0 Consistency

The most difficult thing in this world is consistency. In "Shaw Shank Redemption", the main character digs a tunnel for 20 years for his freedom. For most people, they won't even try. If they try at all, the will give up in the middle. With consistency and persistence, drips of water can make a hole on a hard rock. This is the key of success if success means to reach the finish line. If we just walk slowly and never stop the whole life, we will reach very far distance. That is simple math. Now the question is "Why most people always inconsistence, self sabotage, give up too early, fail to reach finish line? Maybe they don't have enough reason to to keep going. Maybe they change their mind before they can finish the initial plan. Maybe the tempation to do something else which is easier and more pleasurable. There are million reasons to be inconsistence. It can be fear of failure, worry, desperate, resistance, and more. That's why most people fail. repetition is boring or tedious. It's the challenge and you will lose sooner or later. Consistency is always difficult because the nature of human emotions always change from time to time. When we start something new, the excitement is there. Soon after that, it disappears like the morning mist. Then giving up is the obvious option. We are not interested anymore. Something else appears and the whole cycle start again only to be broken in the middle. That's how we learn from our own history, that we learn nothing. There is no shortcut Most people want shortcut. This mindset is the exact opposite of consiatency. To be consistence is to be persistence against all odds.Those who want shortcut never learn from his own history or others. They think shortcut is a smart move. Ask truly succesful people, their answer is typical, "it's all hard work". The path to success is paved with failures but we must keep going or else the the failure is the end. If you really never give up and keep going, nothing can stop you from achieving the finish line. Hereis very important story. The story of Rabbit and Turtle competition. The Turtle moves very slowly, but he never stops and then wins the competition. On the other hand, the rabbit moves very fast but he ia distracted in the middle of the journey and then stop. He loses the competition. The winner in life has mindset like the Turtle, they have mental toughness to keep going no matter what it takes to finish the competition. Knowledge is not enough It's said that knowledge is power. It's true only if the knowledge is relevance and implemented. For example, I have read a lot of books and quite knowledgable on various subjects. Yet I often fail to take the action. If I start at all, I don't have the discipline to finish it, especially the long tern project that will last for years to complete. I learn several languages and I fail to keep going on some of them. I write a book but never finish one. I ask myself, where did I do wrong? Why with all wonderful strength and knowledge I still don't make it. I am fragile. I am not stubborn. I just give up when something easier appear on the way. The temptation to be comfortable is so strong. I know this will happen and keep happening. It's easier to say than to do. I should use different strategy, atomic habit, to do very little consistently. To target 1% or even less as long as I keep going and progressing, not to be discourage by invisible tiny improvement.

0 Those who want happiness are unhappy

 "There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way itself. You get there when you realize that you are already there" (Budha).

Since you are looking for happiness, you are unhappy person. You are not satisfied with your life. When you see birds flying in the sky, you imagine how happy and free they are. Only if you can fly as they do, you think. But you have two legs you rarely use to walk. You stay in one place for too long time imagining the great adventure that you can do but you don't and never do. Your life is mindless repetition day in day out. You do all of that to impress others or at least to be like others.

"Money is the key to happiness" you think, so you must focus on earning as much as possible. You sacrifice your sleep, your daydream, your vacation, to earn more money. Success is gauged by how much money you can earn, so do love and respect of others. They admire, envy andbrespect you for that. You can buy everything if you have enough money. It's powerful and power equals happiness.

Yet, that's not the whole story. What people don't realize that it's also dangerous. It can turn good people become bad, nice people become mean. Very few people can handle so much power in their hands. It gives access to everything. Things become merely comodity and losing their real values. Do you think 10 thousands channels TV is better than 100 channels TV? Imagine you have unlimited access to everything, you will be either tired or crazy. But you can't lose them. You want even more. When people build giant budha statues, luxurious mosques and churches, actually they are building their own ego. Budha, Jesus, Muhammad, they lived simple lives and didn't give much value to material possession.

Ask people what they really want, soon you'll get the answer, "happiness". They pursue happiness because they are unhappy. Until they stop pursuing, they will remain unhappy. In one word, the cause or unhappiness is greed, in other word, ego. Budha's teaching emphasizes that " life is suffering, just lest go". Weird enough, we are ready to let go our happiness but we don't want let go our suffering. When people help you, it's easy to forget their help. When people wrong you, it's forever in your memory. 

Think about this. What if your happiness cost is unhappiness of others. When you get more, others will get less. When you are powerful, others become powerless. 

0 Time Worth Spending

 My time is just my life. I waste it more than anything else I have, mostly for seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. So what? Human is pleasure seeking. It's normal and it's actually the only good way to spend time. Those who work 15 hours a day seem to suffer themselves but actually they are seeking pleasure. Those who become monks and discipline themselves avoiding bodily sensations are not much different. They are seeking pleasure. Those who exercise and diet are also seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. 

From hedonistic  philosopher, Epicurus, I learn that pleasure is easy to get if we know how. He argues that good life is the life full of pleasure and less pain. Here his hirarchy of needs (or desires) how good life is easy to get. 

There are two kinds of needs, natural and unnatural (groundless based on bad arguments). Natural needs are divided into two categories; necessary and unnecessary. Natural necessary needs such as simple foods (necessary for living), simple clothes and shelter (necessary for comfort), friend, family or partner (necessary for happiness). We must focus only to this natural and necessary needs. Natural but unnecessary needs such as delicious foods, expensive clothes, fancy house, sex (sometimes, when it's troublesome). Unnatural needs are always unnecessary, such as fame, power, luxury, immortality. We must avoid them. So that's how good life is easy to get. Yet people are greedy and always unsatisfied with simple easy life. They struggle most of the time to attain unnatural needs. 

If I compare my own life to Epicurus hirarchy of needs, I have already attain everything necessary to be happy and satisfied. Instead, I always compare my life to everyone else, even to famous people and I feel that my life is nothing good and unsatisfactory. I'm greedy and envious. I'm suffer from lacking groundless unnecessary needs. 

Spinoza said, "Nature is satisfied with little, if she is, I'm also". Human is uncomparably the greediest and most cruel as well the most prosperous and yet at the same time the unhappiest creature. Most philosophers don't care about those groundless opinions of attaining fame, luxury, power, reputation. They are the happiest among people and live the simpler life. For them, time worth spending is to pursue wisdom, understanding of life.  

0 There is no magic

 I hope that there is magic. It means that I am special. But as far I comprehend this life, there is none and no one is special, not even kings, generals, sages. They are all human. Magic occurs when we don't understand and it is performed to trick people or to entertain. That kind of magic is not real magic, but merely skill. Thing seems to happen randomely and when unexpected good luck happens upon someone, she or he thinks that it's magical, beyond logical comprehension. Technology in some sense is also magical, but because there is logic behind it that can be proved by anyone, we don't regard technology as magical. If you don't believe in fairy tales, Santa Clause, or Sun Go Kong, you probably see that those who believe in them as deceiving themselves. All religions have magical stories. Magic is about power, so do religions and politics. We all want to be powerful, to be special more than others. It means survival. Naturally all humans are equal. If you meet a hungry shark or lion, if you are weak, you will be eaten. That's the simple truth. If things happen differently, it has logical reason behind it. 

The implication of not believing in magic is that you are on your own. There is saying in Chinese, "If you fell down, get up yourself! The mountain is quiet". It means that no one will help you. You are your own responsibility. Your happiness is in your own hand. There is no magic that will give it to you. 

Maybe you are like me, waiting for fortune to happen that will change your life. Keep waiting and you are waiting for godod. Waiting for something that will never come. Accept the fact that if you are useless, no one will need you. No one will come to save you. You must save yourself. That's the only way to survive.

It's ok to belive or not believe in something. Believing is also a hope. Sometimes that's the only one that can save you in dire situation. In Men Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl, those who have hope, behave and accept difficulty in more positive way. Their body and mind becomes stronger and able to survive the most horrible situation in consentration camp. If you think merely logically, and you are in situation that the future is bleak or even dark without any hope, you will despair and depress, death will come sooner to you. 

So, I am not against religious believes, not at all. There's always things that I can't comprehend. Some people survive from fatal accidents or lethal disease. I don't understand cause and effect chain behind it. So I just accept it as coinsident while others maybe see it as magical.

Our brains are not wired to think logically. The brain loves to create imaginations. Without imagination there won't be art, religion, family, country, even money. So lets we have this ambiguity in mind. You can be religious and logical at the same time. Our brains contain the whole universe. But when we know that something is "not" let be honest to ourselves and behave accordingly.

0 How I fail

 In the moning, I wake up early and check my phones. Normally no messages because I have few friends and they won't text me except for really important things. Then I check youtube and watch several videos. I spend the whole time staring on the sceen. I don't listen to music or watch news for I realize that I can do better with my time. I listen to audiobooks and mostly self help book hoping that they can make me become more successful. I hope I make right decision with my life. I don't know what to expect. Very few people are successful. Most people are just ordinay, woking half of their waking time just enough to pay the bill every month. They don't have much time to think about this life. It's maybe for the best, they don't need to worry about unnecessay poblems. However I guess most people hope to be successful and they keep their despair silently. It's scary to face the reality that they are cowads, afraid to fail to the point not to try at all. They bend their knees to the difficult life. They don't even dare to define their deam clearly. They just do what others do. 

Time is the precious wealth that most people fail to use it to meet their potential. I always think about this; what is the best thing to do with my time? I must plan my life in five o ten years term. But it feels so long I can't wait. I'm not patient enough  and in turn, always lose it and nothing changes. Suddenly it's already 10 years after my graduation. I live my life unplanned and randomly. So do most people. People don't exercise every day for their good health in the future. They don't save money to start their own business in ten years. They will still live the same life in the next decade. They understood but they still fail to take actions. This remind me to the story of Ullysses and the siren song. That people are defeated by pleasure not by difficulty. For example, reading a book per week is not difficult and obviously doable, but something more pleasurable appear and take all the attention and time. To exercise, say jogging 30 minutes or an hour everyday is easy, but then I sabotage myself by doing anything more pleasurable at the moment. I sacrifice the long run benefit for the momentay pleasure at the time. This is called cruel optimism, when what we desire is actually preventing us from our flourishing . We do this all the time, self sabotage, exchange our future success to momentary pleasure. I know I'm not patient enough to stick to my future plan. I should make a pact with my future self (known as Ullysses pact), if I sabotage my future success again for momentary pleasure, I must be punished.

I realize if I can do this, to employ my time and energy to do only what is necessary and despise those momentary pleasues, I can meet my potential. I can meet my healthy and successful future self or else I will never meet him. I will regret my wasted life on numerous meaningless pleasure that I can't even remember. I refuse to fight my battle ot even run away from my real war. I will feel that I am a cowad if I can even admit it and be true to myself. Or maybe I can just say that it's my fate to be a failure, I deny my own feedom and responsibility, just like most people I know. It's too difficult to be consistantly live my life as if I'm in the middle of world champion training progam. It's easier to find millions excuses not to do it. Here some of them; It's greedy, materialistic, ungrateful to do such and such, better to accept and be happy to the status quo. It's a sin to aim at accumulating wealth, power and fame. And still, rich people are unhappy as well. They have their own problems. They are evil and not nomal. They value work and money more than family, friends and maybe religion. See, before I even start the war, I am attacked by my own inner voice (the voice I heard from somewhere the whole my life and becomes mine).

So let asume I change my life purpose, not to be successful but to be happy. Who is the happiest person in the world that I can learn and copy his or he r way of life? Wherever I see, I can't find him or her. Sometimes I even think that animals are much happier than humans. They live short free life. They don't know that they will die. At the end, we all die, why bother to fight so hard just to be famous, wealthy, powerful. All those groundless desies Epicurus mentioned long ago. Why don't we enjoy this moment, this life and appeciate simpler life. No need to suffer a lot just to be Nietzche's superman. It's not a good life. Even Budha left his luxury life to live simple, why would we do the opposite? And after a lot sacrifice and suffering, there is no guarantee that we will be successful in the future, even if we really manage to get there, there won't be guaratee that we will be happy. Maybe more we have, more we want, more evil and unhappy we become.