A 22 year old guy asked me this painful question. This guy lives with his mom. He has no job, no friends, no girlfriend, no hobbies and thinks that nothing is going right for him. His daily routine looks like this: getting up in the morning and repeating the same stupid behavior: doing nothing but staying at home, watching YouTube, TikTok videos, or scrolling through Reddit newsfeed, playing games on the phone, sleeping, and eating junk food literally every damn day. He has a fast food addiction and he can’t cook properly. He thinks that he just has every error that a human being can possibly have.
He thinks he is ugly, talentless, and stupid. Although he is studying finance in college, he skips his classes and feels like he doesn’t have the drive and motivation to push forward and finish his degree. There are many skills he wants to learn such as web development, photography and game development but he never feels driven to make a start.
Now some people might suggest to him to drop out of college and pursue other options but he thinks that if he does so, his family would throw him out of the house. If he gets kicked out of the house, he has absolutely nowhere and nobody to go to for help. He has no friends or relatives who’d support him. So he continues to live with his mom and feels embarrassed to be living with her at the age of 22.
Now he has had enough and he wants to turn his life around for the better because he can’t deal with this negative energy around him anymore. He doesn’t want to be a sensitive loser anymore.
He goes on to say that he is poor, and can’t afford new clothes and shoes because he is unable to find a job. He thinks that no woman or person would want to hang out with him because he is socially awkward and boring to talk to.
So basically, his life sucks.
And so, he asks, “What are some ways that he can change his life around?”
Here is my reply to him and it is a solution that will help almost everyone suffering from failure, rejection, procrastination or depression. So listen carefully.
Here’s what I told him:
Your emotions are messing you up. How you describe yourself in this post are just your negative thoughts that are creating negative emotions in you, which further create negative thoughts and so on you are moving down the spiral into depression. Negative emotions then lead to stupid actions that might please you for a while but will mess you up later.
When you’re in pain, you must understand pain.
It’ll be painful if you attend classes and really listen and focus on them. It’ll be painful if you go out and talk to girls. It’ll be painful if you work on your health and get fit. It’ll be super painful to apply to 200 jobs and get rejected 90% times to find the one job that pays little but gives you some self respect and that leads to a better job and more experience.
Understand that whether you choose to take these actions or not, you’re going through pain anyhow. You are already under the pain of having to stay with your parents, low self esteem, zero focus, procrastinating all day and achieving nothing.
So it comes down to choosing your pain. You’re already in pain. Why not choose the pain that changes you for the better? Or do you want to keep suffering the way you’re suffering now?
Both choices will put you under deep emotional turmoil. Both choices will put you through resistance, but the choice of discipline, focus and effort will get you better results which will create better emotions which will create better thoughts and you will get on the upward spiral to an improved mental and physical health, focus and achievement.
The pain of discipline is always less than the pain of regret.
Our lives are not static. We’re constantly evolving. Just because you think you amount to nothing today doesn’t mean that you won’t amount to anything tomorrow. Similarly, just because you’re doing well today also doesn’t mean you’ll keep on doing well for the rest of your life. You’ll have to consistently put in effort to maintain your present state of well-being and make continuous progress.
So the basic core values like discipline, focus and effort are never out of the equation, no matter how better or bigger you get. Instead, when you really get successful, you really need these values to stay at the top or you will be thrown down by your negative thoughts and emotions in no time.
So it’s very crucial to remember these basic principles and keep moving forward with discipline, focus and relentless effort. This is the way you change your life around and stop being a failure.