Stripped down
(Almost) nothing matters
I have lost many years of life to people, places and things…..and to myself. My life transformed when I stopped this cycle, looked in the mirror, and said no more.
“Hardly any of this matters.”
I spend a lot of time on my runs thinking and usually come up with some big dramatic epiphany that when I get home and sit down and repeat, I realize isn’t that deep.
This is one of them. This is not that deep. This is stupidly simple. And yet it is important.
When you strip it away and break down everything around us, truly examine it all, you realize that hardly any of it is a critical component to who you are. If you cut the fat, remove the noise and throw away the shiny objects, there is ONE thing that actually determines your quality of life.
Your health.
Not just the physical. You need that, but this is more.
The health of your relationships matter.
The health of the environment you exist in matters.
The health of your family ties matter.
The health of your mind matters.
The health of your relationship with food, work, stress and all external factors around you, matters.
I’ve never met a single person who is thriving in all of those areas who is still out there flashing the watch they wear on Instagram while driving around in a $200,000 car. I’ve also never met a miserable person who invests significantly and deeply into curating the environment they exist in.
Far too often we get consumed with the things we show. 30 second clips posted to social media aren’t real life. It does…not…matter. What matters is you.
If you hate your job, quit it tomorrow. You can make more money, you can’t get back time you waste in a space that doesn’t bring you joy.
Does your relationship suck? Leave it. Or put your head down and work hard to fix it. But don’t just exist. Don’t waste their time and yours. You can’t get this time back.
How’s your family ties? Strained? Fix it. Talk to them, go to therapy, face the music, make it right.
How’s your body? Do you test it regularly? Complacency will kill you. Do something hard today, then repeat and advance it every day until you die (that day will be farther away if you put the work in now).
I just want to see you win. I want to see you find a deep value in what it means to be human. Stop giving a shit about what an influencer says you should be or do, stop comparing yourself to literally every other human being on earth, the are not you and you are not them. Stop attaching your identity to whatever echo chamber you’re stuck in, you’re probably wrong and everyone else is too.
Build a life, don’t wait for it to be built for you. You need to do this. The worst thing you can do is live your life like someone else.
This isn’t that deep. But maybe it is.
Onwards, Always.