You’ll get better and feel healthy again anyway. You don’t know if you deserve good or bad treatment and that’s fine. You’ll take responsibility for your life anyway.

Find satisfaction in the simply everyday pleasures of life.

Every day when you wake up, rejoice that you’re still alive. Marvel at the wonders of toothpaste when you brush your teeth every morning. See beauty in how the light reflects off the surface of passing cars. Be curious about other people.

You’re not “destined” for greatness. You’re not destined for anything.

Stop trying so hard to prove you’re better than everyone else. Stop whining about how unfair the world has been to you.

Take a deep breath and get on with your day. Just like everybody fucking else.

Side note: what you are destined for is a beautifully crafted cup of coffee today. Go grab it and have an amazing day!

Until next time,

❤️ Lee

The French philosopher Blaise Pascal once wrote, “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” It was a simple and profound thought about the nature of boredom, self-awareness, and our endless capacity to distract ourselves with dumb shit.

Try it: sit in a quiet room with no distractions—no phone, no music, no television or podcasts or video games and do nothing for twenty minutes. Don’t sing. Don’t dance. Don’t see how many push-ups you can do or trim your toenails or count the spackle on the ceiling. Just sit and be alone with your own mind. Sounds easy right?

Unless you’re experienced with meditation, chances are you would have a hard time doing this. Or, at least, it would be incredibly unpleasant and/or boring for you.

In fact, psychologists have tested this a number of times, and surprise, surprise… people really don’t like doing it. In one experiment roughly half of a group disliked it so much that they chose to receive an electric shock in order to get out of it and exit the room early.

THE FEAR OF SITTING ALONE IN A QUIET ROOM

What is it about sitting alone with our own thoughts that causes us to become so uncomfortable?

Pascal seemed to believe that our inability to allow ourselves to be bored—i.e., our constant need for validation causes us to do a lot of stupid and harmful things, both to ourselves and others.

But there’s also a slightly deeper, more subtle explanation. There are certain characteristics of our thoughts and feelings that we don’t like about ourselves.

Therefore, we likely feel a need to distract ourselves from ourselves in proportion to all of the unsavory stuff rattling around between our ears.

The more we deny or reject our internal world, the more we compulsively look for external things to occupy our attention.

It’s this self-rejection that leads to self-destructive behaviors, thrill-seeking, and addiction. And some of us apparently are so nonplussed with ourselves that we’d rather experience the external pain of electrocution than the internal pain of our own self-reflection.

What a… shocking conclusion.

(Sorry…)

HOW TO STOP BEING SO SELF-CONSCIOUS

There’s a fine line between healthy self-awareness and (often unhealthy) self-consciousness.

Self-awareness is the simple noticing and acknowledgement of whatever’s rattling around inside your brain.

You notice that you’re feeling angry. You notice that you are having trouble focusing. You notice that you think your co-worker’s story about their weekend is dumb and think to yourself, “Nobody cares.”

Self-awareness is like sitting on the park bench of your own mind, watching the thoughts and feelings and impulses walk by.

Sometimes, it’s a shitshow in our mental park. There’s rubbish everywhere, a bunch of screaming kids fighting with one another, maybe a crack addict rummaging through the rubbish cans.

And this is where self-consciousness comes in…Self-consciousness is the judgment of what is happening within our minds.

Noticing that we’re irritable on a Monday morning is self-aware. Worrying that we are an asshole for being irritable is self-conscious.

Thinking a co-worker’s story is dumb is self-aware. Believing that you are a horrible co-worker and a bad human being for thinking their story is dumb is self-conscious.

If self-awareness is simply sitting in our mental park and watching our inner hobo take a shit on the children’s slide, self-consciousness is running around the park screaming, “This is all wrong! Stop! Make it stop!”

Self-consciousness makes us more insecure and anxious because it attempts to hold our inner life to some arbitrary standard created by our outer life.

We judge our anger because we believe the world expects us to be happy. We judge our impatience because we believe the world expects us to be considerate. We judge our insecurity because we believe the world expects us to be confident.

The Buddha said that hatred was like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. Well, self-consciousness is kind of like stabbing yourself because you think the puncture wounds will make you way more likeable to others.

The remedy to self-consciousness is simply more self-awareness. Just as you notice the irritability as an object of your attention, you then notice the judgment of that irritability as the object of your attention.

There’s the emotion—then there’s the emotion about the emotion, or the “meta-emotion” …and then it’s just turtles all the way down.

BOREDOM LEADS TO CREATIVITY

There’s another benefit to being able to sit and stew in one’s own boredom:

it promotes creativity.

Creativity is an area where people’s assumptions and the actual research couldn’t be more different.

We generally assume that creative people are wild, spontaneous, and a little crazy. It turns out that most of the creative geniuses throughout history have been routine-driven workaholics.

We assume that creativity comes from an exciting life full of hardship and challenges. In fact, it comes from the willingness to spend significant amounts of time thinking and being bored.

One of the ways to be more creative, which I’be alluded too before, is to simply become more prolific. When you research the towering creative figures throughout history, it turns out that most of them simply out-produced their contemporaries by a wide margin.

To use a basketball analogy, it wasn’t that they were more accurate shooters, it was mostly that they took way more shots.

History then disregards their misses.

All that’s left to say is enjoy your weekend and make sure you drink your damn coffee!

Until next time motherfuckers

Lee ❤️

Most of us have no clue what we want to do with our lives. Even after we finish school. Even after we get a job. Even after we’re making money. Between ages 18 and 25, I changed career aspirations more often than I changed my underwear. And even after I had this career in the military, it took another five years to clearly define what I wanted for my life.

Chances are you’re more like me and have no clue what you want to do. It’s a struggle almost every adult goes through. “What do I want to do with my life?” “What am I passionate about?” “What do I not suck at?” I often receive emails from people in their 40s and 50s who still have no clue what they want to do with themselves.

THE PROBLEM WITH LOOKING FOR A “LIFE PURPOSE”

Part of the problem is the concept of “life purpose” itself. The idea that we were each born for some higher purpose and it’s now our cosmic mission to find it. This is the same kind of shitty logic used to justify things like spirit crystals or that your lucky number is 34 (but only on Tuesdays or during full moons).

Here’s the truth. We exist on this earth for some undetermined period of time. During that time we do things. Some of these things are important. Some of them are unimportant. And those important things give our lives meaning and happiness. The unimportant ones basically just kill time.

So when people say, “What should I do with my life?” or “What is my life purpose?” what they’re actually asking is:

“What can I do with my time that is important?”

This is an infinitely better question to ask. It’s far more manageable and it doesn’t have all of the ridiculous baggage that the “life purpose” question does. There’s no reason for you to be contemplating the cosmic significance of your life while sitting on your couch all day eating Doritos. Rather, you should be getting off your ass and discovering what feels important to you.

One of the most common email questions I get is people asking me what they should do with their lives, what their “life purpose” is. This is an impossible question for me to answer. After all, for all I know, this person is really into knitting sweaters for kittens or filming gay bondage porn in their basement. I have no clue. Who am I to say what’s right or what’s important to them? But after some research, I have put together a series of questions to help you figure out for yourself what is important to you and what can add more meaning to your life.

These questions are by no means exhaustive or definitive. In fact, they’re a little bit ridiculous. But I made them that way because discovering purpose in our lives should be something that’s fun and interesting, not a chore.

So whether you’re looking for your dream job, thinking about starting a second career, or you just don’t want to spend your entire life wondering “what if…”, hopefully you find some meaningful answers to these ridiculous—but kind of thought-provoking—questions.

1. WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE FLAVOUR OF SHIT SANDWICH AND DOES IT COME WITH AN OLIVE?

What shit sandwich do you want to eat? Because eventually, we all get served one.

Ah, yes. The all-important question. What flavour of shit sandwich would you like to eat? Because here’s the sticky little truth about life that they don’t tell you at high school pep rallies: Everything sucks, some of the time.

Now, that probably sounds incredibly pessimistic. And you may be thinking, “Hey Mr. Conroy, turn that frown upside down.” But I actually think this is a liberating idea.

Everything involves sacrifice. Everything includes some sort of cost. Nothing is pleasurable or uplifting all of the time. So, the question becomes: what struggle or sacrifice are you willing to tolerate? Ultimately, what determines our ability to stick with something we care about is our ability to handle the rough patches and ride out the inevitable rotten days.

If you want to be a brilliant tech entrepreneur, but you can’t handle failure, then you’re not going to make it far. If you want to be a professional artist, but you aren’t willing to see your work rejected hundreds, if not thousands of times, then you’re done before you start. If you want to be a hotshot court lawyer, but can’t stand the 80-hour workweeks, then I’ve got bad news for you.

What unpleasant experiences are you able to handle? Are you able to stay up all night coding? Are you able to put off starting a family for 10 years? Are you able to have people laugh you off the stage over and over again until you get it right?

What shit sandwich do you want to eat? Because we all get served one eventually.

And your favourite shit sandwich is your competitive advantage. By definition, anything that you’re willing to do (that you enjoy doing) that most people are not willing to do gives you a huge leg-up.

So, find your favourite shit sandwich. And you might as well pick one with an olive.

THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION WILL TELL YOU:

• What struggles you are willing to tolerate to get what you want

• What you will likely be better than other people at

2. WHAT’S TRUE ABOUT YOU TODAY THAT WOULD MAKE YOUR 8-YEAR-OLD SELF CRY?

Something about the social pressures of adolescence and professional pressures of young adulthood squeezes the passion out of us. We’re taught that the only reason to do something is if we’re somehow rewarded for it. And the transactional nature of the world inevitably stifles us and makes us feel lost or stuck.

When I was a child, I used to write stories. I used to sit in my room for hours by myself, writing away, about aliens, about superheroes, about great warriors, about my friends and family. Not because I wanted anyone to read it. Not because I wanted to impress my parents or teachers. But for the sheer joy of it.

And then, for some reason, I stopped. And I don’t remember why.

We all have a tendency to lose touch with what we loved as a child. Something about the social pressures of adolescence and professional pressures of young adulthood squeezes the passion out of us. We’re taught that the only reason to do something is if we’re somehow rewarded for it. And the transactional nature of the world inevitably stifles us and makes us feel lost or stuck.

It wasn’t until I was 30 that I rediscovered how much I loved writing. And it wasn’t until I started my website that I remembered how much I enjoyed peeling away life’s problems.

The funny thing though, is that if my 8-year-old self asked my 20-year-old self, “Why don’t you write anymore?” and I replied, “Because I’m not good at it,” or “Because nobody would read what I write,” or “Because you can’t make money doing that,” not only would I have been completely wrong, but that eight-year-old-boy version of me would have probably started crying. That eight-year-old boy didn’t care about Google traffic or social media virality or book advances. He just wanted to play. And that’s where passion always begins: with a sense of play.

THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION WILL TELL YOU:

• What childhood passion you lost to adulthood

• What activity you should revisit, just for the fun of it

3. WHAT MAKES YOU FORGET TO EAT AND POOP?

Look at the activities that keep you up all night, but look at the cognitive principles behind those activities that enthrall you. Because they can easily be applied elsewhere.

We’ve all had that experience where we get so wrapped up in something that minutes turn into hours and hours turn into “Holy crap, I forgot to have dinner.”

Supposedly, in his prime, Isaac Newton’s mother had to regularly come in and remind him to eat because he would spend entire days so absorbed in his work that he would forget.

I used to be like that with video games. This probably wasn’t a good thing. In fact, for many years it was kind of a problem. I would sit and play video games instead of doing more important things like studying for an exam, or showering regularly, or speaking to other humans face-to-face.

It wasn’t until I gave up the games that I realised my passion wasn’t for the games themselves (although I do love them). My passion is for improvement, being good at something and then trying to get better. The games themselves—the graphics, the stories—they were cool, but I can easily live without them. It’s the competition with others and with myself that I thrive on.

And when I applied that obsessiveness for self-improvement and competition to my writing, well, things took off in a big way.

Maybe for you, it’s something else. Maybe it’s organising things efficiently, or getting lost in a fantasy world, or teaching somebody something, or solving technical problems. Whatever it is, don’t just look at the activities that keep you up all night, but look at the cognitive principles behind those activities that enthrall you. Because they can easily be applied elsewhere.

THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION WILL TELL YOU:

• What you truly enjoy doing

• What other activities to check out that you might also enjoy

4. HOW CAN YOU BETTER EMBARRASS YOURSELF?

Embrace embarrassment. Feeling foolish is part of the path to achieving something important, something meaningful. The more a major life decision scares you, chances are the more you need to be doing it.

Before you are able to be good at something and do something important, you must first suck at something and have no clue what you’re doing. That’s pretty obvious. And in order to suck at something and have no clue what you’re doing, you must embarrass yourself in some shape or form, often repeatedly. And most people try to avoid embarrassing themselves, namely because it sucks.

Ergo, due to the transitive property of awesomeness, if you avoid anything that could potentially embarrass you, then you will never end up doing something that feels important. Yes, it seems that once again, it all comes back to vulnerability.

Right now, there’s something you want to do, something you think about doing, something you fantasise about doing, yet you don’t do it. You have your reasons, no doubt. And you repeat these reasons to yourself ad infinitum.

But what are those reasons? Because I can tell you right now that if those reasons are based on what others would think, then you’re screwing yourself over big time.

If your reasons are something like, “I can’t start a business because spending time with my kids is more important to me,” or “Playing Starcraft all day would probably interfere with my music, and music is more important to me,” then OK. Sounds good.

But if your reasons are, “My parents would hate it,” or “My friends would make fun of me,” or “If I failed, I’d look like an idiot,” then chances are, you’re actually avoiding something you truly care about because caring about that thing is what scares the shit out of you, not what mom thinks or what Timmy next door says.

Great things are, by their very nature, unique and unconventional. Therefore, to achieve them, we must go against the herd mentality. And to do that is scary.

Embrace embarrassment. Feeling foolish is part of the path to achieving something important, something meaningful. The more a major life decision scares you, chances are the more you need to be doing it.

THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION WILL TELL YOU:

• What scares the shit out of you… for good reason

• That you should stop making lousy excuses and start doing something

5. HOW ARE YOU GOING TO SAVE THE WORLD?

you’re not going to fix the world’s problems by yourself. But you can contribute and make a difference. And that feeling of making a difference is ultimately what’s most important for your own happiness and fulfilment.

In case you haven’t seen the news lately, the world has a few problems. And by “a few problems,” what I really mean is, “everything is fucked and we’re all going to die.”

I’ve harped on this before, and the research also bears it out, but to live a happy and healthy life, we must hold on to values that are greater than our own pleasure or satisfaction.

So pick a problem and start saving the world. There are plenty to choose from. Our screwed up education systems, economic development, domestic violence, mental health care, governmental corruption. Hell, I just saw an article this morning on sex trafficking in the US and it got me all riled up and wishing I could do something. It also ruined my breakfast.

Find a problem you care about and start solving it. Obviously, you’re not going to fix the world’s problems by yourself. But you can contribute and make a difference. And that feeling of making a difference is ultimately what’s most important for your own happiness and fulfilment. And importance equals purpose.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Gee Lee, I read all of this horrible stuff and I get all pissed off too, but that doesn’t translate to action, much less a new career path.”

Glad you asked…

THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION WILL TELL YOU:

• What problem you care about that’s larger than you

• How you can make a difference

6. GUN TO YOUR HEAD, IF YOU HAD TO LEAVE THE HOUSE ALL DAY, EVERY DAY, WHERE WOULD YOU GO AND WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

Discovering what you’re passionate about in life and what matters to you is a full-contact sport, a trial-by-fire process. None of us know exactly how we feel about an activity until we actually do the activity.

For many of us, the enemy is just old-fashioned complacency. We get into our routines. We distract ourselves. The couch is comfortable. The Doritos are cheesy. And nothing new happens.

This is a problem.

What most people don’t understand is that passion is the result of action, not the cause of it.

Discovering what you’re passionate about in life and what matters to you is a full-contact sport, a trial-by-fire process. None of us know exactly how we feel about an activity until we actually do the activity.

So ask yourself, if someone put a gun to your head and forced you to leave your house every day for everything except for sleep, how would you choose to occupy yourself? And no, you can’t just go sit in a coffee shop and browse Facebook. You probably already do that. Let’s pretend there are no useless websites, no video games, no TV. Take yourself back to the 90’s when Facebook, Instagram, all this social media clusterfuck most of us spend half our lives on had yet to be invented.

You have to be outside of the house all day every day actively doing something until it’s time to go to bed—where would you go and what would you do?

Sign up for a dance class? Join a book club? Go get another degree? Invent a new form of irrigation system that can save the thousands of children’s lives in rural Africa? Learn to hang glide?

What would you do with all of that time? What activity would you choose above all others? We all have only 24 hours in a day, and so we’re back to the all-important question that we all should be asking ourselves:

“What can I do with my time that is important?”

If it strikes your fancy, write down a few answers and then, you know, go out and actually do them. Bonus points if it involves embarrassing yourself.

THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION WILL TELL YOU:

• What you were passionate about all along

• How you should spend your time

7. IF YOU KNEW YOU WERE GOING TO DIE ONE YEAR FROM TODAY, WHAT WOULD YOU DO AND HOW WOULD YOU WANT TO BE REMEMBERED?

Ultimately, death is the only thing that gives us perspective on the value of our lives. Because it’s only by imagining your non-existence that you can get a sense of what is most important about your existence.

Most of us don’t like thinking about death. It freaks us out. But thinking about our own death surprisingly has a lot of practical advantages. One of those advantages is that it forces us to zero in on what’s actually important in our lives and what’s just frivolous and distracting.

When I was in college, I used to walk around and ask people, “If you had a year to live, what would you do?” As you can imagine, I was a huge hit at parties. A lot of people gave vague and boring answers. A few drinks were nearly spat on me. But it did cause people to really think about their lives in a different way and re-evaluate what their priorities were.

Ultimately, death is the only thing that gives us perspective on the value of our lives. Because it’s only by imagining your non-existence that you can get a sense of what is most important about your existence. What is your legacy going to be? What are the stories people are going to tell when you’re gone? What is your obituary going to say? Is there anything to say at all? If not, what would you like it to say? How can you start working towards that today?

And again, if you fantasise about your obituary saying a bunch of badass shit that impresses a bunch of random other people, then again, you’re failing here.

When people feel like they have no sense of direction, no purpose in their life, it’s because they don’t know what’s important to them, they don’t know what their values are.

And when you don’t know what your values are, then you’re essentially taking on other people’s values and living other people’s priorities instead of your own. This is a one-way ticket to unhealthy relationships and eventual misery.

Discovering one’s “purpose” in life essentially boils down to finding those one or two things that are bigger than yourself, and bigger than those around you, values that will determine your priorities and guide your actions. It’s not about some great achievement, but merely finding a way to spend your limited amount of time well. And to do that you must get off your couch and act, and take the time to think beyond yourself, to think greater than yourself, and paradoxically, to imagine a world without yourself.

THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION WILL TELL YOU:

• What is most important to you

• What values should guide your actions

Oh and don’t forget to drink your coffee today 😏