Today I woke up and got right on social media to make sure no one was talking smack, and to see everything I was afraid I would be missing. Then I spent time going through the groups and forums to make sure no one was spreading incorrect information about things that I obviously know a lot about. I spent time typing comments about topics for the 7000th time, and argued with some people so I could change their mind on the internet. After that I agreed with all of my Facebook friends that always agree with me…
Actually, I didn’t do any of that.
I rode my horse on the dirt roads of my neighborhood, with my daughter on her horse beside me. I spent my ride thinking about what a beautiful day it is. The featured video clip on this blog post is from that ride. That’s the back view of Tommy, my 22 year old appendix horse. He’s a stubborn old guy that likes to mosey around. My daughter was next to me on her American paint. Look at that beautiful sky at the end!
Get out and live your life!!
To be fair, I don’t ride horses everyday (my daughter sure does), but I do work hard to avoid any and all of the activities I listed in the first paragraph.
I see people everyday wasting their lives on social media, and I do not want to be one of them. Yes, I have to be on there for my business and it is a large piece of how I earn a living, but there is no need to live on there.
What if I told you that you could change your life so much that in 3 years you could be doing something you would love to do, but that you do not think is possible?
Three years ago it was the fall of 2016 and I was just beginning this journey to change my life. In my case, I was making drastic changes on a major life altering scale, but the principle will apply no matter whether you just want to have a better life or if you are balls out burning it to the ground, leaving your marriage and giving away all of your stuff (like I did).
I was in a place that I could not stand anymore. It offered zero inspiration and nothing but bad memories. I was in a job that was choking me to death. I wanted more, and by more I do not mean material things. I wanted more peace, more family time with my daughters, more enjoyment of this precious short life we have.
I wanted horses, and maybe a motorcycle, too. I wanted to live somewhere that inspired me. I wanted more freedom. But there I was, in that job, in that little house, on that shitty side street outside of dreary Youngstown, Ohio, with people that made me feel miserable.
Exactly 3 years later, here I am, 1000 miles away. My horses are in the back pasture, my Harley is in the shed. The weather is beautiful most of the time, and there is not one person around me that makes me unhappy.
Sure, my life isn’t perfect per se. I do still have issues. The major difference is that my issues today are planned for. They are being dealt with, like left over residue from so many years of bad decisions being eliminated one by one.
And the most important part is that I am not creating new problems of any large scale in my life. I am still struggling, but I wouldn’t trade my struggle today for any of my yesterdays.
That is where the internet comes in. Why would I work so hard to remove drama and misery from my life, to create this inspirational space where I can live and work, just to wake up everyday and fucking destroy it with the constant negativity and drama of the internet?
Quite frankly, how can you expect to get to a better space in your life at all when you are both wasting precious time on the internet and, day after day, letting yourself be dragged into the psychological swamp that social media is?
Put the phone down and start living. Pick it up to capture great moments that you want to remember. Take the pic or video and put it right back down. Get back in the moment. You can post that shit later to be inspirational to other people. Right now, you’re busy living.
If your life is: go to work, spend breaks and spare time on social media, come home, spend time in between family and dinner on social media, go to bed, repeat…then you definitely need to change directions. That’s a prison of a life.
I know, I used to live it. Maybe you are uninspired by your surroundings. Maybe you are unhappy with the people around you. Maybe you just became stagnant and got lazy. Whatever the case, it is within your power to change that life, and you absolutely can not change it sitting your ass on social media staring at a phone all day.
And I get it that sometimes you’re just passionate about a cause. But, here’s the thing,
You aren’t changing the world.
You aren’t even changing anyone’s mind.
You need to use your limited energy to change your own life first, and be an example of a happy, peaceful person showing the world how to do it.
Of course it’s not easy. But you can do it.
I’m not bragging at all. Hell, most people would consider my lifestyle “poor”, since I made a decision not to accumulate any more debt, which means everything I get is older, smaller, or cheaper. Nothing I have is new or fancy. But I am happier than I have ever been, and I have way more peace in my life than I ever thought possible just a few short years ago.
I sure as hell am not going to let the addiction of social media and the negativity of people, who are able to type away with no consequence, steal that peace from me.
If your life is great, that is awesome. If you’ve been lucky enough to have made good decisions from day one, great. You’re awesome. But there are a lot of people out there like I was, coming from not so great places and mindsets and struggling to find ways to end the cycles of poverty and misery. It doesn’t mean they are bad or stupid, but they are struggling.
I am speaking to those people primarily. Here’s a guy that grew up in a drug house, watched his entire family die off from drugs and bad choices, lived through years of prison as a teen and young adult, followed that up with a few bad marriages and failed careers and businesses, and basically accumulated enough bad choices to stack the deck completely against me having any real success in life.
But I was able to turn it all around. And I don’t have to create some fake fucking persona in fantasy land (the internet) or attack other people to make myself feel worthy.
If I can do it, you can too. But you will never do it with your mind stuck in the cyber world, letting all of the stupid, meaningless shit flood your thoughts all day while it soaks up any time you could be using to better your position in life.
We only get one shot at this. Nothing is going to last forever, not your time with your family, not your children’s childhoods, not your youth or health, not the beauty of anything or anyone around you. It will all go away. Don’t miss it. Don’t waste it.
Barbell, Strength and Fitness Training: https://www.ctsmethod.com
Violence Training: https://www.patreon.com/ViolenceofMind
- New Training Opportunity - March 24, 2023
- Is it REALLY ok to slap someone for verbal offense? - March 31, 2022
- Hard Skills for Hard Times (and Good Times, too) - February 26, 2022
Thanks man for sharing this. It is all to easy to fall into a rut and waste time and energy on things that become routine.