Dear reader,
If you had everything you needed, would you work hard to achieve more?
That is the question I had been pondering over. As some of you may remember, earlier this year, I moved to New York. So far, I have been living with my brother. So that meant that I didn’t need to worry about anything. I don’t have to worry about the rent, food, and most major expenses. It would be fair to say that I have been breezing in New York so far. However, that is a problem.
Between the beginning of high school and before coming to New York, I had been living alone, on my own. When I was alone, I almost always had this drive to do something more because I knew that I didn’t have a lot of the things I needed. This may have been the reason why I started my blog, High Approach when I had just completed grade 10. It turned out to be a good time investment, which brought returns for many years.
That is the drive I have begun to lose. Or the drive I had started to lose.
The news is that I’m moving out to live on my own. So I’ll have to take care of everything for myself. That would include the rent, my university fees, food expenses, and everything else. I know this may not be the smartest move I have made, but I think this is an important step. I think not having everything provided will help me regain the focus I used to have and seek to always have.
I sometimes fear that by doing this, I might get caught up in the day-to-day so much that I might lose sight of the bigger picture. But that’ll be an interesting challenge to overcome.
I don’t know how everything will work out, but the one thing that I do know is that I’ll figure something out.
This is an amazing trait we humans have: When the need arises, we adapt. When it’s needed, we learn the hardest of skills, and we do the hardest of things. So that’s what I’m going to try to take advantage of adaptability.
In the memories of Darwin:
It is not the strongest of the species that survives, not the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.
I understand that not all of us may have the situation to make such a big move, but I think that there are ways of putting ourselves into such uncomfortable situations. It is possible to keep something at stake to accomplish something.
One thing I used to do is I used to tell everyone close to me that I was going to do something before a certain deadline. When I knew that everyone knew about a certain undertaking of mine, it would encourage me to accomplish it. If I didn’t, it would be embarrassing for me.
One example of this is this very newsletter. I have told many of my closest people that I write these newsletters every week, and they’ve even subscribed to it. So they look forward to reading it every week. There have been times when I’ve thought maybe I should stop this now, but I always think, “I’ve done this for so long, and there are people I know who read this every week. I cannot let them or myself down.”
You could also bet money. You could give a good amount of money to a close friend and tell them to give it back to you only if you completed a certain task before a certain deadline. If you failed, s/he could keep it. That would give you a monetary incentive to work hard.
I hope you’ll take some time to think about this.
Take care, my friend!
Warmly,
Suraj
