I’m 16 and in the 12th grade; I know many young people. I’m the only one in my grade who genuinely wants to do anything with his life. It concerns me that I'm a top one percent individual because no one else is trying. The highest ambition I can find is when girls want to become doctors. Why are girls more ambitious than boys to begin with; perhaps because they are effeminate and have low testosterone. But now you may wonder, isn’t studying medicine ambitious? I have to disappoint you. None of the future doctors want to work twelve-hour shifts. No, they want to work part-time and enjoy their life. - Ambition means you give your best, and that’s rare these days.
The problems of no ambition.
Life is an energy exchange. What do you think happens when unambitious people surround you? You get dragged down. You start to believe that your ambitious thoughts were the remainder of your naïve childhood. “That’s just not how life works.” You gain the energy of a unambitious mind and absorb unproductive thinking patterns. As a result, your life merges with theirs, and suddenly, it's acceptable to be addicted to social media. Such a life sucks if you know the alternative. It’s not okay to be weak.
Surround yourself with people with whom the brave choice is the only one possible.
Free of desire? Do you like the days you wake up and don’t feel like doing anything or do you like the passionate days? Being free of ambition must surely enable one to live in the flow. Not quite. Ambitionless goals leave your life insanely mundane. What exactly will you be doing if you don’t have a goal? Just float around like a feather?
You need the desire to get out of bed.
Free time is an illusion. Free time is just as harmful as being free of desire. The mind likes to be one-pointed. A wandering mind is an unhappy one. Why do people hate traffic and love driving at night? Driving at night is almost a spiritual experience because you are in a flow. In traffic, on the other hand, you don’t really know what to focus on, and your mind starts to drift. Free time is not real, it actually means social, physical, or natural time. For most, it means passive addiction time, which is undesirable. Addictions bring the mind to the present moment; they make it one-pointed, which again proves that free time is not real. I discovered unparalleled life quality improvement after replacing passive addiction time, or “free time,” if you will, with work.
Focus is the greatest pleasure.
Other priorities? The most popular argument for work-life balance is that you get to enjoy yourself, and life isn’t about work. The problem with multiple priorities is that they aren’t priorities but a feather in the wind. Priority means prior to, which implies sacrifice and purpose. Most are so concerned with finding meaning in nothing. How about they find meaning in something? Life isn’t about discovering something where nothing is to be seen. It's about doing, building, and creating – working.
Find meaning in something. Don’t waste your time trying to find meaning in nothing.
What about duty? It puzzles me how I can be considered ‘special’ just because I want to do something with my life. Take a moment to think about that. How can young people, full of energy and health, and make it all go to waste?
A life without ambition is boring, purposeless by definition, and unfulfilling.
Work-life balance? Pathetic.
I believe that in life, some things are always the right choices: eating healthy, putting in effort, staying fit, showing up, and doing the brave thing.
I used to work up to 14-hours a days for nine hundred days with no break, and that’s how I bootstrapped my entire existence. I brute-forced almost everything. I learned how to program, speak, and write, along with social skills, gym, and discipline. For example, I went from stuttering to speaking in the upper echelon of expression. Now, I am years ahead of everyone—I put in the work. Now, I know how to work hard and what I can do. Burning out for ten days after nine hundred days of work was worth surpassing everyone. I love myself because I delayed gratification and made many wise decisions.
How do you not go insane when working for nine hundred days straight? With a mental frame, of course. Instead of separating work and life, I kept my computer on over the night so that I could continue working the second I opened my eyes. If you only work and sleep, it becomes routine. Furthermore, I found deep joy in what I did.
You will not regret doing the brave thing and working like a beast. While you are young, you are indefatigable. Use that energy. Find out what you are capable of, and you’ll look back proudly.
You can start worrying about balance when you reach thirty or forty or if you’re a pretty woman in a rich country.
Many don’t like that reality, but I don’t like the reality of those who disagree. I would not switch lives with anyone who believes in work-life balance.
Get up and go above and beyond.
I believe we need to honor those who go above and beyond.