0 Bad Idea

_28.7.2021_ People often have bad idea about their life. When they think about success, they think it comes easily or by luck. There are always options and we are always choosing. Most people will choose what is easy. They often avoid complicated and difficult things. Success is ten times more difficult than what they thought. I thought mastering Chinese language would spend two three years, actually maybe it needs ten years or more. Maybe it's because I don't force myself to study every day. I thought I would study every day because I really wanted to master the language. The reality was completely different from the expectation. Man is predictably irrational. What they plan and what they do, are two completely different things. If they plan what they do, they will hit 20% of it, if they don't plan, they will hit almost zero. I thought that writing would be so much easier after I did it for a while. It's not the case. The same thing with exercise, it's not getting easier. It doesn't follow the simple mathematics. It's always easier not to do than to do something. I choose what is easy most of the time. It's the default mode. Suddenly I realized that I wasted to much time on doing nothing related to the prior plan. Lately I didn't use pomodoro timer. It's the best time keeper and strategy I know. I need to use it again immediately. I know it worked very well. Most people fail because they are full of bad ideas. They make wrong decisions too often. In a day, they probably waste 80% of their time on social media, negative thoughts, watching TV, gossiping, and so on. I know this because I am the real case. When I really use pomodoro timer, I normally can do 8 pomodoros in a day, it means four hours only. If I can do ten pomodoros, my life will be different. This is what I imagine. It's said that the world is only my mind's reflection. Everything outside is inside. The game is a single player game. I compete against myself. Just like this writing, whether I write better than before and write longer than before, it depends merely on myself. Spinoza said that if someone says that something is impossible, he already decided not to try. Most people believe that it's impossible to earn one hundred million per month therefore never try anything to realize it. Rich people believe that to earn five hundred million is possible therefore do whathever needed to realize that idea. Everything starts with an idea. This entire reality is the idea of all people, one's reality is his or her own idea. If I have idea that I can learn Japanese and I really do it, it's just a matter of time for me to be able to master Japanese language. Other people who believe that it's impossible, it indeed becomes impossible for them. Belief creates mindset, mindset creates attitude, attitude creates habit, and habit creates reality. Even my identity is just a set of ideas that I believe as me. It's alterable but who cares to alter it? The question for all people is that whether they really want to change? Most people want to be rich, healthy, happy, but really? To choose a consequences is to choose the action. People are smart enough to know that to do this is to get this. If people want to master Japanese language but do not study hard, it means they don't really want it. They just say nonsense or make a joke. To own is to take responsibility. To have a clean house is to clean the house. It's simple but most people do not really understand it. The action and the consequences are the same. Action is the reflection of belief. I believe in one's action more than one's words. I do what I believe and I don't do what I don't believe. This is how reality is formed. When people have bad ideas, they have bad reality. If they believe they can or cannot do something, they are correct. If I believe that my time worth one hundred dollar per hour, I won't do work for ten dollar per hour. No one will value me more than I value myself. I know this, therefore I must value myself. Most people will value themselves depend on how others put the value on them. People even willing to work hard for little money because they belief that it's their price. Other people decide it for them. They have no power to put their own value and behave accordingly. It's a bad faith not fate to believe that they can't change and do something differently. We are always choosing and deciding. It's better to live simple life as a farmer and doing everything out of freedom and independence than selling or renting out our time and labor for small money and fear of being fired. One must try to work for himself at least for ten years before he decided to work for others. Those who work for others to earn small money are merely afraid of their own bad ideas. They are full of self-doubt and bullshits. Life is not dangerous today. People can try anything and won't die from hunger. The easiest way to be rich and successful at anything is to work for oneself. It's easier to master a foreign language by self-study. It seems difficult compares to joining a class, but once he figures out how to do it, he can do it anytime, anywhere, his own way. Finally one must work hard to eliminate bad ideas and believes in himself before he is able to take the real actions. Journey to success is hard and dangerous. It's necessary and full of challenge. Life is an adventure. Do not bend your knees to bad ideas.

0 Boredom and Focus

_27.7.2021_ What stop me from finishing a book in a day is boredom. It starts with the decrease of energy, then I lose my focus and I finally stop reading. Reading is the habit that I want to maintain to the end of my life. I want to spend my time to read books at least two hours a day. Anything that I do not monitor, I will fail to do it. It must follow simple rule such as wake up and then write a page for writing. For reading I must also create a pattern that is attached to the pattern I already have. These several days I do not write religiously like before because I don't follow my pattern. I procrastinate until I am too tired to do it. Morning is the best time for me to do anything difficult and energy consuming. I am morning person and better to wake up early like at three and start doing activity immediately. I still waste a lot of time to do nothing. If I start late in the morning, I will miss a lot of activities whis are important for my future. Modern people focus on working. They think they waste their time when they do not work. This happens to me as well. But actually working for others is also wasting time, working in something less than my highest capacity is also wasting time. I must focus my time and energy to do the essential and important work only. Reading and exercising are always important. First I need to decide what is important and what is not important and stick to that. Watching movie on You Tube is not important. Watching TV is not important at all. I need to know what can I do today that will make me successful in ten years. Creating YouTube videos and maybe drawing can also make me successful. Planting trees will make me successful in ten years. Reading books is the best infestation. I know that all success start with the right mindset. I need to read more. I need to train my focus as well by meditation every day. If my mind is not peaceful, to focus is almost impossible. Especially my ears are sensitive to sound. Anytime I hear a voice from television, I can't focus at all. I need to cover my ear or listen to white noise. I'm sure that everything on Television is ignorance and I can't hear it without feeling undisturbed. I imagine if I do not have boredom I can finish everything that I start quite easily. If I can work hard for a long time and focus, I believe that to be successful is just a matter of time. Time is the key factors in everything. Most people try to avoid boredom by doing something else. Today it's simply checking social media and watching videos on You Tube or on similar platform. I create a You Tube channel myself hoping that people will watch and I earn money from that. Most people use others' ignorance to earn money. If all people are mindful, they won't spend time on social media and they do not need to buy stuffs mindlessly and business won't go well. Actually it benefits the whole society and increase the prosperity of all people. I feel bored sometime because I do not see the results of my hard work. Then I think, "what if this is another failure?" or some other negative thoughts that destroy my enthusiasm at the time. Then I simply entertain myself doing foolish thing on internet. I can imagine one best character that I represent the love of pursuing dream. The character is from a movie titled "Perfume, the story of a murderer". He thinks about nothing else but his ambition to create the best perfume. Nothing and no one can stop him from achieving his dream and he does. If you are interested in doing something, happiness doesn't matter at all. People want to be happy because they are boring. When they are interested on something, they are ready to suffer. Happiness is for boring people. When one falls in love for the first time, he is so excited and possessed by love. Happiness doesn't matter, he can do anything and it's beyond happiness and suffering. Nothing is more important than his love. When a scientist is on a venture of research who interest him, he doesn't really care about the danger. He is more than willing to sacrifice his life to do it. When an astronaut goes to Mars for the first time, He doesn't know what will happen, but he is possessed with enthusiasm of new exploration. A true artist is ready to live in poverty for his art journey. A sage can go to a jungle and doing meditation without thinking about the dangers that maybe happen anytime. It's great to have the fire inside you. When you don't care about happiness anymore and you live your life fully. In reality, most people are just too bored and fear to pursue whatever they want to pursue. They kill their dream in order to live safely. They get bored and pray to have easy life. Every day they pray for happiness. They pray for eternal happy easy life, heaven. They do not know what it really is. They just want something different from their life out of boredom.

0 Compound Effect

_25.7.2021_ Every success is the result of compound effect. In other words, Aristotle said that 'excellent is not a single action, it's a habit. My English and Mandarin skill today are also the sum total of my efforts in the past. In Outliers by Malcom Gladwell, he believed that to master a skill, it needed about ten thousand hours deliberate practice. The number is debatable but the message is clear that a lot of efforts needed to master a skill. What seems easy is not easy at all. For example, to run a marathon what you need to do is just put one feet in from of the other but how many people can do it successfully. To finish reading a book is merely one word after another, but how many people can do it? The difficult part is not doing it, but how to build the habit and do it every single day. Usain Bolt said, "Competition is the easy part. The real work is done behind the scenes. When the world sleeps or relaxes, you work." In other book I read, it takes ten times more efforts than what you expected to get your goal. What is easy on the paper, it's not easy in practice. You want to try intermittent fasting, and guess what, you fail sooner rather than later. You make a New Year resolution, and it's broken by the end of February. Who doesn't want to be successful? We all want it. Yet who really do ten times effort than the initial expected effort? Less than 1% people would do that. When you lose a war and look around, still you can't see the enemy. It's inside you. When you make a decision, it's often between comfort and discomfort. You will choose comfort 99% of the time. You will not push yourself hard enough to taste the pain of hard work. Success and failures are not permanent conditions. People often measure them with money. More money means more success. If I write a totally bad book and people love it, I will get a lot of money. If i wite the best book but people do not like it, I get nothing. It's just opinion and not necessarily the good one. Einstain said that one should not aim to be the man of success, but should aim to be the man of value. A scientist maybe live in poverty while a criminal maybe live in luxury. When something goes wrong or gets difficult, the first thought is to give up. And people just give up like that. They do not play long term game. The quit and play another game and another and another. They think they have worked hard but they are just unlucky. They see people who work much less than them can be successful. They envy the result but not the process. Some people seem to get success (which is money) easily. Some others work as hard or ever harder and get almost nothing. It's easy to make assumption and judgment and then give up. In term of skill, everyone starts from zero. Skill is not inherited. People are limited by their own believes. People have studied the success principle for centuries. More books and seminars about it, videos and programs discuss it, but still only few people have the privilege to be successful. Money becomes the center of human life. Of course more people are wealthier today than a hundred years ago. It doesn’t follow that they are happier. More and more people are lonely and unmarried to pursue success first. What they truly want is love and attention, respect and kindness. They think money will solve all their problems. I also want to be successful and live comfortable life. It would be nice to have a great wealth. After reading so many books about self-developments and self-help I think I know how to be rich without being lucky. First, I should not work for others. Second, I should start my own business whatever it is. Third I should learn a skill and be the best on it so I can create the best product that is needed by society. The last I should find the right team and work as hard as possible. If I work as a teacher in a school, the maximum income I get is around ten million rupiahs. If I start my own business, I can get unlimited income. Yet to work for others is more secure and easier. So people choose to work for others. They work hard from seven to three to earn just enough to pay the monthly bill. They love their freedom and courage to be independence. I know that no one will ever value me more than I value myself. There was time when I worked in my best friend's small business and she didn't see me as a friend anymore, I turned to be merely a worker. When I had some urgent family matter and absence from work, she would not allow it. Business is business, friend is friend. I can understand this. Suddenly a person turns into a number. When I started a business that is not successful yet, people will look down on me. After years with no good result, the best option is to quit and come back to work for seven to three in an office. That is how people fail. They are not patient with the result and impatient with the work. The work must be done every single day for years and the result must be waited patiently. It likely will come in fifteen twenty years. Knowing this principle is a great comfort for me. It's compound effect to grow slowly like a tree.

0 Reality and expectation

_23.7.2021_ People are always busy doing what they don't plan to do, keeping what they don't plan to keep. It's because they do not have peace of mind to do whatever they plan and just do it. There is always something else to do and to have. The mind is never quiet and contented. Buddhist calls this a monkey mind. The mind is always attracted to something new and different. It's wired to learn new things. I do not know a kid who is not curious about everything. It's very hard to focus and do what is important, because it wants to know everything. I want a clean and tidy room, the reality is far from it. I want to have rich life, the reality is often the opposite. All my wishes and desires come from the monkey mind. It's not satisfied with all it has. There is no limit to wishes and desires. This becomes serious problem for me. But lately I notice that my desires switched from physical pleasures to mental pleasures. It's not a total sudden switch, but a gradual and slow. I do not want to join rat race, I want to have slow-pace of life. Life is not a competition to collect toys. Those who die with more toys are the winners. Without the competition, life would be boring. The competition gives people energy and excitement for life. Both sides are okay. Some people want to be kings and some others want to be sages. It makes life complete and interesting. Nothing to worry about life. Life itself is suffering mostly, if you are willing to suffer, you can do anything. Things become tricky when people want to live freely without suffering. Life is simply choosing the consequences by choosing what to do. This is called karma, the action and the consequences are inseparable. Because people do not understand this concept they think it's cruel to live in poverty or sickness. Our condition is the consequences of our own actions and others and everything is interrelated inseparable. If you do not sweep the floor it will be dusty and then you say, "It’s not fair, who makes the floor dirty, it's not me, why should I clean it?" Everyone is the part of the universe. No one can live without bacteria or oxygen or water. Life is interdependence relationship with the universe. It's natural to live and die. But when the focus turns into the competition to collect toys or stuffs, it not natural anymore. Do we have real power to control everything? It's easier to destroy than to build. When people can destroy things, they think they have real power. Nature can build everything necessary to exist. People can create and build as well. The process of creating is often a cruel process, it also involves the process of destroying. No one can create something from nothing. We have to break an egg to create an omelet. To build a house we cut down trees. Every creation is the act of violence. Even just to keep living, we must eat another living being. It's the transfer of energy from one form to another. Reality as it is, we'll never be able to comprehend it. People can only see very little part of a reality, it's far from complete and comprehension. We do not have sufficient tools and processor to see the whole things. We hear small range of frequency, we see small range of colors spectrum, and there is no way to see the reality as it is. But that's enough. That's not the problem. When we know that we are ignorance to almost everything, we become wise. We won't have unrealistic expectation anymore. It's not easy to realize that we are ignorance and even harder to accept it. The gap between reality and expectation is knowledge. To know is to expect thing as it is, to expect the reality. It actually doesn't matter whether you are famous or not, whether you are successful or fail, whether you live long or short. It's just facticity. Happiness has no direct causal relationship with facticity. You can be happy even if you were born by or as devil. This reasoning is not the excuse to stay inactive and accept fate. One can always live the life he wants. This is the argument to live free life. Happiness is a decision you make no matter the facticity. Nature can cut you into pieces but it can't take your happiness from you if you decide to keep it no matter what. All kinds of evil things can happen to you but you still the one who can decide whether you will be happy or unhappy about what happened. There is no reason to stay in the job or in the relationship you hate. You are always free to make the decision, especially the decision to be happy or unhappy. Finally I believe that everything happens outside of your control. It has interrelation to each other in the universe and yet you can control one thing, your choice, your decision. If you decide to be happy person, no one can stop you. Maybe you friends deceived you, your spouse is unfaithful, you are ugly and poor, and so on. All those facticity has no direct causal to your decision whether to be happy or unhappy. Buddha said that life is suffering, it's true. It's the fact of natural law. To live we need to consume another living things, what a cruel law. Yet Buddha also said that there is no way to happiness, happiness is the way itself. You are there when you realize it that you are already there.

0 Nemesis

_21.7.2021_ Everyone has life time enemy but not everyone realizes this. The enemy is not ugly and dirty like a monster, it's often invisible, or even beautiful. People willingly bended their knees to this enemy. Sometimes it takes form as comfort, pleasure, fear, self-doubt, and boredom, sometimes it takes form as nothing at all. I know it exist inside myself. I can't kill it once and forever. It's like a bacteria in my body that keep me alive if not too many and will kill me if too many. It has no mercy nor moral. I face it every single day and fight it. I often lose and sometimes win. It's the other side of the coin of my identity. No matter how thin I slice a coin, there will always to sides, me and my nemesis. What I can do is to take more control and win more often. Albeit what I declare everyday about my goal, I still do not achieve it because it's sabotaged by the nemesis. I do not do what I should do. I wish I can just tell myself to do something and really do it. Sometimes my own feeling against me, sabotage me. I don't even know how to get full control of myself. I think there are more than one self in me. What if actually I do not need to fight at all? I struggle to be better while good better best are just social constructs. They do not naturally exist. Why shall I copy from others and take it for granted that it's the rule. What if the whole world is just a movie in my mind? It's like a dream that I can't control. It's just there. No need to do anything about it. I never think how to fix my dream, but why I bother to fix my "reality"? I do not need to fix the weather, the planetary system, the universe, why should I fix myself? I see other people can be so successful economically and I envy them. I think I do something wrong and must fix it. I must be successful as well. If I'm not as shiny as the brightest star, I'm at fault. I'm busy fixing this and that, I do not really have life. I think a wild chicken has better life than me. How funny but it feels so true. Shall I blame myself again for this unfortunate life? What if this happens to all people? That life is truly suffering as Buddha said more than two thousand years ago. What if I'm already happy and live in heaven, I just dream about world and think I live in the dream forever. I live in my ignorance and become unhappy. What if pleasure is merely junk food for mind? Devil loves pleasure. Pleasure and ignorance are best friends. People do all terrible things for pleasure. Of course not all pleasure is bad, pleasure is actually good in itself. But it can be used as a tool to sabotage and deceived. When making decision people think they are choosing between pleasure and pain. They will always choose pleasure and never pain. That's how they are deceived. Real pain is often hidden behind immediate pleasure and real pleasure is often hidden behind immediate pain. It's understanding or knowledge that can save people from making stupid decision based on what seems good at the moment. Sometimes the only thing that prevent me from happiness is my own baseless opinion that I copy from others. With current condition of life, I don't see any good reason to be unhappy about life. All people should be happy and live like in heaven. They always want to be happier and happier and happier. They always want something else than what it is. Socrates, Buddha, Spinoza, and Zhuang zi have less material possessions. They proved it with their life that they were happy with less. So many examples but still almost no one can learn from history. They still think that money is happiness. Those who choose to live carefree and simple are often happier than those who strive for economic success. Working 15 hours a day and hoping to buy real life with their money when they become rich one day. It's easy to envy the richest people in the world, and no one envy the wisest. All update status on social media basically has one message: "envy me". I used to be one of the greatest fan of social media. Those who is not rich and beautiful will still find a stage on social media such as, "I'm religious, envy me", "I'm wise, envy me", and so on. No wonder people do not get happier with better living standard. The culture of comparing and competition in social status can ruin people's happiness. Why people want to be rich while they do not really need all of that to be happy. It's just rat race, the stupidest game human invented in modern era. We all participate in this as a society. It's painful to see a friend has more toys. Even Epicurus didn't go that far. He would think that rat race is total foolish. It's just it. People take it for granted than once they live in society, they must participate in the game. If everyone else works for 15 hours, those who work only for 5 hours are lazy. If everyone has two cars, those who has one only is poor. If one doesn't join the game, he wouldn't find a friend to enjoy the show or even just leisure time. It's than better to join whatever the game is.

0 Self-Made

_19.7.2021_ After more than two thousand years of Buddha's warning, humans are still the same in term of their suffering. People do not learn anything from history. Most people today are much more affluence and prosperous compared to kings in the past. People have access to everything, communication, travelling, foods, and all kinds of pleasures that are possible. And yet people still suffer and unhappy. They do not get better at it. Only suffer differently. Poor people suffer, rich people also suffer, single people suffer, married people also suffer, all suffer from their own desires for more or for something different. Human suffering is self-made. They can escape from suffering, they just don't. Potential is the ability that stay inactive. It's the possibility and capacity. I can read a book per day or even more but I just don't do that. I can do exercise for 8 hours a day, I just don't do it. I can work harder, more focus, more this and more that, I just don't do them. I can have six packs belly, strong limbs, sharp mind, and all I can imagine. I don't meet my potential. I believe that I am what I make myself to be. Now I'm studying Mandarin, I can listen to mandarin audio for 24 hours a day even when I am sleeping if I want to. It will make me master this language faster. I just don't do that. I don't even study one hour every day. That is not the only thing I do. I'm busy doing something else, always something else. It's maybe I have too many wants and agenda. The result is that I get nothing and do nothing significant. It's difficult to be happy because there is no limit for human's desire. People always want what they do not have. It doesn't matter how much wealth they have possessed, it's not enough. Enough is always here and now. If you thing you need more, it will be forever. People think that to feel enough with little is a laziness. It's probably true for some. The reality is that those who have little are often those who work the hardest, worker class. 955 in Western countries, 996 in China. 996 means working from 9 am to 9 pm, 6 days a week. And that is still not enough because they are competing to have more status, stuffs, and wealth. Because it's a competition people will try their best to win. Playing stupid game, winning stupid prize. I think I join the competition as well. When I know that someone get 400 million per month just by being a content creator, I think I can do it too. I also want that sum of income. When I was a student in University, I thought that five millions per month is more than enough for me to live happy life. It was ten years ago, now I see this very differently. I think I should earn at least twenty millions per month to have decent life. When I lived in Jakarta with seven to eight millions salary, I could only meet my basic daily need and live very simply. To work and get that sum, I need to find a good school because I am a teacher. Most people get four to five millions. This is how the competition trap all people from all level. They have their own competition. Those who get 100x more do not work 100x harder. For example a world famous football player earns 1000x more than a local football player. He work at most two or three times harder and get a thousand times reward. It seems not fair but it is the rule of the game, the winner wins all, the loser gets almost nothing. The world famous writer earn 1000x more than local writer. The key is that you must be number one to win all the prizes. This applies to everything. The most expensive car that cost 1000x more than normal car is not even 5x better in quality, not 5x faster as well. The key is to be the best, to be number one. Never compete in the low level because the outcome is very little and the competition is very high. Most people are afraid to meet their true self, their potential. David Goggin said that when you think you have reach your limit, it's just 40% of your real capability. It means that most people do not work hard enough to see their true capacity. People are lazy and fear to the real monster awaken from within themselves. They will transform into their best version that they do not recognize. They are afraid of unknown and terrified of being one. Butterfly and caterpillar are the same individual in different form or stage. Human also can turn into such different individual only after he gives up his old self. It's the journey from zero to hero, or even from zero to one. David Goggin is one example of this. I read his book and watched his videos. I realize that everyone can do the same. I can do the same. He was fat, lazy and broke before he turned himself into fit and successful. It's the journey through hell. One must be willing to suffer to be able to do anything necessary to the top, to be number one, the winner. It's the competition against oneself not others. It's one player game. When one doesn't recognize his own enemy, he has lost the game in the start. The game is to get better every single day and keep going until one turns himself into a master. Most players will give up after several game-overs. As Winston Churchill said, "If you are going through the hell, keep going".

0 Motivation doesn't work, reward and punishment do

_17.7.2021_ Illness is the most heeded of doctors: to goodness and wisdom we only make promises; pain we obey. (Marcel Proust) I have to admit this myself that motivation doesn't work. I watch motivation videos every day to motivate me, it fails, again and again. I think how good it is if I can always do what is necessary by motivating myself to do it. It sometimes works for a while and then it stops working. On the other hand punishment always work. Punishment can come from oneself or others, sometimes from society or family. I hate this idea that what works is what is painful. I believe that it's immoral to coerce others even to do what is good. Reward and punishment only work for a short time. Once the reward and punishment are not there, the behavior will disappear. It doesn't last for long period of time. The best example is policemen. When they graduate from police academy, they have a good shape, but several years after that, majority of them ruin their body shape. They are overweight, not better than normal people. The discipline of exercise disappear just few years after graduation. I believe that people go to work every day their whole life because of reward and punishment. The reward is the salary and the punishment is being kicked out of the company if they do not do it as the requirement. They sign a contract and they know for sure the consequences. This method is very effective as long as the reward and punishment present. It doesn't matter whether people are happy or not, it's not the concern. The thing is that they do the work. It's proven method along history. When no real reward and punishment, doing something consistently is very hard, especially something difficult like learning a new language, drawing, painting, or dancing. Any skill needs deliberate practice for years to be obtained. Relying on motivation only is often too naive. Motivation is like emotion. It's not reliable at all. The most discipline person in the world is maybe Immanuel Kant. His discipline comes from deep understanding. Different from military discipline, it comes from reward and punishment. As long as the reward and punishment are there, it works really well. I must use this knowledge to improve myself. To build a skill is a long journey. It needs hard work every single day and the reward will be in ten years. It's very hard to see the reward at this time, people often lose their motivation very soon. I can refer this to myself. I fail every single day to meet my target. Discipline is the key of success. Discipline is a habit that must be build every day and be monitored all the time. If I do not write this daily note, I won't even realize that I keep failing every single day just to keep simple habits. When I do not pay attention closely to how I spend my time, I will just waste it all. I am a reader who does not read, a painter who does not paint. I do something else that is not in my schedule, not in my plan. Pleasure beats me, I bend my knees shamelessly and admit defeat. I know the consequences and still make the wrong decision based on my feeling at the time. I do not do what I know is right to do, I do what feels good. I feel like a kid facing marshmallow. Powerless to focus to the far future. But I try to be positive, to make the right decision in the middle of temptations. Just like this writing, I know I can finish it albeit my feeling. I feel sleepy and unmotivated to do this now but it's like a vow to do it every single day forever without any exception. It's just one page of normal daily note, nothing special. I know I can do this even when I have no idea at all. Nothing among the habit I try to establish is hard. Even to do what is easy is not easy if it involves discipline. What beats me, beats everyone else. When relying on motivation basically I rely on moods and feelings. It's hard to control what I don't understand. I'm often surprised how unreliable my will power and moods. I can't let this happen any further and yet I still do not know how to control them properly. They key is self-management. I'm still my not-so-good version of myself. Now I'm really sleepy. This is called resistance. I won't let this stop me from finishing a simple daily note. Being sleepy I can wash my face or even my body. I do not understand why my feelings try to sabotage my logic. I feel like punching my own face to wake me up from this lethargic and sleepy feeling. Why my mind creates this unnecessary drama. It's just a small routine that I have done for almost two months. Maybe I really need to sign a Ulysses contract to punish myself when I neglect my important routines. I should hang it on the wall and read it every single day. As a teacher I always motivate my students to study hard, and yet to motivate myself to do the same is not easy at all. This is as difficult as to flatten my stomach. Maybe unconsciously I always use the word "difficult, hard," and any other word that has negative meaning. I do not know. What I know that it's not the last battle. Tomorrow the battle will start again, the drama will be played again in my mind. Whether I win or lose, it depends on my preparation and strategy. Now I win, I have finished one more daily note.

0 How easy to fail

_16.7.2021_ I have been writing every day for more than forty days and today I almost skip a day because I am sick. It's very easy to fail and make anything as an excuse not to do it. There are always excuses, plenty of them not to do it. Especially when I don't see any progress at all or when the progress is very slow. The progress here is often merely the respond of others. This the society, to be successful is to be widely recognized. It's again about money. I hate to admit it but when I watched an interview on YouTube about a content creator who easily earn four hundred millions rupiah a month I really feel that what I do is nothing. I know that it's not fair someone gets so much more than a scientist or professor who works very hard the whole life and earn less then tenth of the money that she earn. It's actually not easy to be recognized publicly on You Tube. The top one percent get it all. It's not uncommon a video about a cat dancing or a girl showing boobs got millions view while an important lectures got only thousands. That's what people value with their time. If only one percent that can be successful, to be failure is almost an absolute probability. It doesn't mean that I should not try it. It sounds stupid to do what I know will fail. I know if I stay true to myself and choose to stick with education, I will get few viewers. It's OK. If You Tube content creators only create junk contents that is popular like junk foods, I can't imagine. Every day I listen to audiobooks on You Tube and lectures. Those videos no matter excellent made, always got few viewers. Anonym cute girl showing boobs can have a millions subscribers white big name like Harvard and oxford maybe only have less then half of it. I shall not envy ignorance. Money is only numbers and I do not need that much. I want more than that to show off and because I don't really know how to manage that much money, I can't get that number. In the past I loved taking pictures and buying expensive gears was just a matter of time. No matter what I would by them. This is how thing works. If I can imagine it and plan to do it, I will do it no matter what. For most people what they can imagine is like ten million per month, and they can only do so much as their imagination. I easily assume that money makes people happy. It is at some level true, but after certain number which is not much, more money won't add more happiness. Just like eating maybe, it makes people happy after certain sum number. I can easily imagine twenty or thirty millions per month if I am successful with my You Tube channel. But knowing that one gets four hundred million after only about a year, it's really something. It open a new horizon as well as make me realize how greedy actually I am. The most important people in the world like Socrates, Kant, Spinoza, didn't get much money at all. So many great painters and writers struggled to make a living. So many military army go to war and scientists live dangerously to do research and they got very little money. When I think about this, how unfair the sistem is. The system today values what is not important, only what is popular. It's not new I guess. Politicians from the history were dominated by greedy assholes and they got everything possible by the system at the time. The got the rewards for even negative impact they created to the people. Finally to fail doing great thing is much better than to be successful doing useless thing. To be poor philosopher is much better than successful porn star. Life is not all about money. For philosopher, money doesn't have that much value. I say this not because envy those successful people. Like a wolf who said that grapes are sour because he can't get them. I know too many people who work very hard and make very little money. They do not even have time to do anything else. They sell their labors and time like slaves. I can't say that they are stupid, that's the best option they have and they live their lives not miserably. They get used to their condition and accept it. As long as that they do not know that someone like them get one hundred times more than them with less work. People often assume money with luck. If one have much money, people say that he or she is lucky. It's very easy to imagine that they are happy. People get used to everything. Happiness is not about money nor pleasure. I learn this story from Buddha's life. Even getting all pleasures that you can get, you still will get old, and sick and die. You will love people you love and everything you value more than money. It's only knowledge that creates true power and can really make people truly happy. Most people can't see this and do not pursue knowledge, they pursue money. Socrates will be learned by people thousands years in the future. The richest people today will be forgotten several month after his death except he created great significant service for society. But still he's value is not as Buddha or Socrates whose name will be forever remembered and valued. It's OK to live simple life. I pursue knowledge and it won't attract so much money. It's OK like that. As long as I can be a good reader and read two or three books in a week to the end of my life, I can say that I am successful. It's always nice to earn more so one can feel secure and help people and family they love. Charlie Munger and Warren Buffet are those who get rich after decades working and become the master in their field. No one envy them because they are so different. I think those who aim merely to get rich won't get so far. It's the idea the makes people meaningful. So many athletes and movie stars get rich and famous and then no one recognize them after their successful period of time. They are enviable for a while. That's life. It's not about fair or unfair, it's just it. The best books and novels are read by less people because they are necessarily difficult. Only best reader can reach them and care. Few people read Marcel Proust or Kant and it's okay like that.

0 It's just it

_15.7.2021_ Without judgment, no good nor bad, not success nor failure, it's just it. To be able to live at the present moment and make no judgment is the ideal condition of life. Most people suffer from their memory and their imagination. When people drink alcohol or having orgasm, that's their effort to free from their mind that always presenting them with stress and drama, the stories they create by themselves unconsciously. When I see animals in their wild life, never they looked so depressed or worried about anything nor even bored. They always have something to do with their life at the present moment. They are not bothered by their memories and imaginations. Now I try to apply this into my life, less judgment and love the fate, amor fati. Love is the absence of judgment. Just take it as it is genuinely. Sometime when I am tired of doing something that I believe important to do and about to give up, I try to tell myself, it's just it, take it easy, it's not suffering. Suffering and pleasure are the story I tell to myself. Being alone with myself I can easily describe it as painful or the opposite I can enjoy it and feel free. It depends merely on the story I tell myself. Having ugly face, for example can also be considered lucky because no one would treat you ingenuinely, people do not even bother to notice you. You feel free and unnoticeable. That depends on the story you created by yourself not by others. I can apply this to everything. To writing I can just sit and write to the finish line without judgment whether my writing is good or not, important or not, and so on. Just sit down, write until the finish line. It's very simple and powerful. So many people want to write something and fail miserably each time because of the judgment, the story and drama he created himself. And there is no end to the drama. I think it's good to just do it. People are lazy to study for example because it feels painful and boring, no it's not, it's just the story and drama they create. Other people create different stories and can do it successfully. They can even be happy doing hard work without much reward. The action itself is the reward. If even animals can live so easily and happily why would we humans live miserably. A spouse or family member maybe is annoying, too demanding, a friend maybe deceive and lie to us for their own profit, and so many other problems in daily life. Life is not as good as we expected. That's actually normal. It is as it is. We do not complain much when it's raining, or sunny, because we do not have particular expectation about how it should be. We just take it as it is. But in a relationship, we expect others to behave as we want, and it always ends up with disappointment. When I do exercise, I expect it to be tiresome and indeed it is, I'm not complain about it because I expect it. People are often disappointed by their own expectation and being unhappy about it. People have different characters. It's often difficult to deal with them. Some people complain all the time. They feel they are the victims of politic, society, rich people, and so on. I do not know why they create such story and make their life become difficult. If they can learn a little from animals, they will be happier. Even slaves actually suffer more from their own story than from reality. When I see a crazy man walking carelessly and laughing out loud happily, I realize that suffering is mostly self-story telling. Most people would compare themselves to others and identify and other people are more and better than them. That is the source of their suffering. Right now I got sick from covid 19. I will suffer if I dramatize this, but if I take it as it is, I do not judge it as bad or good, it's just it. Even if I die from this virus, I won't die suffer. I just take it easy. People may be afraid that they do not have proper respond if they are not panic. They do not do enough effort if they take it easy. Whether it's about their work, relationship, health and life as general. When an animal got accident or sick of any parasites in the wild life, they do not go to doctors, they just take it as it is. Humans are different, they have ability to consciously create the story. They can create a detail story with their specific languages. Yet most people choose to create bad stories. They live unhappy lives for nothing. This is why Socrates said that there is only one good, knowledge and there is only one bad, ignorance. Now I think it's better to always be positive. In the past to be too optimistic was dangerous because maybe a lion could eat us anytime, to be cautious all the time was the best strategy to survive. But today we live in different time and we have no predator anymore. The only enemy is our own negative thoughts. It's OK to think that if I do not work hard I won't be able to live prosperous life. The strategy is to work hard but do not take it too seriously if fail or success. Just do it and always be positive. It's not a dangerous situation to be positive all the time. When we trust others, people may deceive us, but it's not always the case. It's better to be happy from imagination than to suffer from imagination. To fail today doesn't mean to fail forever. It's actually failures over time that will make the journey to success getting closer and closer.

0 Start from zero

_14.7.2021_ Competition is the easy part. The real work is done behind the scenes. When the world sleeps or relaxes, you work. (Usain Bolt) I try to understand the general principle of success. It's the decision to take what is hard rather than what is easy. It's 24 hours a day, yet most people really do their work for less than five hours. When I really use pomodoros, I can track my working hours. It rarely hit 8 pomodores. People do not really dedicate their time and energy and focus to do whatever they believe necessary for their goal. It's easier to mindlessly watching TV or YouTube videos. When people say that they want to be something or to do something, they do not really mean it. They do not do whatever it takes to make it into reality. I often say that I want to be a painter. I do nothing to get there, not even one pomodoro a day. They are just like me. I think about this over and over again. What I really want to be. The reality is that I do not want to sacrifice, I want to enjoy every day and every time with entertainment, no hard work, no striving. Now I realize that my attitude was wrong. I need to write my goal and see it every single day and do whatever it takes to make it real. It's definitely not working for others. They ask too many requirements and those requirements aren't really essential to the work. They give only enough money to the worker in order to work again and stay at work. This is the irony, instead of pursuing my dream, now I'm looking for a job that can give me monthly salary. I wife wants me reliable income. It's my fault that I waste my time and energy and money in the past. Now there's no time to wait for another ten years to start a new business. The best I do is to do it as a side job. I know that it's actually no one faults, not even mine. In the past, I was different person. I didn't think about marriage and so on. I didn't think about building a business in order to be rich. I always liked to live simple carefree life. Now I am different person. I should start from zero again as a new person. I can imagine myself wake up one day as a crazy man. People do not care about whatever I do, even walking naked on the street won't bother them much. No one cares because no one knows me personally. I am a stranger, an alien, a crazy man. That's actually the ugly truth is. No one really cares about others. Especially if they do not know you. There is no reason to impress others and to do what is expected by others. Just live freely and bravely. All pleasure is just a matter of body and mind sensation. No one is really important, not Bezos, not Gates, not, Musk, no one. Life is a single player game. It's just me and the game. The game is in my mind. Whether I win or lose, it doesn't really matter as well. Important thing is that I play well. Bad things can happen anytime, good things must be earned to happen. It needs work hard for years. But it's okay. Happiness can only happen through work. To be born as a prince, one can't be happy if he doesn't work hard. He will only become an object. The same happens to a beautiful girl, she can only be an object of lust without ever has chance to see the potential she has a human being. Pleasure doesn't make people truly happy. People just do not realize it yet, therefore they pursue pleasure. They fall into consumerism lifestyle. More they have, more miserable they feel. Every action bring consequences in it. Eat more food, in no time one will be fat and ugly. When the foods do not feel as pleasurable as before, at the time the consequences already happened. It's like a punishment for doing what is normal. But working every day over years will turn into reward while the work doesn't feel hard anymore. It feels like a reward for doing what is normal. Always choose to work hard, not for others as a slave, but for self-development. Indeed it's easy to say and hard to do. I think everyone need to learn discipline and using tool to measure it every single day. I use pomodoro technique and it works well so far. I can combine this with Ulysses pact go ensure the success. I know myself that temptation is always win over will power. To be successful, one must have a strategy just like what Ulysses did when facing Sirens. I know that I write the same thing over and over again because writing is basically repeating my thoughts. To write is to think clearly and more focus. I my mind, it always a monologue about everything over and over again. Therefore reality is shaped by the mindset, by what I believed. So my reality is the projection of my thoughts. By writing it, I can analyze it and remove what is unnecessary and useless which occupy more than 80% of my mind. Sometimes I want to be someone else, like Diogenes who can live carefree from others opinions. The hell is not the others but oneself. I create my own hell. No one knows what I'm thinking about, I should be free to think and imagine about anything. I should dream big and beautiful. And I should pursue my dreams no matter what people think about it, or what I think what people think about it. It's not too late to start over from zero again. If I think that life is difficult, it is just my own imagination. It's not difficult for others, not for Diogenes who only had a cup to drink, and he even threw it away after he saw a boy drank from his hands. Life is not difficult, I make it difficult and try to blame others, the world, and the situation. I can live like Diogenes and be happy if I want, or I can live like a crazy person who is actually like Diogenes, carefree from all.

0 Forced Discipline

_13.7.2021_ Discipline is amazing. It is one important key of success. Unfortunately it's very difficult for most people especially for children. Let people do what they like, they will adopt self-defeating behavior rather than discipline. If one spend three years in a military school, he will end up being someone totally different in the end of the term. His body and mind will change into stronger and better version he never imagined before. Most people just spend their time on social media for three years and still be the same version of themselves if not slightly worse. Without effort which is sometimes forced by oneself or others nothing great can be built. Lazy people is not happier than diligent people. It's almost impossible to force oneself to be discipline. It often doesn't work. It's better to set the environment and a system like atomic habit. In nature, nothing is forced, everything is flow, no hurry, but everything is accomplished. Human become the most dominant in the food chain because they force themselves to improve and keep improving all the time. If a person exercises every day for years, he can become very strong far more stronger than normal people who do not exercise. Olympians practice like hell every day for years. Normal people can't compete with them. It's nature versus nurture. I do not know which one is better, to struggle for power or to flow with the nature, no ambition, live like a sage. Sages are happier than billionaires. I believe that true power is understanding as Spinoza said. I used to disagree with forced discipline, but now I'm considering to do it to myself. In military, they use forced discipline to shape mental toughness. It's the hard and fastest way to be successful in that arena. People need to be forced to do what they do not want to do even if they know it's important for them to do it. I imagine that to live boring life is worse than to live hard life. Therefore striving and working hard for success is still better than sitting down all day long. "The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy." That quote from Albert Camus describes the best about human condition. People need the struggle. It's better than facing the existential crisis about the true meaning of life. Rather than suffering doing nothing, better suffering doing something, even better if it's something big and powerful. To be able to choose the suffering is freedom. If the option is whether to suffer from nothing or suffer from struggling to be better, I choose the last. Now I wake up in the middle of the game, this life. I choose my struggling to be better. I am ok to forced discipline for myself. That is the only way to go for me. I'm unwilling to suffer but it will only make me more miserable and suffer even more. Double suffering, suffer from the real and the imaginative one. If I'm willing and accept that life is suffering and I live it without further drama, I suffer only one and who knows that I can be happy in the suffering. Happiness is always short and temporary. It's not the nature of life. At best neutral is the best condition to be experienced. Nowadays people suffer from more from imagination than from reality. People do not need to work hard using their body anymore. No predators hunt them down. They suffer from social game, like who has more toys to play with, or who has more luxury stuffs, all idea that come from bad or baseless reasoning. People live in abundant life everywhere but very few people are truly happy. They always find their unhappiness in their prosper lives. Socrates said that there is only one good, knowledge and only one evil, ignorance. It's never more relevant than current condition. People must focus more on their effort for perfection both knowledge and their body by exercising. Yet they compete on social media to get more likes and attention. They live in falsehood, they edit their lives in order to get more attention from people they do not even know and care. I often think how to stop suffering. Marcel Proust said, "We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full." It means that denial won't help. One must go all out to experience this life as far one agrees that life is suffering. Like an athlete who plays the game with all his might. He will enjoy more when he struggle more. It sounds weird but it's true. If I spend more effort to do something, I will end up value it more and like it more. So in short I agree with force discipline. Those who experience it willingly like entering military school or using Ulysses pack or joining a training for competition will end up be happy and powerful. It's necessary for everyone. The only issue is to make the one realize the important of discipline and therefore be willing to take it. Physical suffering doesn't last long. It's endurable or else will cause death which is also not so bad thing compared to great suffering. Mental suffering is easily cured by the right thinking. Life is easy as long as one can accept willingly that life is suffering and chose to discipline himself to get better and more powerful. Power equals happiness. The true power is understanding. This is how Spinoza describe happiness.

0 Self-Contradiction

_12.7.2021_ My biggest problem in life at this time is self-contradiction. I often end up doing what I know I shouldn't do. It means I do not do what I know I should do. Now I put a price tag on my time, one hundred dollars an hour and yet I still waste my time doing unimportant thing. The conflict between my thought and action is not easy to resolve. What I do is usually out of fear and as the respond of situation. The easiest example is my compulsive behavior on using smartphone. My mind said that I must read 8 pomodores a day, I end up reading very little and spending time on smartphone, checking social media. It happens every day. I behave inconsistently with my plan. It's difficult to stop an old habit. What I should do is working fifteen hours a day on my writing, You Tube channel, exercising, reading, and Mandarin learning. I end up doing less than half of my original plan. I should not check any job vacation to apply for the available vacation. I want to have my own business. It's online teaching. I know I can do this if I work hard every day and improve my ability. Working for others I will never become rich and successful. I'd rather become poor for five years or ten years first managing my own business rather than selling my life time and labor for little money. I can write ten pages every day if I really want it. I can draw as well. I have a lot of things in my mind to earn money on my own term. That's the dream. The reality is totally different. I'm getting married and I need money more than ever. The easiest way is to work for others. It's a good thing to get married. Now I feel urgency to earn more money. Before this, I just use my time mindlessly on social media, watching movies, and doing other useless things. Now I can focus better. I can't afford to be lazy anymore. I don't feel miserable with this new responsibility. I feel excited. I just need to manage myself better. I think it's really possible to earn much more than what I earn today. I believe that in five years my You Tube channel will be one of my resources. At least it should earn five thousand dollar a month. It seems impossible now but somewhat I have this belief. Now my focus is to solve my self-contradiction problem. I know I need to be flexible. It doesn't mean that I contradict myself. I do not want to live like a robot as well. I want to be free. I don't want to follow the schedule of others and have no option for self-actualization. I want nothing but to be financially independence in ten years. I need to learn how to do it and really do it without drama. The drama here is the self-contradiction. I know what I should do but I do something else in reality as the respond of outer situation that I can't handle well. I want to be someone who has warrior mindset. If I want to do something, I just do it no matter what. I want to be anti-fragile. For now I'm still too sensitive and afraid of people's opinions. I hate criticism, negative judgment from others, rejection, failure, randomness and problems. I am fragile. I want to be anti-fragile and practice it every day. From inside there is resistance, from outside there is temptation. I need to fight these enemies every single day. I know this is my war I must win every single day. Understanding is the true power. I can rely on this. I need to read more. Atomic habit is my method, I need to implement and focus on this. Life is not all about economy. Today most people focus on economy. It becomes the center of life, more than other things such as family, religion, culture, art. Those who work in an office, they spend eight to ten hours working. They leave home in the morning and come back home in the evening. They only have weekends for family. Sometimes even week ends they still have to work. They often bring home their work and do it at night and weekends. The work has no end and they only earn enough money to live in order to be able to do the work. Most people have no better option. It's difficult to start a business. The failure rate is more than 90%. The creative work is even crueler, only top 1% can really enjoy the success of their works. Only 1% writer can enjoy the success of writing no matter how hard most writers work, so do musicians, painters, and other artists. I wanted to be a painter and a writer too. I can't see the prospect of these occupations. I can only do these as the side work if I still want to pursue it. It's easy to motivate people but to really do it is very hard. Especially if one is the backbone of a family, he needs to consider a lot of things and be practical. That's the gap between expectation and reality. Sometimes it's too wide apart. What I know is that everything can be built bit by bit overtime. Motivation doesn't change behavior. It's the environment that change behavior. Ulysses knew this therefore he manipulated the environment in favor of his goal. If I rely on merely motivation, I am destined to fail. I need a better and more reliable strategy. It's atomic habit. I am considering Ulysses pact as well. If I have enough money, rather than using the money to take a Mandarin course, I'd rather use it on Ulysses contract. I imagine it will work well.

0 Habit

_11.7.2021_ Hungry is natural, but it's also influenced strongly by habit. Tired, angry, comfort, happiness, are all influenced strongly by habit. Even self-identity is merely pattern created by habit. If I write every day I identify myself as a writer naturally. Luckily habit can be formed deliberately. Therefore almost everything is alterable. It's a good news indeed. I used to think that life is more or less about luck. If lucky, you were born beautiful and rich and smart. Now I think it doesn't matter. I can change my habit and my life, my happiness, my eating pattern, my work ethic, and so on. I can consciously choose what I want and really do it. It seems painful to work hard and study hard every single day but once it becomes a habit, it's just normal, no drama. One who eats once a day is not more miserable than one who eats ten times a day. It's just the habit, one gets used to it soon. What is painful at the beginning can turn into power and somewhat pleasurable. Some people sleep for eight or nine hours, some others sleep for only five hours. Some drink more water, some drink less water, and they are equally fine. Bad habits can destroy someone in the long run. Whatever my condition right now, happy or unhappy, it's because my habit. I just realized it this morning and I think it's very true. So many things are actually within my power to alter as long as it's about me. I can eat once a day and feel no hungry after it becomes my habit. I can read and finish one book every day without feeling tired once it becomes my habit. What becomes habit, it's easy to do. People often do not pay attention to their habits. They do not build the habit consciously with a clear purpose. They just follow what is pleasurable. It's possible that someone can do something every day and he still hates it like going to do chores or working. Most students after graduation from school they say good bye to reading and studying. They probably never really read books, they just do what is necessary and try to avoid it as they can. Living in poverty, or being single, people get used to it. It feels okay actually. Sherlock Holmes can read people easily because nothing happens randomly. My body shape is the result of my eating habit. It's not a coincidence to have big belly or darker skin, or dirty face. My room is very messy because I have habit to put anything around and no habit to tidy up. From today, my room will be tidy like a hotel room. It's clean and tidy all the time because I build a new habit to tidy and clean up my room. It's up to me to have or not to have a clean and tidy bedroom. I used to take it for granted, I do not take responsibility. I keep unnecessary stuffs that make my room messy and dirty. I keep unnecessary files on my computer and phones that slowing down the performance. I still think that one day it will be useful. I keep and keep and keep without letting go. I am crazy to wish to have a tidy room with such behavior and habit. It's a matter of minutes to clean a room, to tidy stuffs, to do exercise, or to read books. It's actually easy to do. To change an old habit is not easy. Even obviously bad habit is hard to change. It's like to pull out a tree with long roots. The habit has causes and before I learn and remove the causes, the habit will be there. The habit of using social media compulsively is caused by lonely, low self-esteem, the need of friends and so on can't be easily changed without fixing the real causes. If it's deep rooted in the psychology, it's almost impossible to remove it. The habit of smoking, drinking alcohol, shopping, watching TV, eating sugary foods, masturbating, and all kinds of pleasures are hard to be removed. One must have stronger reason to stop it. I heard a piece of good advice somewhere that "to change you must change the environment". People adapt to the environment. Their behavior is often the respond of environment. Whether people live healthy lifestyle, exercise, eating healthy foods, read books and so on depend on the environment. I eat rice because everyone around me eat rice. I have certain religious belief because my family has that belief. If my environment is military school, I am a student in it, I will behave like one. I can't the importance of environment. I can't live in a jungle of Africa and become a reader or religious. I behave according to the environment. Today most people are addicted to their smart phone because everyone else do the same. It's acceptable behavior and normal. A study shows that people can change their behavior unconsciously according to the change of environment. If everyone speak Mandarin, I'll speak mandarin too. It's hard to be rich in the middle of poor people. They are not lazy or uninterested to be rich, they do not know how to be one. Environment is one important factor that can't be neglected. I realize that to be rich I need to move to the environment that suitable for that. People often do not want to change and move to the new environment. If one lives in North Korea, it's impossible for him or her to behave like one who lives in America. Those who behave so badly still think that it's their best option. It's often caused by ignorance or environment. All people want to be happy, healthy, and wealthy. When they behave the opposite way, they often have no choice, at least to their comprehension. So whether someone can change or not, it depends on several factors; knowledge, environment, and unknown factors such as hormones, genes, and so on. To judge poor people lazy is maybe not fair. So many of them work really hard and sometimes it's for nothing.

0 What makes a person great?

_11.7.2021_ Not a new car, not a beautiful spouse, not a new status. The same question should be like this: "What makes Hercules great?" his efforts and toil. Imagine Hercules without the assignments, only easy life and luxury. Nothing great about it. The same with everyone else, everyday exercise will make one's body great, everyday pleasure will ruin it. Is it a good idea to have great body, to be smart, to be rich if the price is so high? I say it is. One can get used to everything. It's better to get used to hard work and toil than pleasure. It's between immediate reward and delay reward in which the delay reward is much bigger and valuable. One can eat more than he needs but then it won't add the pleasure, it gives negative feedback. While practicing more will give more result in the future. Pleasure is often turn into evil or at least prevent the good to happen. I can clearly imagine two situation; one situation I spend one whole night drinking and eating in a party, the other situation I spend the whole night learning new skill. Say it happens every day for five years. Which situation will make me happier after those five years? To spend five years in army training maybe turn me into someone so strong and discipline, while spending five years in endless social media consumption maybe will make me worse. The memory of having pleasure is often not so much pleasurable than the memory of struggle and overcome great difficulty. I remember my mountain climbing much better than my having good meals and partying in the past. In the past I would argue that I lived only once therefore should enjoy it to the most. I chose to enjoy the day by doing nothing, watching TV, browsing mindlessly, checking social media all the time. I can't memorize anything special with my obsessive used of social media. It's the total waste of time. I don't do it anymore, I am waking up now from that illusion. I didn't have plan with my time. I didn't know how to use it, I just waste it all the way to my adulthood. I think I am still lucky that I also read books. It gives me some wisdom to choose wisely to quit social media. If I can give myself an advice in the past, it would be "quit social media and read more". Social media is like an endless pit of rabbit hole, very few can get out of it. It's a pleasure trap. Only truly powerful mind can say no to pleasure. True power comes from understanding. How to make a good decision It's wise to do only what is necessary. It's hard to know what is necessary and what is not. It's more practical to test the decision by asking a question, what happens if I do this and what happens if I do not do this both now and later? Most people often cannot see the long term consequences. What is far always looks small and blurry. Small pleasure now is often more convincing than big pleasure in the far future. Small consequences now feels much more painful than big consequences in the future. The success journey is often involving choosing small pain now every day until one day great pleasure appear. While most people choose small pleasure now every day until one day the great consequences appear. Obesity doesn't happen suddenly in one day after eating doughnut, it happens gradually over long period of time. Great body shape doesn't happen suddenly after lifting barbell ten thousand times, it happens gradually over years of every day toil. Success and failure are predictable and take time. If I am smart today, it's because I have read thousands books in the past, If I am fat, it's because I've eaten mindlessly for years. This is called karma or action. The action and consequences are identical, it's always there. Most people are ignorant about this and therefore they make the wrong decision with their life and time. Success and failure are not random events. If I can't play a guitar today it's because I didn't learn to play it in the past. I can't wake up one day and suddenly become fluent in foreign language or master of anything. Ten thousand hours rule is debatable but it's not kidding. The idea that we need to spend a lot of time to practice deliberately to master something is plausible and sound. You can always examine this idea by yourself. Have fun all the time and see what will happen, deliberate practice for ten years and see what will happen. I used to think that hard work people are greedy. They do it because they are ambitious and greedy. They do not feel happy with what they have. It's better to live simple life with anything available that can be gotten easily. Indeed it's good to live such life if you are happy that way. Just like a sage. But most people are just lazy. They want to get as much as possible without working hard. They play victim and despise rich people because they envy them. They often use religious reasoning to back up their victim mentality. They are unhappy and live unfulfilled life. I always admire people like Buddha and Spinoza who lived simple life and were happy with their choice of life. It's possible to live simple and happy life, also it's possible to live rich and miserable life. Anyone is free to choose. Most people want to be rich and powerful. It's only possible with hard work and good decision making the whole life. It's easy to ruin years of hard work in a blink of eye. A good marriage for decades can be ruin in a day with decision. A healthy man can drink poison and die immediately. That's how easy to ruin good and turn it into bad. But no one can build Rome in a day. Successful can't be built in one day. No one can shape his body in one day. No one can master a new language in one day. That's how hard to be successful. It's continuous hard work and good decision making for years. It seems not fair that only few percent can be successful and the majority will be destined to fail. It's the rule of the game of life. It's not a secret and anyone can understand this easily. To choose wisely is not as easy as to say it.

0 More Reading and Listening

_11.7.2021_ People do not really read. I asked my students whether they read or not, the answer was no. People who are not students that I know, they do not read at all. Their life is all about working and entertainment. Most people watch TV. It becomes the main activity in the living room. I read books randomly, one day I read so much, the next day so little. I need to settle this habit into more reliable habit. I should put a number and decide the time. I love reading and I hope I can read more. Lately I listen to audiobooks more than read the books. Listening spends less effort and can be done anytime and anywhere. Reading needs more focus and specific location while listening can be done while running or doing other things. The good quality that I have now is derived from reading and listening habit. I do not remember what my teachers taught me in the past. I learned very little from them. I learned more from books and podcasts. Audiobooks and podcasts are easier because I know how long it takes to finish one. I realize that number helps me a lot to finish anything. Now I put number on everything I do if I want to do it to the end. Number gives me the clear mental model from the start to the end. If I can imagine the end, I can do it simply. Books have page number on them, so it's easy for me to finish them. With drawing, I do not know how to finish it. It's so abstract and therefore I can't imagine how long it will take. Creative process has some unpredictable and random factors. Now I'm learning Mandarin. I know that the progress is very slow because I do not read and listen a lot. I must do it every single day for years just like what I did with my English. I remember that when I studied English long ago, I love reading any books even if I didn’t really understand it. I watched movies almost every day. I enjoyed the process very much. It happened when I was a student and I had all the time to study. Now my mind is busy with a lot of thoughts. I know I can do it better now because I am wiser. I can focus better and make better decision. Thanks to my reading habit that I can think better and clearer. I can voluntarily say no to distraction and useless staffs. I can feel it that I get better a lot lately with more reading books and listening to audiobooks. In the past, mostly I read fictions and philosophy, now mostly economic, psychology, and philosophy. People suffer from their own fiction in their mind. I think reading will help them a lot more than money will help them. No one is suffering from hunger and lack of stuffs. They have more than what they need. In all houses I visited, I could see too many stuffs. All people have television and smartphone. They eat too much and become overweight. Yet they still feel unhappy for not having luxury stuffs they have seen on television. They care only about working and consuming. It becomes the game of life. They think having more will make them happier. In this globalization era, everyone has the same access to foods and entertainment. Rich people do not eat different foods from common people. Now I live in a small village in Central Java, I eat better foods every day than when I lived in Jakarta. In the luxury hotels where the foods are expensive, they are expensive because of the context, they are the same foods I can find anywhere with much cheaper price. Everyone wants to look good but not to be really good. It's a social game. It makes most people unhappy. To live simple happy life, one can work very little and have a lot of time doing anything they like. I'm not anti-working. I love working because it gives meaning to life. I prefer to work than to have mindless entertainment like watching TV all the time. Working can be self-actualization and transform people into better version of themselves. The problem with working is that most people do it merely for money. They do what they do not like to do. They do not work to build and pursue their dreams. They sell their labors and time for others in order to be able to consume more. They are ignorant and unhappy. I pay attention to people. Most of them do not have anything to talk to each other meaningfully. They just repeat the same topic day in day out. The conversations are mostly about their problems because they do not have real ideas to share about. So life is mostly about their problems and others' problems. Other than that it's just how to consume more, and how to win social game. This kind of life is boring. They get bored and they need more entertainment and social media. They are busy with nothing. Their problems are also meaningless. I think they do not even realize this. Their mind cannot comprehend and experience the higher and better problems. It's like a primary students can't understand university level books and materials. I know that I'm not better than them just because I read more books. It's just different choice of life. People can be and do anything and become happy. Long ago before school and any modern technology, people went hunting together in a small group. They lived and experienced everything first hand, not from books or lectures. It's great adventure and I'm into that kind of life. Live freely in the nature. Now people are bombarded by misinformation and manipulation. People are unhappy and so much stressful with their life which is caused by unreal problems. In the past people hunted wild animals for foods, today they hunt each other for no more real prey and predator. People play the game of status and social power.

0 Capacity and capability

_10.7.2021_ I don't believe in promises and good will, even will power, I believe more in habit. There were time when I promise myself to do something and I failed miserably, and keep failing. At that time, I didn't have the capacity and capability to do what I wanted. I can wake up one morning and want to run a marathon, it won't happen. It can only happen if I start from little and build the running habit. I can learn from my past record, it's more reliable than promises. In the past I wanted to read a book every day, I could do it for several days, and then stop. I forgot the exact reason. I wanted to draw every day to improve my drawing skill, I failed after about one month. It was ambitious project. I don't regret the attempts even if it will end up in another failure. The failure of a project will give more power to the next project. I will regret if I don't try at all. What I failed once, I can do it again better. To start again is not that difficult. Now I can maintain four habits daily. They are writing, barbell lifting, cycling, and creating videos for You Tube. I am adding reading, meditation and studying Mandarin. In the past I could barely maintain one good habit, but now I am confidence that I can handle them. I have the capacity and capability to do them all. The difference between the past me and the current me is the mindset. Since I read Atomic Habit, a book by James Clear, and I also watched a lot of Ted Talks about productivity, I know what to do and what to expect. The knowledge gives me confidence and courage to do a project. Basically it's just habit building. Once I can build it, I just need to maintain and improve it bit by bit. What fails people to succeed at doing something, for example mastering a new language, is the fail to build the habit concerning that goal. Habit is the system that will bring the result in measurable way. What is scalable is achievable. People often do not realize their own capacity to finish a task, whether too overestimate or underestimate their capability. I think most people are able to realize their dream if only they take the first step, a small one, and keep going with the picture in their mind to improve their efforts progressively. The secret is put a number. For example just do it 10 minutes every day. What is exact is easy to do. The other important factor is emotion. The mind is always busy with all kinds of emotions and reasoning, The resistance is always there too, just ignore all the drama, do it for certain period of time and then forget it. Start again tomorrow without drama. The goal is far in the future, but the work must be done daily. Therefore it's important to set a system that will lead to the goal. Put away all expectations and hopes which are unrealistic. Even better just do it with neutral emotion just like brushing teeth every morning and night. When I put the system like this, I can just work for minutes and then forget about it. I know it works perfectly well and my task is just keep doing the work daily. Now I can maintain four five habit together because it needs little time to do it. It doesn't consume my emotional energy and it feels like nothing. I will see the result after five or ten years. This is how the good system works. This is how evolution and nature behaves. It's a certain success. Most people think that it's hard to do meditation, reading, exercising, or building a business. When saying that, the picture in their mind is those who are successful as professional. They focus on the result but never the process. When they try it themselves and do not see the immediate result, then they stop doing and say, it's hard. What they want is immediate result. They do not comprehend the whole system. They can only see a small part of it and judge the whole thing with that little knowledge. What we build for years can be destroyed in minutes. It's true that to stay consistent and persistence is difficult. The temptation to give up is always linger very close to the mind. People are often attracted by easier and more pleasurable tasks, which are often not useful at all. Those who spend most of their time on social media and television are indeed invalid themselves. Their brain is occupied with irrationalities. Now I can see it clearly how foolish it is. Yet I was one of them. I spent most of my time caring about people's update and my update. It's stupidity and madness. I can't understand myself why I did it and why I was addicted to it. Maybe because I felt lonely and needed external validation or maybe something else. I got my understanding from reading and watching to motivational videos. I know that I need to improve a lot. I am ready to take to initial steps to my new life. Now when I have a goal in mind, I set the habit to get it. I write every day to keep the track of my system. That's all that I need to do. This is how it works. I know this even though I haven't seen the single result of my habits because I just started them. To be able to write every day and see them on my blog is a kind of accomplishment for now. I can see my YouTube channel is also improving very slowly and it's ok. There will be a day that it will earn money for me and I can more successful financially. I have spent more than 35 years doing things impulsively and I have seen the results. I am a failure for now. Impulsive actions will end up failure. People think they do not have ten or fifteen years to do something. They want immediate result, as fast as possible. They make decision that will bring the result immediately. They play short-time game. The prize is often not so satisfying. It's like students who study all out one day before the exam. They are destined to fail.

0 Whatever you write will become reality

_9.7.2021_ I found this title on YouTube video. I wrote a lot of diaries and I lost them all so I do not know what I wrote on my diary when I was in high school or in university. Normally I kept things long enough only to lose them later. Maybe I didn’t need to keep them from the beginning. I turn into someone totally different from the past and I'm not interested in stuffs from the past or even ideas. It's better to keep nothing from the past, just let bygone be bygone. I forgot my friends from kindergarten, primary school, even high school. Only few of them still remember me when we meet by accident. I know when I reread this note in the far future I must be different person with different ideas. Maybe I will be embarrassed by this note. At least for now, this is the best I can do. If I keep improving, of course in term of ten years, things will be totally different. I want to be a writer and I have started the journey now by writing every day. I want to be a painter as well because it is my childhood dream. I can pursue the dream as a hobby and it's ok, better than doing nothing at all. Lately I listen a lot to audiobooks, I want to learn how to be rich. I believe in ten year time I will be rich. I don't need to work for others and I have a lot of freedom and no problem with money at all. As I see around me, life is about working to survive. Most people do not have plan to be rich in ten or fifteen year time. They just work and spend the money they earn to consumption. They will never be rich their whole lifetime because they do not aim at it and make no action toward it. I learn this from Jordan Peterson that one can only hit what he aims at. If I aim at mastering Japanese language, then I start to study it, every day. In five to ten years I will be able to master it. But if I don't aim at it, there is no way I can speak Japanese fluently one day because I do not do anything about it. It matters a lot that I make a conscious decision and moving toward the aim. The most concrete example is this writing. I do this every day because I aim at writing a book in five years. It's an exercise and a habit building. I didn't do it before, for example in university, when I actually have a lot of time and energy. If I can repeat that time, indeed I will write every day like this. I didn't have plan to be successful at something at that time. I just wanted to get a job and worked like everyone else. To earn little money and live as others was the only thing I could see at that time. Before I went to university, my view of the world was even narrower. I was afraid of so many things. I didn't know what to do other than to be a slave, working for others as cheap worker. I applied for the lowest job possible and still hard to find one. The competition in the lowest ground was very hard. Now life is easy. I work a little and I got a lot more than those who work hard in a factory. Indeed knowledge is the true power. The more knowledge I have, the more power I have. Now I should aim at more knowledge, especially the knowledge that leads to be rich. For as long as I remember, I always love philosophy and being rich was never an aim. But now I'm getting married in a month. I realized that the lack of money equals much trouble and insecurity. I feel powerless and ashamed at the same time. I wasted too much time and resources for nothing these few years. I had no aim, I didn't even save any money for marriage. I was ignorant and I regret it the most. But this unfortunate event maybe the one that woke me up to work as hard as I can from now on. Working to get financial freedom and freedom as general. People are limited by their knowledge and power. Money is one legit source of power and access. What if it doesn't become reality? Reality is persistent imagination. If I write every day for years, of course I am a writer. It's the reality. At least some of the writing will become reality. Aiming at something and keep doing what it takes will eventually hit the target. If I want to enter a ball into a basket and I do it every day for years, my accuracy will definitely improve. I can't see different scenario. It must be it. This happens to my Mandarin as well. I studied Mandarin every day not intensively, just casually, sometimes watching dramas and teaching Mandarin to kids several times a week. Now I can see that my Mandarin has improved a lot compare to the last year. As long as I move toward the destination, the distance is closer and closer. Writing is the best habit I have lately. It makes me conscious about my decision for my future. Without this reminder every single day, I just lost in social media and doing nothing but wasting time. Playing stupid game winning stupid prize. Now I do not update status anymore, sometimes I check YouTube just to see my others do. Some of my friends are so addicted and update their status every several hours or even minutes, who knows. I feel sorry for them. I can see my old self on them. I shared quotes, wisdom, movie clips, whatever I think useful and amazing. It turned out that nobody cares. They are too busy with their own status as well. With this writing habit I can focus better as well. I know my priority and I can say no to immediate gratification. I can wait until ten fifteen years to get what I want. But I don't just wait, I work hard every day to get there. Be impatient with the work but be patient with the result. Finally it's just about mindset and effort to get what I want. I will get there for sure.

0 Energy

_8.7.2021_ Some kinds of birds can fly for so long and so far. They can cross a sea. They do not eat more than normal birds who can't do it. What is the secret? Some kids are also very active from early morning to the late of night. They do not eat more than any normal kids. Some people can work for fifteen hours and always looked energetic some others can barely more their body after working for eight hours. It seems like more they spend their energy, more they have the energy to be spent. Poor people spend very little and they can earn very little as well, rich people spend very much and they can earn more than that. (Matthew 13:12): “For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away.” (New King James translation). From this verse people easily conclude that the rich get richer the poor get poorer. This is why it's important to be outlier. Do not be slightly better than others, be much much better, do not do slightly more, do much much more. It seems that energy gains more energy, power gains more power, money gains more money. The most productive writers can write a hundred times more than the least productive ones. The question is "how they do it?" They have the same 24 hours a day, the same resistance they must fight every single day. Yet they have unlimited energy to write. A polyglot can speak more than twenty languages while others struggle with two. They do not have higher IQ scores, or special talent on languages because they didn't do well at school. If there is a secret, it's the ability to work hard. The energy comes from love the job not from fear. Fear is a great source of energy as well. "Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed; to kindness, to knowledge, we make promise only; pain we obey.” -Marcel Proust. High energy person can be a CEO of several successful companies while low energy person can't even clean his own room. He procrastinates to do everything because he has no energy to do it now. It's like a sick person who has no desire to do anything. It's important to be ambitious if one wants to be successful. He needs to outwork everyone else in his arena. There is no shortcut and easy path to success. The law of conservation of energy states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed - only converted from one form of energy to another. Most people never meet their potential. They use less than 50% of their capacity. Probably they use only 20% of their capacity. Their unused energy will be preserve in another form, mostly fat. Most marathon runners have slim body, yet they have enough energy to run very long distance. The birds who can fly far and high are also less heavy than say ostrich or chicken. Some ducks can fly and some others cannot. It depends on their habit. Practice makes better if not perfect. The best swimmers swim all the time, the best runners run all the time. The best writers write all the time. You can't do something rarely and become the best on that thing. The mastery depends on deliberate practice or at least habit. Animals in the wild life do not do deliberate practice. But one cheetah can run faster than others. It's the habit can differentiate them. Naturally they are the same. Those who speak twenty languages have the same nature and potential to those who can only speak one or two. The habit separates them apart. One may say that it's the talent that differentiate people. Tell people do meditate, it basically do nothing. Still, it needs huge energy to do nothing. Those who practice more will be better meditators. A marathon runner can run for ten hours quite easily but definitely can't meditate for ten hours, even one hour can be very difficult for him. A writer can write for ten hours which is impossible for non-writer. So it's deliberate practice on certain area that makes people good at it. Everything needs practice if you want to be good at it. If you want to be excellent, you need to practice much much more. “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” (Aristotle). It's known for more than two thousand years since Aristotle or even long before that. People are ignorance. They do not do what necessary to gain the mastery, they can only complain about a lot of things. People often do the opposite of what necessary. It's cruel optimism. It's self-sabotage. I want to have a beautiful body like a bodybuilder and yet I do not exercise, rather I eat too much. I contradict myself. I do not do what it takes to be one. All people want to be rich, but they spend their time on social media and other entertainments. They should work hard as hard as possible and learn how to earn more money. They should not waste their time and energy for nothing. Ask those people who fail to be rich, you will learn that they do not do what it takes, they complain about life, they are ignorance and clueless about their goal. Success is predictable and doable. It's like meditation. If you are stubborn enough and never give up on it, you will make it. It's not easy but it's worth the effort. You can't win a battle merely rely on luck, hope, and pray to god. The outcome is predictable. A great general will win all the battles for his knowledge on the warfare. The loser can say that it's the destiny to win or lose, it's not. If a lion fight with a sheep, you can tell who will win. The lion has more energy and skill in fighting. There is no way it will lose to a weak sheep. It's not unfair, it's life. The sheep must learn not to fight a lion.

0 It's always now

_7.7.2021_ Pleasure is always brief and short in duration. But time is relative. It doesn't matter, memory will not record the duration, it records the intensity. Two-weeks-vacation is not better than one-week-vacation in memory if someone does the same thing. Therefore, pleasure is always luring no matter whether it's short in duration or long. Pleasure and pain are the roots of human behavior. People seek for pleasure and nothing else. So pleasure is the end, not the mean. Even for one who denies pleasures, the end is for the greater pleasure and more lasting one. Those who eat junk foods aim at pleasure, those who exercise and eat healthy foods are also aim at pleasure. The different is that one pleasure is better than other. The better pleasure needs education and understanding to enjoy it. I want to have beautiful body shape, flat or even six packs belly muscles. To get this I must sacrifice a lot of pleasure of eating anything I want, anytime and as much as I want. To deny pleasure is the hardest thing in the world. But some people can get pleasure from this, denying pleasure. Spinoza said that power equals happiness. I am a vegetarian and I am happy refusing meat on the table, I feel powerful and proud of myself. The root of desires is suffering, when the suffering disappears, desires also disappears. Therefore the ultimate end of man is not pleasure but power. Merely pleasure is easy to fulfill such as foods, sex, and other body sensations. But those who aim at these won't be happy because it implies weakness and meaningless of existence. At this level, animal is better than human. They have stronger body, they have no sense of moral so they can have sex with hundreds difference females in one day. They have no mental worry and suffering, they can enjoy pleasure at the most. Pleasure is not equal happiness. It can be seen on people who do not control themselves from getting as much pleasure as possible. Eating too much is not only unhealthy but the consequences are many, ugly body shape, lethargic, uncomfortable, disease, and many more. Human body and mind get used to anything, with too much pleasure it will taste normal and this condition is called hedonic adaptation. Now is the time to live, to make a decision, to suffer or pain. Everything will pass, nothing last forever. Life itself is brief. Reality is illusory. People can be happy or unhappy with the same event. It depends merely on their power or understanding. Most people are ignorance and therefore unhappy. From my own experience, the cause of unhappiness is greed. I desire things that I do not need, I work hard for it, keep it, and never use it, later I just lose it no matter how. I even keep boxes and old books I will never read again. It's a complete useless. If I can be a minimalist, I will be happier. Throw away anything unnecessary, do nothing unnecessary, keep only what is essential do only what is truly importance. Today people suffer from wanting and having too much rather than having too little. No one dies from hunger, most die from obesity and the diseases related to eating too much and moving too little. It's the truth we realize but do not obey, we just give false promise to do good to ourselves. There is only one good, knowledge, one evil, ignorance. My ignorance is my enemy of happiness. To be minimalist is the best way to be happy nowadays. Work less, have less stuffs, live more freely, stay away from social media and junk information. To consume less and to keep less, more importantly to want less stuffs. People can work as hard as possible but not to sell themselves as a slave in order to have more stuffs. The best way to work as hard as possible is for oneself, to pursue the personal legend and to live life truly. Having more stuffs won't make people happier, it makes them even more miserable. It's very little to make a happy life. If one is not greedy, to be happy is just natural and easy. Personally I can work as a painter, teacher and writer at the same time. I will have a lot of time to do something else. But I do not pursue what I know will make me happy, I pursue what most people think will cause happiness, to get rich. People work for other to get easier life and more security. It is normal and natural for them. They can't imagine doing something else. They have buried their dreams long ago. It's always now, and now is very brief of time but forever. It soon turn into the past in a blink of an eye. Nothing can stop time from passing. If I really work for 15 hours a day to improve myself, I do not need to work for others. But I like teaching. I can work as a teacher and it doesn't feel as work, it's my passion. I love teaching but I want to have more flexible time. To teach in a regular school is to dedicate my time and energy to the rules that are created by others. I can't even take my time off as I wish. It's no difference from slavery at some sense. Doing so I won't be rich. It's better if I can create online learning videos or teach online. I'd love to teach as a hobby and have more free time. To work for others is to lose freedom that is necessary for happiness. Very few people are truly happy with their work because it's not really their work. They do others' work. They are just as a slave. It's always now. I'm always choosing what to do now.