My writing has been consistent with the theme of exploration and personal growth. Ultimately, I see my work as high performance with a purpose, for all things life. This is what I call “Effective Living“. It’s about becoming aware of and removing the crutches, to then build ourselves back up from nothing.
Common Themes of My Writing
- Exploration
- Discover Your Potential
- Clarity
- Thrive in Ambiguity
- Awareness
- Change the Tough to Change
- Deliberate Action
- Remove Distractions
- Intensity of Stimulus
- Obtain Lasting Results
- Challenge
- Struggle Effectively
- Connection
- Develop Purpose
- Meaning
- Experience a Different World
The Temptation and Detrimental Effects of Crutches
The reason why some people thrive through adversity and others perish comes down to exploration. Some people run from the adversity and look for an escape, drugs, sex, tv, video games, food, etc. While others dive right in to the sensations, perhaps out of feeling they have no escape, but nonetheless, face the struggle headfirst.
This may come early, at a critical period of life (e.g between 8 and 13) and thus lead to compounding effects from such a strong impression near the initial conditions of one’s life. The results can be profound, forever changing a personality. But, many turn to distraction.
The Crutches of Society
Distraction is why crutches, such as family, friends, video games, food, or other coping means (e.g. social media, or any sort of distraction) prevent people from evolving and learning life improving lessons. This is why “helping someone” by selfishly helping a child at their first outcry for help (as a means of feeling special, i.e. selfish), is not helping them. Sure they show appreciation and therefore make you feel good and reinforce that behavior. But they don’t know it’s future impact, like how sugar encourages you to consume more.
Satisfying a need in the current moment is instant gratification. It’s akin to giving someone a drug, they get high and feel great, but little are you aware of the addiction, i.e. dependency, or learned helplessness. This trains the habit of looking to others for help while quickly giving up (because they’ve never done it all themself, you were always the crutch).
If you really want to help someone, you teach them how to get up, not give them a hand each time they fall. Just like teaching a child to walk, you encourage them to make baby steps, first move around, then crawl, then stand, walk, run, etc. If they fall, they have to learn to get up, if you always help them they won’t know how to do it themselves. Children are expected to learn for themselves, therefore they learn quickly because their environment promotes it. Adults learn (and grow) slower because they don’t have others to push them anymore and they never developed their ability to push themselves.
This is what makes mentorship difficult, you give challenges and HOPE they fail, then do NOTHING to help. You are only there to support, guide, encourage, and offer support WHEN they fail. You have high expectations and you hold them accountable. That is how you train fully functioning and healthy, effective, human beings. The alternative, of helping them and holding their hand, is just a selfish act to feel good about yourself. It takes courage to watch someone you love fall and do nothing to help them up, this is what makes parenting hard, period.
Throwing Out The Crutches
It’s time to throw out the crutches.
When you’re in adversity, you have to learn to get up yourself, don’t look for crutches. Be aware of the rationalization you make for those sweets or that video game or tv show, or that party. Disease and suffering is the consequence. Instead, explore the sensations, explore your inner world, and power will follow. Live actively and deliberately, and nature will reward you.
Through the adversity, if you explore and dive in, you WILL be far more likely to uncover and DERIVE meaning behind the struggle. This is called passion or a purpose. This is what drives the greats to succeed endlessly. It triumphs motivation and all other emotions, it transcends the transient emotions of motivation by outliving the peaks and valleys that come from the wave-like nature of any emotion.
Obstacles will hit you hard, a punch can send a happy emotion to anger, just like a roadblock can scare motivation away. But a purpose is deeper, it is a drive that makes all the pain have meaning, it is the fuel that empowers lasting change. Want to lose weight? Build muscle? Get rich? Go through college with great grades? Anything that requires adversity and is hard to get, and therefore valued by society? Struggling well is the key.
Life Without The Crutches
Struggling well means to struggle effectively. This means to progress towards some intended objective as a result of the hardship. This does not mean mindlessly torturing yourself for fun, unless, of course, that is the objective. Struggling effectively means to turn the time spent in discomfort into something of value to the world, to build a castle, to do what is hard and causes most to turn away, thus making the result more valuable.
During these times of adversity, develop courage and grow your independence, build your strength, dive in to the discomfort. Find that deeper meaning, the fire under your ass. That is what will give you lasting success.
Struggle is the best opportunity for growth and finding yourself IF you do the hard work of soul searching, because it is in the extremes of any system, that the true, fundamental properties that contribute to its functioning and operation are shown. A friendship may SEEM great, but when you lose all your wealth is when the true friendships show themselves.
Rebuild Yourself
Doing the hard when it is hard is the true sign of character, even the character of a system. Science operates under these principles, stress testing or placing elements under extreme conditions reveals their properties. It isn’t about what you do when times are easy, anyone can do those things, by definition, it’s what you do when times are tough. Do you lean in to the struggle or lean out? Are you walking on egg shells afraid to stub a toe, or are you moving with a purpose, a bigger mission that transcends the temporary discomfort of a stubbed toe?
If you dig yourself self out of dumps with your own wit and skills, you will grow confident in your ability to do so, this will develop the mindset of “no matter what, I’ll be okay”, which is the cornerstone of confidence. With more confidence you’ll do more challenging things, and therefore be more likely to succeed greater than others, this will result in an upward spiral as others reinforce your personality. After all, people don’t judge you based on your shortcomings, they judge you based on how YOU PERCEIVE your shortcomings (which is conveyed through your actions). Own them, and you’ll become more confident and it will compound by how others treat you.
My Mission
Throughout my journey through various challenges, I’ve approached each with a careful eye and a pen in hand. I emphasized what led to effectively handling the challenges. I read books, watched videos, and explored all over the internet for the psychology that goes in to high performance under extreme situations.
What I discovered was immediately put into practice, for challenges from physical to mental, from fitness to rapid skill acquisition, and all things in between.
My mission is to fill the world with individuals that, despite genetics, childhood, or any other external factors, can build themselves up from nothing and go on to provide their unique impact to the world.
To put simply, my mission is to evolve the species forward.
This is my mission because this is what nature emphasizes, evolving species that can adapt, given any hardship. Perhaps during this endeavor, a greater understanding and connection to the universe can be made, leading to profound discoveries about the nature of reality itself.
Afterword
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Created By: Brandon
This was very interesting to read. Made me think of the concept of co-dependence, particularly in relationships. I know people who eat their feelings, who dance them away.. my crutch is a person. There's so much irony in this because my person is in ways more unstable and incapable of providing what I think I need from them than anybody. I was watching a show the other day and their was a psychologist talking. She touched on the topic of love and how we often love selfishly. It is not pure because we are wanting from the other person in ways they shouldn't have to give.
Hmm, I like that connection to the concept of co-dependency. That's the thing about external dependencies, that I find, it's very similar to addictions or sugar cravings. Just a little encourages you to have more. It can create a vicious downward spiral. That also closely relates to the concept of "echo-chambers" (basically, forming your environment where all the people in your social circle agree with your beliefs and interpretations, further reinforcing them and locking you in). The implications this has with love and general relationships is an interesting one to think about. Got me thinking of a quote I came across regarding love: "Compatibility isn't the prerequisite to love, it's the accomplishment of it"
It's just like breaking your leg and needing a crutch to prop you up. You end up depending on it and putting your weight on that crutch. It bears the brunt of the load for however long. Say you come to depend on it and start to believe you would fall if you ever tried to walk without it. Not everybody really gets the concept or danger in being co-dependant. I read somewhere that the real goal is to get to a point where you want other people but don't need them. It's very hard to strike that balance between healthy love and attachment for other reasons. In ways, many people enter relationships with a hope to attain both. Echo chambers.. that's a great way to think of it. Reminds me of times where I'd tell friends about something and give my opinion and just have them agree when really I wanted another way of thinking about it. People who are close tend to feed off of each other and it can be easy to get into the habit of validating others thoughts and behaviour when they aren't healthy.
That's exactly the point. Circus elephants are trained in a similar manner. They are tied up to a pole at a young age, too weak to break themselves free. Over time, they grow strong enough to break themselves free, but they don't ever try. Their belief has been hammered in and it has shaped their very view of the world, and they don't even know it. That's exactly what learned helplessness is. My theory is that everyone, including myself, has these "blind spots" that hold us back in so many ways. My mission involves uncovering them, in myself, and sharing what I learn with others to encourage similar change. You're a very wise person, and at a young age too. It's amazing what the simple act of thinking deeper can do to how you view the world.
I enjoy your way of thinking- it’s not everyday you find someone whose thoughts are in line with yours. I really resonate. Learned helplessness is the perfect way to put it. These blind spots, as you call them, are essentially all the things we have taught ourselves to overlook, even though it isn’t in our best interest. As well as uncovering them, we need to challenge them. Test our deep rooted belief system and identify the gaps in our lives. Greater awareness of ourselves and our own truth is the key to understanding our place in the world.
Interesting read ✨
Thank you for taking the time to look it over 😄 What are your thoughts on an ambition like this one?
I love this one. Relates to a lot of things I have been through. It's interesting to see the different perspectives and outlooks on things from an outside perspective. It helps put things in a clearer retrospect. Don't ever give up this talent of yours, Brandon!