Who wants to have a job that does not care about them and won’t pay them enough to live? Well… go to Texas if that’s you. I’m sure they’re hiring at Walmart or Whataburger. Everyone else though, it might be time to consider leaving, and by leaving I mean leaving. As in the country, as in where you grew up, as in the 100 mile radious you consider your home turf.

My solution

Look, my ‘solution’ is for you to do whatever is necessary for you to achieve happiness and fulfillment as a human being. If what you are doing right now isn’t working – QUIT – straight up quit and find something that does work for you.

You only got to be and American in the first place because your forefathers left their homes to find something better.

Does your accidental of birth location somehow exempt you from dealing with reality? Is that sense of entitlement so deep that you only want success if it’s given to you in exactly the way you expected?

Generations of men and women before you left their homes to find work. The alternative was to doom themselves and their future childeren to less than a full life. If you can’t find work in America, or work that pays enough to live (the pay in the states is shitty trust me), and don’t want to relocate, then find a way to make a living without a job.

Start a business, get together with friends to make Iphone apps or buy websites, or create some valuable intellectual property (I have income generating websites.)

None of these things were in my original plan and I’m certinly not rich. But I live my life, I figure out what I like and what I don’t like. I put together the peices of the best life I could live by pursuing things that interested me while at the same time making sure to provid enough along the way for my well being and future.

As I live, as I experience, this becomes easier as my dreams and reality come into alignment with one another.

In short, adapt and break your patterns. Leave America – find freedom elsewhere.

of feeling disconnected and cut off from other people. This type of loneliness is a loneliness from the best parts of you that no longer have any basic fundamental contact with life experience. You are lonely because you are alienated from life,

Dead end streets

Think of how you drive a car. You recognize potential dangers, potential time sucks, and potential mechanical problems as you drive so corrective action can be taken before you screw things up for yourself. Expand this to the body and how it responds to pain.

• That cut needs to hurt- otherwise you will ignore it.
• That loneliness needs to hurt – otherwise you will ignore it.
• A pattern has emerged…have you been paying attention?

“Lonely” is designed to help you achieve fulfilment and success as a human being faster and more efficiently by forcing you to address that disconnect from your best self. If life was without friction, pain and difficulty, none of us would be pushed to to grow. We would ignore that cut.

Cut off from yourself

The fix is not simply other people. You can be in a city or college or place with thousands of other people around you and still feel lonely. I was having a beer (LEO to be exact – it’s a common brew here in Thailand) with my friend Mike the other day and we were talking about how odd it is to have the sensation of loneliness in a city of millions. Mike talked about how he felt lonely and was sick of being in Bangkok with few friends during his first few months of traveling in Asia.

It was not the lack of friends you see that was the problem, he was cut off from himself.

The lonely person is alienated from himself. They do not know what brings them joy and happiness. They are lost. This makes personal contact with others unsatisfying – starting a cycle of social reclusiveness that can be difficult to break.

Going to work, coming home, going to work, coming home. Not doing anything and feeling bad about your boring lonely life. You think that you should go out by yourself, that you should socialize or try to meet other people online or whatever the hell you’re supposed to do – but it leaves you wanting and missing the better days in the past. So you don’t.

The tragedy here is that is that personal contact may feel unsatisfying, but it is the best way to finding yourself -

by that I mean to losing yourself in social activities where a person begins to take a genuine interest in other people while at the same time casting aside the shame and false pretenses that we all walk around with and show to strangers.

Socializing and finding our “thing” helps us thaw out – we become our real selves around other people. We feel that connection and commonality with someone else. We stop being lonely. We finally feel we belong somewhere.

Are you afraid of other people?

What a stupid question that might seem – how can you be afraid of other people…

Loneliness is also a form of self protection, a protection of who we think ourselves to be. Being lonely happens when communication and emotional ties are cut down to a minimum. This protects your idealized self, that “best” vision of you that you have in your head from:

1. Rejection
2. Hurt (hint – you’re going to get hurt anyways)
3. and disappointment.

Ironic the cost of self protection from pain is pain.  This happens because the lonely person is afraid of other people.

When I say “afraid” I don’t mean that the person is a damn coward suffering from a phobia. That he is literally scared shittless around other people. No, it’s the person who complains about not having enough friends and orchestrates everything in his life consciously or inadvertently to make it so other people have to make the first move and invite him somewhere.

His passivity does not contribute value or enjoyment to the lives of others – why would anyone include him?

It never occurs to this lonely person that he has a fear of other people, a fear that prevents him from going into social situations with confidence and gusto (you probably need bigger balls btw) by contributing something to a social situation. Instead his passivity makes him ignored, over looked, and alone. WTF he thinks, why do I have to do all the work.

Persist and conquer

Forcing yourself into social situations will be awkward and uncomfortable particularly if you’re naturally a quite or shy person. But much like those first few minutes after jumping into a pool you will eventually warm up and begin enjoying yourself. Once you find your thing, your group, and have some decent social skills that is. Nothing happens without your decisions.

You need to steer the ship as I like to say and choose the direction to which you head. Passivity, shyness, and indirectness are useless. They result in you hoping and waiting for life to carry you somewhere interesting when really all that happens is life passes you by. People grow and leave you lonely and cut off.

Social skills 101

I won’t insult your intelligence by acting as some sort of lame high school guidance counselor – social skills 101 for lonely people feeling the edge of loneliness: actively contribute to the lives of others in a positive and social way.

Add to the happiness of others by developing social skills like dancing, singing, playing an instrument, conversing, whatever. You know you better than I do – learn to contribute and add value. It’s the only way. No one wants to be around someone who takes and takes or is completely useless.

Do this activly and consistently over time and you will discover people to be welcoming, friendly, and accepting of who you really are. Shyness and timidness will be thrown out for the useless traits they are. You will form deeper connections with other people. You will reconnect with yourself better and loneliness will subside. The acceptance from others will enable you to accept yourself.

Loneliness is simply resistance to other people.

Do you even recognize yourself? Your life has patterns. It repeats and repeats. You feel the friction and the pain when you break a pattern. When you break away towards something unknown.

Often this isn’t so bad. It’s scary for sure, but that friction is a sign of personal growth. It’s a sign you’re actually on the right track. Otherwise you’re just coasting.

But first you need to know what the patterns are in your life

Playing it safe feels right and it’s so very easy. We often miss and mistake opportunities based on how easy they are. It’s easy to start anything, but much more difficutlt to build something of value.

• Starting a blog = easy
• Writing everyday = hard
• Getting a date = easy
• Getting a date with the person you like = hard
• Running a mile = easy
• Running a marathon = hard

All this “hard” stuff is totally within your human abilities -

but you have to want it bad enough (otherwise you would have started by now). But just because you can do something, does not mean you will.

If you have nothing better to do with your time than to spend it on Facebook, checking email, going to work, and doing the same thing on the weekends your life needs some major adjustment.

You need to shake things up yourself or life will do it for you (and it will).

Start exercising, start traveling, take a job in another country, build a website, write a book, make a movie, set an epic quest for your life (reminder = you’re already on one) just do something different!

If you don’t see the patterns in your life and how each day was like all the rest, then your whole entire life will be like this. Same.

Comfortable, predictable, boring

Fulfillment, I love that word. Becoming a “fulfilled human being” is the goal we all want, we just mistakenly forget what it really is.

No it’s not doing what everyone else is doing like having a job, or taking the same vacations to the same places as everyone else.

It’s also not simply doing the opposite of everyone either.

It’s doing what you want to do -

a successful man or woman is someone who knows what they’re doing, why they’re doing it, and where they’re going. This is easy to write and so stupidly obvious – but we screw this up.

We major in something in college as a way to make money. We date whoever stumbles into our life. We go with the flow, hopping the currents of change will blow us into a place of wealth, happiness, and abundance…but that is never ever the reality for anyone.

Protip: You need to steer the goddamn ship yourself.

So where are you? How did you get there? Are you growing or are you coasting? With growth comes adventure, flexibility, and uneasiness. With coasting comes rigidity, predictability, boredom, death, and the feeling: “I can live better than this”. This expands to all aspects of life.

You’re body knows this too, it’s telling you, are you listening?

The easy is doable, but is is worth doing? I’m not so sure. Starting is easy, but to really do anything takes persistence, luck, knowing what the hell your doing, and a few thousand hours.

So start something -

It’s easy to do, but make it a choice of your own free will. Free and unteathered from the influences that drive decisions out of fear, desperation, or greed. Make this a way of life – keep your exposure to the unknown the norm, and your return to what is familiar comfortable but brief.

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Guides on how to do stuff better

Does the economy suck?

If you have the expectations your parents had it most certainly does.

I read the Huffington Post regularly, it’s one of the few places I can connect to while traveling abroad to keep in touch with what is going on back home in the US. It pains me to have to watch videos like this…

Graduating from college, being tens of thousands of dollars in debt, and working at Walmart…nice effective use of resources. What kind of future are we going to have with an entire generation of people who can’t make enough money to take care of themselves? An entire generation who bought into ideas of the TV?

My heart goes out to those in their 40′s and 50′s and 60′s who have been rocked by the new emerging geo-independent economy, but not so much for 20 year olds. You should know better.

Reminder: Your parents are delusional about the new economy

I’m just going to say it, your parents are stupid, and so are mine. When I decided to quit my job and make my income online from my Internet marketing projects (this site being one of them), while taking up and enduring stupid jobs to support myself while living in the state of Connecticut at the time, my mom thought I was an utter fool. She would say things like:

• Well so and so got a job here
• Well I had raised two kids as a single mom before I married your father
• People work, those who want to work can work

Sure, if you want to work at Mcdonalds they’re always hiring…but my guess is that’s not what you had in mind. Besides, my mother worked in a world during the 1970′s where the lowly bank teller had a pension. That’s right, a bank teller in the USA USED TO have a pension. Now-a-days you would be lucky to make $10 an hour with free coffee let alone a pension.

Things have changed, let go of the past and embrace the future

There is a decision everyone has to make at a certain point in their lives. After toiling away towards this past idea of job security with an employeer and retirement in the form of a large pile of cash from obediently doing as told, they wake up to this modern myth realizing they have no pile of cash and an employeer that wants to replace them with a robot.

The decision we make is simple

Boldly go where your heart tells you to, strike out on your own and do great work that matters for your right people; ignoring those idiots who say it’s too hard, you will fail, you can’t make…(reminder: they have already made their choice)

OR

give up, seek security where none is to be found, settle for a mediocre job that dosent care about you and won’t pay you enough to live.

How to get rich

Most of us walk around with the ability in us to make an impact, to do amazing work that moves other people (that’s what art is), to risk failure but potentially make a difference. Being told “you have a lot of potential” is a nice compliment but don’t mistake it for action. You may be talented, you may be smart, you may be creative…so what. It dosent fucking matter. Only what you do matters.

I know, trust me I KNOW the world is not fair

…you are in fact luckier to be born in a western democracy than anywhere else. Most people don’t get the opportunities they deserve, and even more squander the opportunities they already have but are too blinded to see. Yes, there are and always will be barriers based on bullshit like age, race, education, and social standing, and yes these must fall…but it still changes nothing. You have a lot of potential. You can be amazing at something. The opportunity to risk failure now has never been more minimal.

Too late

In the words of Martin Luther King Junior:

“We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late.

Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood — it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, “Too late.”

Your parents are delusional, don’t listen to them. Instead, do something crazy, wear something wild, tell someone the truth. Risk being poor and risk failing. Get used to it, it’s the hits you got to take on your way to the top. Sucess is up to you so stop waiting around for the cavalry to come save you.

-David

Share this on FB at Twitter. It’s good karma.

I was speaking with my brother on Facebook a few days ago, apparently one of his childhood friends drank himself to oblivion.

Dead at 36. He leaves behind a little girl who had a drunk for a father and a crack head for a mother. Think YOU got problems? Fuck you, no you don’t. Do you have a job? A place to stay? Food? Then you’re light years ahead of the rest of the world.

His name was Mike Scott – and he couldn’t say no. Not to drugs. Not to alcohol.

We all suck at saying no.

We’re too weak, too soft, too lazy to say no. Saying no should be a way of life, it should be taught at universities, it should be reclaimed for what it is. The most fundamental control we possess. NO, I will not go, NO, I will not spend time with you, NO, I need to to do nothing because this weekend I’m competing.

Drowning

I try to say yes to almost everything, but I’m in a new country, temptation surrounds me constantly. Everything is so new, how can I sit and do the work that needs to be done when I have friends who want to ride motorbikes and visit exotic bars and clubs and travel to beautiful beaches. I need to say NO.

Saying no

I’m terrible at saying no. I say yes too much, overwhelm myself with commitments and work, then everything suffers. Instead of saying NO as a way to make sure I am my best for the things that matter most, I end up making myself too busy to enjoy the things I need to enjoy.

Tipping point

Say no, so you can say yes to the things that are most important to you. Here is what has been working for me. Follow this rule: If you need to think about it too much, say no. Simple:

• Q: Hey you want to come with me to see a football game Thursday night with me and some friends?
• A: Oh I would love to BUT I have to work tomorrow
• Q: Are you sure?
• A: I don’t know what time would we be back by?

STOP.

Say NO you idiot. Seriously, I think you need to remind yourself of this:

• Say no, you need to be at your best at work.
• Say no, you need to be at your best in your relationships.
• Say no, you need to be the best friend you can be.
• Say no, you need to be your best at the things that matter most.

Women are terrible at this as well

How many times have you asked a woman out to lunch or dinner and it’s always some excuse they come up with? Women hate saying no. They will speak the NO in other ways than just saying it. I have to work, I have a plans, I’m not sure, and the worst one we all use: Maybe.

Maybe!?

I hate maybe as a response to anything – will you do go, will you not go, who knows! I take maybe as either a weak way of saying NO, or as “sure I’ll spend time with you if I can’t find anything better to do”. Both are insulting, and both are a waste of time.

What happened to openness and honesty

No, I don’t want to reply to your email because it’s too long. No I can not solve your relationship problems in 5 minutes. No I will not give time I don’t have for free. Saying NO can sometimes make you a douchebag. It’s blunt, it’s rude in ways, but it shuts distractions down like a boss.

Yea, we all give lip service to appreciating openness and honesty, saying no being part of this… but the flip side of honesty is truth, and speaking truth is difficult because it’s so shockingly uncommon.

• Actually you are fat
• Actually, you are wasting your time
• Actually, I don’t love you

Yes, it’s wonderful when that openness is received in positive ways: holy Jesus rollerblading Christ! You do like me! But that flip side of being hurt emotionally requires us to cower away like mice, scurrying around to avoid be “that guy”.

Be that guy

They make movies about this stuff. A politician who tells it like it is? It’s sad that a statement like that is not true and it’s more aligned with the plot of some B rate movie starring Rob Schneider…

but hey, sometimes you gotta disappoint people to keep you sane and positive.

So say no and hang up the phone. Say no and do what you need to do. Say no if you need to think too much about saying yes.

When to say yes for real

When saying no is just an excuse for you to hide…say yes. When you come up with all the reasons why you can’t go, all the reasons why it makes no sense, when it’s really that you should say yes but want reasons to say no…say yes.

Attempt

Not display, not perform, not act or show, but attempt things when you’re not sure if they will pan out well. It’s part of the learning process. Yoda was wrong when he said there is no try, yes there is. It’s the opposite of hiding.

Say no to be the best, say yes to become even better.

Be that guy

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