It wasn’t done by some cult, some supreme leader or matrix like artificial intelligence. It was done by me, voluntary, maybe without my knowledge or consent. But I didn’t put up a fight.

The internet, that beautiful web that I find myself tangled in which pierces my mind with its sweet dopamine venom. Click, knowledge. Click, laughter. Click, pleasure. Click, power. Click, gratification. Click, click, click. I have been programming my mind with these dopamine rewards on a daily basis for the last 16 years. 16 years. Everything I could ever want just a click away. Patterns have been formed, the daily search through YouTube, news, emails and social media, have made neural pathways through my mind that may be too deep to turn off.

Work, or more precisely office work. That nine to five shit where the goal is to please your seniors and not necessarily do good work. See an email, reply quick. Get a task, drop everything and get it done. Your boss makes a joke, laugh motherfucker laugh, yeah it’s not funny but now your boss may like you, or at least NOT hate you. Programmed not to do the right thing but to affirm your seniors belief in themselves and their goals. Rewarded “acting” the companies culture and values. Acting with “integrity” while selling goods to third parties you decide best not to vet. Ensuring the work place is safe during a global pandemic. The reward can be instant as well, i.e. the behavior learnt and implanted into your psyche. All it takes is a “well done” from a senior, a nice little tap on the ass. A 10% pay rise. How we bleed for an extra 10%.

So what? Is this really such a big deal? 3rd world problems you self entitled shit bag.

The issue is the programming for an instant high makes it hard for me to start something or even see it through. I would much rather surf the net, snack on food or answer stupid emails then work on something really hard. I am entering the 33rd year of my life and still haven’t achieved what I wanted from a business point of view. I need some sincere focus to make it happen and stop looking for dopamine highs.

So what is the solution?

The programming can be undone, but nothing is free, extreme action may be necessary and a price must be paid. The price is missing out on connections with friends and family. I will need to switch off the internet when there is work that needs to be done. But my mind will search for the high I am denying it. That dopamine hit which it has learned to love. Planned work during these blackouts will be necessary, writing sessions, task lists and calls to make. This will be necessary until I can move between both worlds reasonably well.

Time is ticking I know this. Spending time one the internet won’t yield that which I desire. Only I can through action and trying and succeeding or failing and trying again. But in doing. All success lies in doing. Only in doing.

So lets reprogram the mind to do things

I want to make a million dollars and help the boat people be free
Lead men to greatness but live in a mountain village overlooking the sea
To say my opinion but be liked by all
Speak the honest truth and be comfortable
Be a playboy and loyal to my wife
Walk the line and not cross it
Be where I was born and where I am from
Live with monks in isolation and drink myself to distraction
Stop the war in Syria but feel the glory of Achilles
To see my enemies bleed but forgive like a Christian
Own a three storey terrace debt free
Wear Versace humbly
Understand Shakespeare and laugh at Will Ferrell
Live clean whilst smoking cigarettes and drinking whisky
I want to be loved by God but I hate myself

A young freind queried on the matter of discovering ones purpose in life. Below is my response. Names changed to protect the identities of those involved.

Igor
I have thought about your question.
About doing what you want, about setting goals and figuring it out.
I answer this question as a 32 year old man whose yet to achieve the goal he’s most wanted (financial independence) and still doesn’t really know what to do with his life.

All I can say is do things for the right reason.
What is the right reason?
I don’t know.
But I can tell you some wrong reasons

1. Doing it to get a job – that’s what I did at Uni, and it worked I got a job, a well paying one too. But it’s wrong
2. Doing it to fit in – fark that shit, ain’t nothing to fitting in but lying and faking. Nothing to it.
3. Doing the easy thing – this is the most insidious. Easy things seem like the best thing. But it’s insidious, it destroys your will power.

All I can say is try to experience as much as possible. Have a goal to taste life. To work in an office, in retail, on a construction site and as a freelancer. Life leads to one thing after another.

Just remember to say Yes. Say yes to dinners. To invites. To people and to that voice inside your head. Especially that last one.

The last thing is give all the love you have. Give your love to your family. To friends and to the task at hand. Give your love. Give it all.
Because that’s all we have to give.

Only the best

Can give everything and leave the outcome in God’s hands

Only the best

Can give an answer and not care what people think

Only the best

Can be good to all the people all of the time

Only the best

Can believe in themselves when they need to most

Only the best

Can say no to the money

Only the best

Can be laughed at and take it in good zest

Only the best

Can live in the moment with no thought of tomorrow or yesterday

Only the best

Can show up when it truly matters

Only the best

Can walk the line without ever crossing it

Only the best

Can lead with dissenting views

Only the best

Can believe when the crowd tells them not to

Only the best

Can walk away from addiction

Only the best

Can see another’s success or failure and not feel something for themselves

Only the best

Can love when all they have is hate

Only the best

Can forgive and forget

Only the best

Can love themselves everyday

“Sometimes I don’t know if your talking to me or talking so other people can hear you”

These are the words of my wife. To me. I am talking to her just so other people can hear what I have to say?

So they catch the end of my joke? So they know how funny I am? Witty repartee? Good bants?

That’s right I lived in England.

Truth be told I do not know half the time. Am I talking to her? Am talking to myself? Who am I talking to?

Why am I talking? I use to be quiet, I could go a whole night without speaking. Just listening and watching. Living in my head. Not good either

Then I said a joke, like real quietly, just one person could hear, they laughed. I still remember it, ahh the high. It was like crack, and I have been chasing that high ever since.

An extremist after all.

So maybe that’s who I am talking to I am talking to that high, that high I got when someone laughed at my joke

That laugh was like a window to a new world, the world of funny cool Theo.

Cocky funny. If you know, you know.

But this begs the question. When I talk, talk to my friends, am I talking to impress them? Am I being there for them? Or am I just being a prick? Trying be cool?

I remember reading the best thing you can do for someone is pay 100% attention. But what am I doing is trying 110% trying be cool. Be cooler. Try harder. You try hard.

Tool

That insults hurts the most probably because it’s true

That’s the crux of it. Every time I am talking to be credited, to be recognised, to be validated I am being a tool

I mean what do I now?
I will tell you what I know
I know this.

Start somewhere, start where?
And where is somewhere?
Yeah your right, we got to start somewhere, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
But right, you have to start right.
Can’t be starting wrong, because that just takes you down the wrong way, path.
Need to do the right thing.
Not the easy thing.
Not the most money making thing. What is the right thing?

Durr, it’s the thing that you can do that will create the greatest good in the world.
So easy huh?
What greatest good?
What greatest good can I do?
I mean the great good could be many things. Is it to design artistic pottery? Or writing? Or running tour groups? Bring those sweet middle Greece sausages?

I can’t take the easy way again.

I took the easy way when I got an office job.
Except it isn’t easy.
I bust my balls.
I do things I don’t like.
I am two faced.
A tool. That word always makes me jump. Am I a tool?
Not myself, letting other people use me.
Dishonest.
Game playing.
That’s me.
It’s true.
I started wrong.

Where I start needs to be right and the greatest good.
Needs to be the best step, not just any step, the best greatest good step.

Procrastination needs to be a sign of something.
Maybe a sign of this is things I don’t want to do.
Maybe it’s warning like this isnt me, these thing I think of doing.
Procrastination.
Listen to it.

All I know is I have nothing else on and work is consuming me
I need a sign or something.
Got to start cause not starting is not getting me anywhere.

It’s as simple as that

I spend so much time here, in the space between my ears, the fantasy world that is in between head

In there I have lived out all my dreams, I have been a super successful person and reached all my goals

Not only personal goals but goals I have for other people, all achieved.

I look at houses and pick the few I like and then go on to imagine how it would look, what changes I would make to it, a bedroom here, a cellar there and an extension for my boys room.

It goes deeper then that. While I am watching sport, I will be living my own dream as an athelete picturing in great detail how I would play, respond to the press conference ad I even picture myself launching my own fashion line, KoolerKicks.

I spend very little time in the present, I live in my fears and dreams, in my worries and fantasies and in my nightmares and imagined glories. This is where I reside.

Nothing happens there. Ever.

I put my energy into nothing, into the abyss

How can I good to my wife in my thoughts? Do useful and rewarding things?

I am not here when I hear “I love you” from the one I love the most

I am not present when I see things special things

Always on the next thing, the next big idea.

But there is no next thing, only this thing, this bloody thing in front of me.

This is where I need to be

Now small steps, I will not go from a head case to zen in a matter of days but I can take small steps.

So the first thing is to notice the distractions, so more prayer and meditation. This helps me escape my head and be more aware/mindful

The next thing is when it happens is to limit it, focus on my breath and meditate, so I can pull myself back into the now, ie the present

The final thing is to limit the noise (internet, distraction, dopamine hunting), none before or after work, focus on one thing at a time, improving the quality of life

I want the result to look like these three things below

1. Better moments with my loved ones
2. Doing more things I enjoy and not things I do not enjoy
3. More money and freedom to enable the first two

But theses 3 thing will not happen in my head

Not in the futre or past, but today in doing each task well

By starting new tasks or mission, rather then a new TV series

This is how these things will happen

Something is wrong

Something is wrong when my mind looks for highs

Looks for highs that my day doesn’t give

Highs in the weirdest of places

I’m shopping for example

I have never been an avid shopper, never ever

But you see cause my life isn’t giving my mind, my brain, the high it needs, it gets hooked on buying cool home furniture, funky sneakers and organic cold pressed olive oil which does wonders for your skin

It’s looks for highs in TV shows to fill the shallowness of my daily existence

I first noticed it on Black Friday, I got an adrenaline rush from all the items I bought. The feeling was a buzz, I could no longer focus on work that day, my only concern was what other bargains I could snap up

You have to have the double insulsted latte glasses when the homies come round

I do it with so many things, it’s my mind’s search for the higb

The search to fill the hole in my life the 8-10 hours of work leaves me with

The high it’s yearning because it can do so much more but I make it work on PowerPoint formatting

The challenge it needs to solve something that doesn’t have a pre set format

The scanning of Instagram, the watching of YouTube videos and the binging of Netflix are all me chasing the same scream

This is what I do with my time

This and little else

Little time will be left to do things I really enjoy

Things that are self sustaining

Things that I am meant to be doing

I spend my days doing things I do not want do and not doing things I want to do

Did you get that?

I will say it again

I do things I do not want to do

I do not do thing I do want to do

Funny how I can get through emails, board packs and excel spreadsheets I know that are pointless and add no value to my life

But I cannot make time for writing, my weekend business or expanding my partnership

It may be a question of instant gratification, I get recognition for the effort I put in at work.

No such reward for the things I do want to do.

So one reason is I am a recognition addict clamouring for your approval

The other is simply it’s hard, it takes more effort to work extra for no pay, more effort not to surf the net and more effort to work out what to do next

I sometimes find myself looking for distraction so I do not start on things I should be doing. Ever cleaned a kitchen so you did not have to do something else?

The other reason is I am scared of failure. Well not so much failure but more what people will think of me when I fail. I mean I write this blog under a pseudonym. I always think what my family and friends think. I know it doesn’t matter what people think. But to live it is a different beast.

People now think I am smart, suited for success, management material. If I fail at something I will shatter their beautiful perceptions of me I have created with opportunistic fact dropping. Imagine the horror of someone thinking less than you because you tried and failed.

Anyway it doesn’t matter why I don’t do things, all that matters is I get started on them.

I need to find the motivation to cut out the noise and focus my energy on those things that matter.

Because I know that in 5 years I won’t be able to keep pace, to be patient, to push and to live the corp life

Enough talking

I had a thought, if I was doing my current job and was a key shareholder/owner of the business I think I would be quite happy.

Now this is strange.
Why you ask?

Because I do not like my job.

I do not like meaningless analysis.
I do not like the decisions the firm is taking in many ways.
I do not like the management of budgets over management of cash spend.

But I do like the purpose
I like trying to find opportunities
I like discussing and debating ideas
I enjoy getting stuck in

So I guess my issue isn’t the work per se, but what’s being done with my work or my time.
My work and time I feel are either being wasted on the the wrong things or the wrong outcome.

Now the wrong things are obvious, I.E. projects/ideas that do not have legs (Manoj bhargava – focus on slam dunks)
Now the outcomes are a little more tricky.

What outcomes do I want?
I want the consequences of my decision to flow back to me, right now the outcome, good or bad, go to someone else. I wanted those outcomes, definitely the good ones and the bad ones on logical level so I can learn

But I removed, so there is no real, primal, motivation.
I need to force it
And this why I do not feel the love I should be feeling.
This is what needs to change.

But yeah, in summary, it would be great but I just don’t have a piece of it.