5 Things I’m Giving Up On To Be Rich
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Success does not come from how much we desire it but from what we’re willing to let go of.
Everything worthwhile in life will come at a price.
The life we want would most certainly cost us the life we have. We must be willing to make sacrifices to get ahead in life. There is no other way.
Life is not a continuum though it feels as such. I’m not the same person I once was, neither are you.
I was broke yesterday, but I chose differently today. I’ve finally decided rich is better, and I’m willing to pay the price.
So, here are a few baggages I’m letting go of to make the journey a little easier for me.
Guilt and Regrets
I have guilt and regrets from all the things I could have done and all the opportunities I let slip.
Many people like me are stuck on what could have been and the good old days. But crying over spilt milk changes nothing.
Our obsession with what could have been robs us of what can be. A decade from now, we would not want to cry over the opportunites we missed because we were too busy mourning the past.
I forgive myself for my failures, self-sabotage, and the laxity that has brought me immense pain and shame over the past years. I free myself and look to the rest of my life with renewed optimism and gratitude.
Hope
‘Never lose hope’ is a well-meaning advice, but ‘hope’ is something I’m letting go of too.
I’ve been hopeful all my life. And that has led me here.
I was hopeful that my country would get better, the government would deliver on its promises, the economy would get better, I would execute the ideas in my head and journals, and that my finances would improve bountifully, etc., but that didn’t happen.
You know why? Because ‘Hope’ is not a strategy.
Being hopeful got me nowhere. I woke up one beautiful Saturday morning and realized I was almost twice the age I felt. I was in my mid-thirties but mentally stuck at my early twenties. I hadn’t grown a bit in over a decade. I was frozen, waiting for my life to start while the years flew by.
Hope failed me.
So I’ve put a strategy to get ahead in life and taken ‘hope’ out of the picture. I’ll do what I have to with or without hope.
Excuses
There are very valid and justifiable reasons why we are where we are. It will be insensitive to demand that people should pull themselves by the bootstrap and get ahead in life already.
Nobody deliberately decides to self-sabotage and ruin their lives, though it may seem so. As Psychiatrist Daniel Amen noted, ‘Behavior is not the problem, behavior is an expression of the problem.’
Well, I’ve been reading ‘The Courage to be Disliked’, and my excuses can go to hell.
I’m giving myself no more reason to be the same person I once was. I’ve cuddled myself with excuses long enough, so it’s time to play a different game.
I commit to doing the most each day, no blame game or overthinking things. That’s the only way.
Fear of failure
People talk about taking bold steps and risking failure. But what’s an even more profound way to frame this is — ‘taking bold steps and risking success’. I could fail, but what if I succeed?
I have stopped giving a shit about failure.
It is no longer “what if I fail?” but instead “what if I succeed?” I will take the risk and see how things turn out.
Imagine being someone who has lost the fear of failure and is simply risking success.
Once we find a system that works, we must deliberately chose to be driven by the possibility of winning rather than the chances of failing.
I have learned that if I do not get comfortable with uncertainty, I’ll go nowhere in life. So I’m reveling in uncertainty for a change.
Validation
I love Liz Gilbert, her book ‘Big Magic’ instructed me to sell out, and be a trickster rather than a martyr.
Martyr says: “I will sacrifice everything to fight this unwinnable war, even if
it means being crushed to death under a wheel of torment.”
Trickster says: “Okay, you enjoy that! As for me, I’ll be over here in this
corner, running a successful little black market operation on the side of your
unwinnable war.”— Elizabeth Gilbert (Big Magic)
I love to hear stories of Creatives accusing other Creatives of selling out. Misery loves company right?
Show me the money, you can keep the validation.
There are things to live for but absolutely nothing to die for.
People find this truth discomforting.
I do not need permission to be rich.
Final thought
If we want to be successful in life, we would have to reduce our sensitivity to the opinion of other people. We do not have to be ‘liked’ to be rich. We must be content with being valuable and relevant. Go big on money, not validation.
Also, because it is easy to be distracted by the success of others, and all that is, we must adopt measures to focus on our journey and not get sidetracked by the distractions on our path.
