Hello all,
I took a complete two and a half week break from writing, which is why you haven’t received an email from me for quite some time! In all honesty, I was planning on taking a break for the whole month of August, but I’m hungry for more writing!
The truth is that I was burnt out, not just due to work reasons. Your mental headspace and how you are doing emotionally should be your priority, and if you don’t have this in check, every single other area of your life will suffer and you will be made aware of this.
I won’t go into specific reasons, but I wasn’t happy for a while, let’s just say a lot of things didn’t go in my favor for the past few months and I started to fall into a “victim mindset”, feeling sorry for myself and wishing things were different. This is a spiral that can seriously take you down a deep and dark path, and it isn’t uncommon to get trapped down there.
Luckily I had a realization. This realization was that I have to take charge. If I want to succeed in my writing career and achieve all the goals I have set for myself, I have to drag myself out of this pit and put myself on the right bloody trajectory that will take me where I want to be! And all of that starts now.
I’m telling you this all because I hope that I can just help at least one person who reads this realize that you are allowed to not feel 100% all of the time, being human is to experience highs and lows, and just because you are at a low doesn’t mean you will stay there. If anything it means that things WILL get better, and it’s all in your hands to do so.
I want to share with you now three potent realizations I had on my time off whilst I was doing a lot of thinking, and not focusing on working. These can also classify as three changes that I am applying to my outlook on life from this point forward.
P.S Stay tuned until the end for an update on what I’m doing with my life now.
#1 Do Whatever The FUCK You Want To Do
One of the main reasons I burnt out to the point where I started to hate writing was because I was restricting myself to self-imposed limitations.
You may be wondering what these limitations were? I’ll give you a few example.
At one point, my writing became solely a means to earn money. I started to see writing articles as a money game.
“What shall I write that can bring me the most views?”
“I really enjoyed writing this fitness article but it performed like shit, I’ll just stick to writing about what my viewers want to read.”
“I need to hit my weekly quota of 3 articles, If I don’t I’m a failure.”
Guess what? I don’t have to do any of that! In fact, I don’t have to do anything, at all. Right here I fell victim to the hustle culture mindset. Which is all about trying to earn as much money as you can, disregarding passion, and just forcing yourself to think you are better than everyone when in reality, you are miserable.
From now on, I’m simply going to do whatever I want to. If I feel like writing an article about a lost tribe in the Amazon rainforest I will bloody go and do it! It’s no longer just about money.
When I started writing online, I started out of passion. This is what I love to do, I want to go on to write books and achieve all these things. And this won’t happen if I’m not enjoying myself whilst I do it.
What I’m trying to say, is that I’m taking a more laid-back approach from now on. Life is too short to make yourself stressed. Obviously, I will maintain structure and discipline because naturally, I am a very disciplined and structured person, but I’m no longer tying myself to these imaginary shackles.
This links back directly to one of my favorite ever ideas in philosophy. And this idea originates from Jean-Paul Sartre and Existentialism. The belief that I should now be paying more attention to is this: We are free. Everything in the world is meaningless and uncertain, but the one thing that we know for certain is that we have freedom. We can do whatever the hell we want to and that is what life is about.
“Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.
It is up to you to give [life] a meaning.” — Jean Paul Sarte
We all have a habit to create self-imposed limitations that we feel are impossible to break. Someone may think that can’t do something under any circumstance because of. the reaction of their spouse.
The truth is they are very much free to do the said thing, we have freedom.
I’m now using my freedom to stop making myself stressed and doing whatever the fuck I want to. I won’t live a conventional lifestyle.
#2 Passion Over Everything
If man has no passion towards his main endeavor in life, man will crumble at the first step of his journey, he will embody what it means to be a failure.
Passion is the main driver in life. Without it, you won’t achieve satisfaction in life. You can make millions doing something you hate or doing something scummy, but if you don’t have that fire within you, nothing will ever be worth it.
I’m a firm believer in universal energy. I believe everything is interconnected somehow, our fates are aligned with what we are meant to achieve in life. I’m not religious so don’t get it twisted, I am a militant Athiest with spiritual tendencies.
But where does this link in with passion? I believe and know for a fact that if you pursue your passion, disregarding any external motivators like money, status or fame, you will be rewarded in whatever way you feel is sufficient.
So if you pursue your passion for writing, it will pay off. You will get the recognition you innately deserve and the money you require. You get paid for the value you put out in the world. Money is a reward of passion being pursued wholeheartedly.
Similarly, happiness comes from passion. If you don’t have it, you will feel aimless and lost in life as many people do.
So the main message here is passion should overarch over all other things! Screw the money, money is a by-product of fulfilling your universal calling to pursue your passion.
#3 You Can Choose Happiness
I was recently speaking to one of my good friends, asking him for help on how I can get out of this miserable depressive slump I was in. This is one of the few genuine friends I have in life. He has also been through a lot and experienced all the things I have but x100.
He gave me some advice, and I can boil it down to this: You can choose to be happy. Making money and being rich is useless if you aren’t happy within yourself. Nothing is as important as happiness he would tell me.
And he was right. Happiness truly is the light that precedes over EVERYTHING. This wise friend of mine always tells me “everything is a choice”. He repeats this very frequently. And the more I think about this simple phrase, the more it echoes in my mind and the more I realize its accuracy.
You can choose to be happy, all it is a choice. Sure, this is very much easier said than done. When we are stuck in a depression, our mind plays tricks on us, it victimizes itself and tries its hardest to keep us trapped in this dark place.
But it truly is just a choice, even if it is hard to make the choice, it’s a fucking choice.
This conversation with my friend at my low point filled me with light. Of course, it wasn’t just like a switch I decided to flick, and the next day I was at peak happiness. It was just a realization that helped me make the change to my life I needed to make.
Right now I’m what I call embarking on a “happiness project”. Since realizing that happiness is the light to all of life, I’m making it my principal aim to get into a good mental space where I am happy and grateful for everything I have.
What’s the point to keep yourself trapped in a low life state being unhappy at everything and spiteful for past events that have happened in your life. You got heartbroken by the only person you knew you always had you by your side? Oh well, you cant spend your life sulking over this. Shit happens. Life isn’t easy. It’s a rough ride. People go through much worse.
Now get the fuck on and create the life you want to have! Visualize it. Place the building blocks in your mind. People leave your life for a reason, don’t let them back in. It’s happiness or nothing my guy. Let’s get it.
Final Words And An Update On My Life
Wow, guys, that’s it from me for this week. I’m back and I’m excited about it. I hope some of you cared enough to read this far, if you are reading this, just know that I appreciate you and quite frankly still find it hard to wrap my mind around the fact my words mean anything to you. Even if it’s just one person, Thank you!!!
As you can see, this post is more a letter to myself, it’s a pick me up. a pep talk if you will. It’s the things I need to hear and the thing I need to do and change to get to my best self. The past is behind me, what’s happened has happened, My future is bright and my present is even brighter.
So yeah, some of this is a personal note to me, so ignore those parts.
And now for an update on what I’m doing with my life. I’ve just finished school now, and instead of heading to university, I’m taking a gap year. I’ve found a few part-time jobs and I will be working until early 2022, where I will embark on the journey of a lifetime.
I will be traveling for a large chunk of the year, heading back to Italy for a month or so, a bit more around Europe, and the big event: 3+ months spent voyaging around South America with my friends.
In this gap year, I want to start writing a book. And I will do so. It will be a novel, and I suspect a lot of the ideas for this novel will come to me whilst experiencing life during my travels and my gap year, just stay tuned guys.
Thanks for reading and I’ll send you another email next week! Share this with one person if any of this resonated with you. Love you guys.
The best revenge is growth,
Julian.
Hi Julian, Thank you for your article, I read it all.
Firstly, I’m sorry you have had a tough time lately. Be gentle and compassionate with yourself, ok? Life is very tough at times. You are bouncing back, I can tell. Bloodied but unbowed. Good for you! The bad times pass too, as you know. We all get knocked down by life. It’s how we react to the knocks, that’s the thing. We get up again and carry on, just like you are doing. Be gentle with yourself, you’ll be fine. Enjoy your travels, be in the moment. Look after yourself.