0 Same old same old

_6.7.2021_ Success and failure are not unpredictable. The enemy is not new, it's as old as the human existence. The fight starts new every day yet very few can learn from their history, being defeated every single day by the same enemy on the same battle. They tell the same story, the story of failures. Being defeated too many times, they believe that to win is impossible. It's their fate to be the wrong side of history. All winners are all alike but all losers lose in their own way. It's the game of life. It's easy to know how to win but not easy to really do it. People refuse to suffer even if they know that it benefits them in the future. It's the fight against Siren's song. It's the battle no one can win except he makes a pack with his own future as Ulysses does in the story. You do not need a fortune teller to tell you that you will give up your journey in the middle of nowhere. How many people make a new year's resolution only to fail several months after that? On average, 80% of New Year's resolutions fail by the second week of February according to various studies. People often overestimate their ability to do something. How to avoid failure? In my opinion, do not avoid it, do it every day, more is better. The key is to keep pushing. Failures are often the only way to move forward. Just like playing a game, the best player is also the one who makes the most failures. Fail and fail again until it doesn't scary you anymore. It's normal to fail and you know that you do it to get ahead. It's necessary for success. One of the best TED Talk I ever watched is "What I learned from 100 days of rejections" by Jia Jiang. He was afraid of rejection and then he tries to get rejected for 100 days. Being rejected for so many times, he got used to it and it felt like game rather than threatened his ego. Surprisingly, people often consider the request that you assumed it would be definitely rejected. It's often that the one who rejects me is myself. I ask myself to eat less, exercise more, read more, and do meditation. Sometimes I say yes to the request, sometimes I say no. But if no request, the answer is always no. So always ask what you want to get, expect the rejection and be ok with that. I have time to ponder about this because I do not work for others. People who work for others they spend their most precious time and energy to do the work. I have no time for themselves. They will get home tired and defeated day in day out. I was working in a pipe factory about twenty years ago. I worked like a robot. Even animals do not work that hard and tedious for their master. I got nothing but small sum of money, barely enough for normal life. An accident happened causing me to get sick for three weeks. It was the best thing happen to me. I quit and continued my study in high school. Most people have to work and they do not know what to do. To be a worker is often the only seemingly best option and to quit from the job is out of question. I'm lucky enough to be able to go to a university. Now I speak English and Mandarin as well. I enjoy my life now compare to back then. I often ponder how to change to be better, not only 100% better but 500% better. I need to earn 500% more than my current income. I know that it's not a short time project. I think it should be achievable in ten years or so. One way is by writing every single day. I know that there are millions people who want to be a writer, only less than 1% of them will be successful in this career choice. I started a YouTube channel and I also know that it's just the same difficult as to be a writer. I started from zero, that's how people start their journey to success. I do not know what will happen in ten years but it's better than working for others. In ten years I will do the same every day. That is the impossible way to be successful and rich. Who knows that one day I can write popular book like Harry Potter? Life is full of surprise. To fail every day is to get better at failing and to fail less and less. I know I can change to be better, 500% better. It need deliberate practice and long process. I'm doing that now. Most people leave it to their fate whether to change or not, to be better or not. They are deceiving themselves. Subconsciously they know that nothing will be so much different in the future, same old same old. If you plant a tree and you take care of it every day, you can expect that it will grow big and tall in fifteen years. It's the law of nature. Nothing change drastically into something great, but sometimes thing can change drastically into something bad when disaster happened. Fifteen year old tree can be cut down in an hour. That is how easy to cancel out of hard work. Yet nothing you can do to grow 15 meter tall tree in an hour. It seems that the odds are against us. It's how it works, the law of nature. The only thing one can do is to understand it and act according to it. There is no shortcut to success, to 500% improvement in a short time. It needs toil, hard work, and persistence. There is no reason to be pessimistic. Life is beautiful. The game is fair for everyone. The game fails 99% of the players and it's good like that. If it's easy, it's boring. This is the challenge that one must overcome every day. The struggles make one stronger and better over time. Keep failing and keep pushing, never give up. Just make one step ahead and you will get there at the end of the journey. The true wealth is life itself. It's the struggle to the top that make success worth it and meaningful.