The problem that many people face in their lives that keeps them from improving and growing is that there’s a disconnect between the truth, and their perception of the truth. Never before in our history as humans has there been more opportunity. Never before in our history has our fate been more in our control. Yet so many still complain that life isn’t fair (which is true) and they focus purely on the things they can’t control while completely neglecting the things that they can. (Read this: Who Controls Your Fate?)
Life isn’t fair. It’s never been fair, not for anyone. It’s filled with trial and error, failure and sorrow. Get over it. Lamenting over how things could be or should be or how you’d wish them to be does you no good. It allows you to wallow in a world of self-pity, rather than forcing you to control the myriad of things that you can control in this world.
You can control your thoughts. You can control the amount of work you do. You can control whether or not you envy or if you praise. You can control if you complain or if you see opportunity. You can control your emotions and more importantly how you react to those emotions.
I’ve never met a successful person who envy’s. I’ve never met a happy person who complains. I’ve never met a productive person who doesn’t work hard.
I have, however, met many more humans who complain and envy and wish, and after all of their complaining and comparing, they fail to work hard. They look at those who are born to wealth and scream bloody murder, yet they do nothing to make sure that their kids are born into a life with the luxuries of those they hate so dearly and for no reason other than the luck of the draw that is the family we’re born into, which is, again, a perception as to what is good and beneficial.
We are becoming weak and envious sissies who don’t want to work because we feel that the system is set to make us fail. Well, there were times when the system was set to make certain people fail, yet guys like Martin Luther King Jr. didn’t quit or cry, he stood like a man and spoke and marched and acted.
The system was set to make men who weren’t born into a position of wealth or royalty stay in the class where they were born, yet men like Napoleon Bonaparte didn’t want to stay in the class that he was born into. He didn’t want to be relegated to the place of his birth by the time of his death, and so he did everything within his control to fight and climb and conquer the damn world essentially saying fuck you to a system that wanted to keep him down.
But, thank God for free markets.
The caste system in India is slowly eroding as they navigate toward a free market economy making it possible for even the untouchables to rise and earn. When they resisted free markets and instead wanted their government to control trade and their economy, this growth wasn’t possible. The same happened in Japan and Hong Kong, as every nation around them was confined within their walls by communism, these secluded nations open up their ports, welcomed free trade, and flourished.
West Germany was free to be free in the capitalistic system as Eat Germany was stuck in communism, “the system of the people”. The contrasts between the two were stark. One was filled with opportunity and growth from the lowest to the highest, in the other system you were relegated to remain a peasant if that’s where you were born.
We, as a planet and the people in it, are becoming more free.
We’re being given more responsibility, and yet we complain about everything, including a system that has allowed us to get what we deserve, whether that’s million’s or nothing. We want freedom, but we don’t want responsibility. We want money, but we don’t want to do the work needed to get it, nor stop the spending that prevents us from having it. (Read this: 7 Steps to Freedom)
We want meaning yet we’re not willing to be of service. We’re not willing to persist through out failures and incur the grit and toughness and pride that comes after years of persistence.
The system isn’t fair, it isn’t even necessarily right. In the west we’re moving away from the freedom and the opportunity and the capitalistic and manly values that made us great and free nations. It sucks. It sucks that when you spend year after year hustling and struggling, that when one year brings you success, the government takes half. It makes little sense.
There are those born into poverty, into a culture of failure where their expectations are to remain where they are because so few have risen above. Yet some have risen above, so the possibilities are there.
The system is set up to make you fail of you believe it to be so. The system is set up for you to succeed if you believe it to be so. Though our freedoms erode and our liberties diminish, we still hold our fate firmly in our hands, and for good or bad we will create what we deserve.
Read: The Value of Capitalism with Milton Friedman
Thank God for failure.
If success was easy, everyone would have it. You wouldn’t have to risk like Mark Cuban risked, nor as Bill Gates did, nor as Steve Jobs did, you’d just show up and be rewarded without earning said reward.
We no longer have king’s ruling with an iron fist – though we do have puppet’s that sign executive orders. Things aren’t as bad as they seem, they aren’t as bad as we’ve been led to believe they are.
The world is almost free from communism, a system that places no responsibility on anyone, no reward for work well done, nor risks audaciously taken. If we work hard and are smart we can have the meaning or the money or the business that we deserve.
You are free to fail, and failure is the greatest gift that can be bestowed upon an entrepreneur because it shows him or her how not to do things. It’s a lesson. It’s a vital lesson that we all need in our lives yet so many stay small and insignificant simply because they don’t want to spend the time or put in the effort knowing that after all of that work that they may fail. Well suck it up! After many failures, if you persist and work and learn, you will win.
You control more than you realize.
You control more than you realize, and you control more than humans ever have. Poverty is disappearing on a worldwide scale, slowly but surely the wealth is leaving the dominant west and going east as they adopt this form of freedom that we seem to be turning our backs on.
The message is simple:
Stop Complaining and Start Working!
A fucked up system never stopped King or Napoleon, it didn’t slow down Jobs or Cuban, it doesn’t matter where you’re born, you control your thoughts, so think in a way that will help you become a happy human. If you’re the most intelligent person in the world yet you don’t have control over your own happiness, something that you control by controlling your thoughts, what’s the point of intelligence and how intelligent can you actually be?
You control how you react to your emotions. You may not control the emotion 100% of the time, but your reaction to it is 100% under your control. You can choose to head down a road of self-pity, where you look at what others have with an envious eye, or you can be happy for their success, you can learn from them and how they or their parents or their grandparents became successful.
Depending on the year, somewhere between 60-70% of all billionaire’s are self-made. What we fail to add to that stat is that every billionaire in America and the rest of the free world (excluding Russia, China, and other nations where wealth can be given and not earned – though China is moving away from a government controlled economy and toward capitalism) comes from someone who initially made that wealth and has simply passed it on to their kin and kids. Rockefeller made his fortune with patience, intelligence, and incredible work. Money, even if it’s passed down, came from the blood, sweat, and tears of someone.
You control your effort, and the reality is that you can always do more! You can always work harder and relax less. You can always read more and watch less TV. You can always get to work earlier and make those sales calls. You can always start your own business, always, and with the development of the internet, you can essentially make a living doing what you love or at least what you love to talk about.
There is far too much under your control for you to have a valid complaint about your life.
Things are far from perfect. Drug companies are intertwined with the government and that system is completely fucked up. The government takes half of your money when you make enough money and wastes the vast majority of it. Poor people aren’t being educated in ways that will actually help them and help the world, there are cultural and political and economical fuck-ups that keep many in poverty where they are, yet there are too many examples of success stories to think it’s impossible or even unlikely to rise up.
The reality is that you control so much in your life that a valid reason to complain just isn’t there, nor does it do you any value. You control yourself, your mind, and your actions, so unless you’re working your hardest and persisting and learning and growing and hustling and meeting the right people and putting yourself in the right situations, you need to learn how to shut up and stop complaining.
Now, you’re here because you’re open-minded and you’re likely willing to work.
So how can I help?
There are two areas that I know enough about to help point you in the right direction:
Business and Fitness.
Your body is your engine. If you’re not healthy you’re going to suffer from a lack of energy and even depression. If you haven’t yet, download the ebook you get when you sign up to the newsletter below and learn how to fix your broken hormones, I’ve also included two free workouts in there for you.
If you want to start an online business or simply your own business, what kinds of info do you want from me? Let me know in the comments section so I can prepare an article that’ll go through whatever I know that can help you.
The road block for most people is a lack of effort and a failure to persist. However, if you have the work ethic and you’re willing to persist, let me know what you need help with in the way of information so you can point that hustler’s attitude in the right direction.
Thank God that meaning doesn’t come from things.
Where many more get lost is in the pursuit of things rather than the pursuit of happiness, or in the hatred of money, getting lost in a blind rage for the successful. The greatest people that have donned this fine planet weren’t after the dollar, they provided meaning and they provided a service. Christ, the most powerful human in the history of this world had no army, he had no money, he had a mission and a message.
Even those who’ve accumulated wealth over the years haven’t done it in the singular pursuit of wealth, they’ve done it because they wanted to disrupt the system, to create change, to provide a service that a lot of people wanted and needed, or they simply enjoyed work.
What’s lost in our freedom to rise up through hard work and persistence is the value of the work, the journey, and the improvement you gain simply in persisting. That’s where the value is. When you discover that you have control over how you react to your emotions, you instantly gain power over your perception of the world. When you learn the value of work and your capacity for hard work, you discover the value in the work itself and not in the result.
You have control over everything you need to control to build and live a great life, but for many of you, your envy and your ignorance stand in the way.
Understand your power and what you have control over, and leave everything else to God, to fate, to time. The stuff you can’t control is and it will be, be at peace with this and hustle your ass off to control everything you have the ability to control, and meaning and happiness will be yours.
Read this next: How to Lead, Succeed, and Other Lessons from Napoleon Bonaparte
Watch: The disconnect between our perception and the reality…
