In early July, I was talking to a friend of mine, and he recommended that I start recording daily videos, just like I write daily updates. The insight was that uploading daily is superior to waiting until the perfect niche falls from the heavens. But to be fair, after not having uploaded for nearly a year, my niche got a lot clearer. I will avoid doing general self-improvement videos and instead unite productivity and philosophy. I will focus on decisions, the shortness of life, and the insignificance of most concepts. My videos should shine with simplicity.
Two weeks after that conversation and a few exams later, I started to upload daily audio recordings on my website. After another two weeks, I realized that it took significantly less time than anticipated. Daily uploads moved into the realm of things that can be done. In a week, my exams will be over, and I will start uploading again. I figure out everything else along the way.
My first goal is to record fifty videos in two months.
I see content creation as a path to live a free and fulfilling life – hence, I started to create content in 2021, at 13 years old. My first video was ‘Windows shortcuts’ and it was three minutes long. I just recorded it without overthinking, despite of my stutters. A month later, I started recording cooking videos, but also time-lapse videos. In 2022, I then got half a million views on my timelapses. I showed it could be done. A year later, I started to create videos about my life, and today, my 600th video is waiting for me. Indeed, I cannot give up; I cannot fatigue, for my resilience knows no bounds.
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One of my very first self-improvement videos tells the story of text #23. Things take as long as you want them to take. After stuttering heavily for years, even after visiting a speech therapist, I halved my stutters by taking out my camera every day for two weeks in July of 2023. In the end, I had 57 minutes of footage and my stutters had halved. What monumental return on investment! Things indeed do take as long as you want them to take.
And so, in 2024, I sought to halve my social awkwardness in a little time as possible. I walked from one store to the next to sell them my photography services. My goal was to get rejected fifty times so that I could finally let go of that girl who didn’t want me. In the end, I got rejected around fifty times, and if we count the rejections-without-rejections it’s seventy. On day two, I had seventeen rejections in a row. It may sound strange, but I had an amazing time overall. When I didn’t get rejected, I got to have beautiful conversations with many business owners.
Today, my social skills surpass those from a year ago, yet my courage has gotten rusty. It’s time to revive it.
My second goal is to speak to fifty blondes in two months.
I want to share how I got to this mental breakthrough. Until the fifty rejections project, I was too obsessed with a girl who did not want me. After the fifty rejections project, a few more months passed, and I wanted to get into dating. I now had the courage and social skills. But roughly three weeks later, university started, and my life declined to the point I couldn’t date. Now both obstacles are gone. I’ve moved on (big surprise, I know) and I’m happy with my life. Being happy is important as it flips the dynamic: instead of forcefully impressing the girl, the girl needs to prove that your life is better with her. If not, you can move on knowing that your life is amazing. There’s another idea that was actually a wall: dating to marry. That proved to be a wall because it makes almost every girl undatable (although you can never know) and an attempt mentally too expensive (although it’s supposed to be fun). As you can see, that’s the exact opposite of what its supposed to be. To contradict what I just said, I think I’m at the point where I think that my life depends on it. I don’t want to be depressed this winter again. Imagine living alone, getting sick every time you went to the gym, all while the streets are empty, cold, and grey. Now, on top of that, you’re forced to do the electrical engineering homework. If I do not act, there’s a chance my position will not change for years or even decades. What if I’m in this position at twenty-five? It is a matter of existential importance.
I have more goals beyond those two. I will not disclose my gym goals, because the last time I did that, it wiped a year’s worth of progress. Regarding my project of speedrunning university, I don’t know whether I will continue to do one and a half semesters at once.
I will decide when it is time to decide.
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I have great doubts about whether I should publish this text or just keep it to myself since failing to live up to your goals makes you lose status, while announcing your goals often creates excessive pressure. I think that this is the exact reason I should publish it: it is real. In order not to get overwhelmed, I must remind myself that I just need to do more of what I’m already doing.
One thing I’ve learned over the years is this: to grow, you must actively seek discomfort. If you wait for discomfort, it will come, and you will not grow; it will just be painful. Such is the unforgiving nature of pain: it is completely useless when undirected. There is no glory in being directionless.
I have a very complex relationship with goals. It is a fact that ninety-five percent of goals are cringe and should not be set. For example, saying ‘when I …, then I will …’ is an inferior goal, but so is ‘I’m going to be a millionaire.’ They’re too vague and too uncertain. Yet, the goals I just described are neither uncertain nor vague – and neither do they chain me in tasks and duties. I am in control of the input, and the input is the goal. I’ve already proven they can be done. Setting goals establishes the conditions for failure. I can afford that because I have no choice.
I’m going to ask you: how much of life is spent living, how much waiting? But once you’ve done what needed to be done, your only regret becomes not doing it earlier. How long until you stop repeating others’ mistakes? - That, I believe, is the way to attain enlightenment.
I am very excited to start living.
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Conditions
Videos. At least twenty good videos or one hour of content creation per day (not fifty because I want to avoid content-for-content’s-sake), though fifty would be superior. But it’s more about the habit of recording, the improvement of my speech, and the adventure that comes from living a life worth talking about.
Blondes. I must find a girl genuinely attractive before talking to her, and I must not know her. She does not have to be blonde, because otherwise, that goal would take more than a year to complete. The goal will be marked as complete when a cold approach no longer does anything, or I find a girl that wouldn’t require mental gymnastics, in other words, that I could love without lying to myself.