91. Embrace the emotion

‘life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced’- Kierkegaard

You lose your job, get dumped, and have no money.

Life’s rotten.

So what?

You need to embrace that.

The raw feeling of such extreme hardship is such a rare tool for fuelling progression out of such situations.

Get angry, get mad, get tearful- but don’t get consumed.

Acknowledge the emotion, understand it, and become intimate with it. Then create the change you so dearly want. You have the fire right in front of you to get moving, so dial into it.

Remember these moments when you are uninspired otherwise you're going to have to hit rock bottom again before you make any progress.

"Never cut a tree down in the wintertime. Never make a negative decision in the low time. Never make your most important decisions when you are in your worst moods. Wait. Be patient. The storm will pass. The spring will come."

Robert H. Schuller

90. It is training

Utilise the moment.

There is a famous passage from Marcus Aurelius's Meditations, it goes as follows:

“In the gymnastic exercises suppose that a man has torn you with his nails, and by dashing against your head has inflicted a wound.

Well, we neither show any signs of vexation, nor are we offended, nor do we suspect him afterwards as a treacherous fellow.

And yet we are on our guard against him, not however as an enemy, nor yet with suspicion, but we quietly get out of his way.

Something like this let your behavior be in all the other parts of life. Let us overlook many things in those who are like antagonists in the gymnasium. For it is in our power, as I said, to get out of the way, and to have neither suspicion nor hatred”.

You may wonder what that actually all means.

It means don’t fret- this is all learning.

That car that cut you off, that colleague that bad-mouthed you, that argument you had.

All training.

You are understanding how people operate, how they tick, and how they take action.

On the flip side- everyone is doing the same with you.

Are your interactions representative of how you wish to be perceived?

89. Lifestyle inflation

I love pizza.

If I didn’t put regulations for myself I would be ordering the cheesy goodness every night.

And this did happen- as soon as I started earning money.

Lifestyle inflation is something that occurs when your salary increases and you, therefore, believe you ‘deserve’ to be spending more.

Me, and my obsessive nature, believed I deserved quite a lot of rewards in the form of stuffed crust dominos.

Don’t get me wrong, celebrating is required every so often, but the key here is moderation.

Additionally, you need to work out if you are happy where you are.

The celebration comes towards the end of a project, goal, or achievement- if you are taking it before you aren’t promoting further development in yourself.

Every order I made, I was telling myself, ‘Well done Noah- you’ve made it’.

The trouble was I hadn’t- my lifestyle had inflated before I was ready to stop.

Upon understanding this I knew I had to sort my priorities out.

Whether you like it or not, money can be a vehicle to progress in learning, lifestyle, and habits.

I knew I couldn’t cash in all my chips already when I was not at the destination I wanted to be at- so I created a budget.

Automatic money to go out into investments, a set amount for books and learnings, then a certain amount for healthy hobbies- this replaced what I thought I deserved in rewards so I actually was spending less but feeling better.

Now doing this for a couple of months my money now works for me, I feel I grow in knowledge each day, and I’m the healthiest I’ve ever been.

What seems like restriction is actually freedom.

When you stop yourself ‘enjoying’ the money you’ve earned and you enable yourself to increase the ceiling by which you can be content- wealth is not the dictator to enjoyment but rather a tool to be used.

Look at your spending; has it been inflated, if so why, if not can you change your spending habits to work and develop yourself? Happy spending (but maybe not dominos every night;).