Dreams Start With Patience #32

Reading time: 3 minutes

Quit kidding yourself, you can only do 1 thing at a time.

When I was 21, I had it all figured out.

I was the best in the world at being efficient, working hard, and talking about technology + photography.

Fast forward 2 years later.

My ego in 2023 is crushed.

The reason?

I’ve grown an immense amount

But I’ve also gotten considerably worse at so many different things I once used to be good at.

Just recently - I was talking to a friend about video games.

“Sweat Lord” would've been tattooed across my forehead if my old friends could do so.

I grew up playing FPS (first-person shooter) video games.

A Super Nintendo controller came out of the womb with me they say.

Because of my obsession early on with games.

I developed silent competitiveness

I hate to lose more than I love to win - this is the mindset of 9-year-old Zachariah playing Halo 3.

Everything in 2009 was easier.

I didn’t have to “multi-task”.

I became a focus machine in my short 9 years of life.

School - Eat - Game - Sleep.

This was the cycle of my life for 13+ years.

As ridiculous as it sounds.

9-year-old Zachariah is much more intuitive than 21-year-old Zachariah.

There is a massive difference in the level of obsession the two possess.

At 9, there is only intrinsic motivation.

At 21, extrinsic motivation took the stage (as it naturally does)

I prioritized the wrong things in life at 21 which is why I operated out of lack.

When you don’t have intrinsic drivers in your young adult life, your day looks like this:

•Multi-tasking/task switching

•Busy work and operating out of fear

•Patting yourself on the back and rewarding yourself with cheap dopamine entertainment

I didn’t know my next step, so I created a bunch of fluff to make me feel better about myself.

Many believe the biggest proponent of productivity is about getting more done.

They are so unbelievably wrong.

Here is why:

The agony of the efficiency trap.

When you are constantly working and producing results.

The work never stops flowing in.

To-do lists fill back up after you gain the pleasure of crossing them off.

The solution?

Fine-tune your direction and commit before wasting countless hours on “nothing”

“If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable.”
-Seneca

You probably have no idea what you’re doing because you're young.

The secret to prioritization?

Nobody knows what the f**k they’re doing.

Get on with your life and…

Experiment.
With.
Everything.

Commitment is true experimentation.

Many ideas and dreams you have won’t work out.

Obviously, this is the case in life - sometimes you’re just unlucky.

But, far more times I see people who have never truly committed to anything.

They have committed to not committing.

By avoiding responsibility for one’s own life they have created a safe haven for chaos to consume them.

It’s okay to be shitty at the game of life.

I’d argue that everyone is.

But, if you’re not even going to try then you have already lost before the game has begun.

Everything is about your ability to create a priority.

Priority comes from the ability to ideate.

The ability to ideate comes from a sense of direction.

A sense of direction stems from the urgency of mortal life.

The ability to prioritize intelligently is your lifeline to success and fulfillment.

How?

By living in alignment with who you truly are.

1. Stop being someone you are not - chase the curiosity, not the popularity.
2. Try things. (Simple but efficient advice)
3. Understand that your passion now is more than likely not going to be your passion years down the line.

If you are not certain where you are going, you need to spend resources on figuring it out.

-Energy
-Time
-Money

And then, cultivate the grit and resilience to persevere when you realize it’s time to pivot.

You get to determine your life.

Not everything - but there are so many avenues in which you control.

The only thing more painful than the pursuit of greatness.

Is the regret of not achieving greatness.

Thanks for reading!
Another way I can help you when you are ready.
Learn how to optimize creativity and productivity directly from me

Your creative buddy who is doing a lot of big-picture thinking lately.
-Zachariah