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.