The recipe for success

I don’t have the recipe for success. I don’t even have a recipe for success. Even if I did, I’m not sure it would matter.

I’m a student of these things. I’m trying to figure out for myself how the world works. Just like everyone else, I want to be successful, but I’m not quite satisfied with the information that’s out there.

I’ve tried to follow a bunch of it, and I’ve paid quite a bit of money for a lot of it over the years, but none of it has provided me with the keys yet. And I’m not so sure the keys exist, anymore.

Sure, I’ve made good money at times, sometimes by following the advice of others. But it hasn’t given me what I was really after. There’s so much stuff out there about how to sell more or how to craft killer sales copy or how to create info products or how to be more condifent and all of that. But it’s stil left me feeling empty inside.

I want to get at something deeper. I want to get at something that will make me feel fulfilled and whole at a deeper level.

I think at a surface level we’re all aiming for success (or the right partner og kids or wahtever) because we think it’s going to make us feel whole and lovable and loved.

I think what we’re all really looking for is thet feeling of love.

We’re brought up to love ourselves only conditionally, because that’s how we were loved as children. So we struggle to live up to the expectations that have been etched into our brains and have now become completely internalized, and whenever we succeed in living up to those expectations, we feel high, and when we fail, we feel miserable. And then we watch TV, eat chocolate, get drunk, have sex, exercise hard, work hard, or whatever, to dsitract ourselves.

And we do all of those things, too, to distract ourselves from the underlying feeling that something deeper is going on here. That it’s not just us. That perhaps it’s the whole wrold that’s fucked up. That even if we were to get all the things we think we want, it won’t give us what we really want.

Because the truth is, it can’t.

The sooner we realize that, the better.

Alas, that’s not how we human beings work. Seem like we have to go through the whole process of actually obtaining all of those things, before we realize that they didn’t get us what we truly want, and they’re not going to get us what we truly want.

That’s sad.

I do believe that there’s a place in this world for each one of us. I do believe there’s a place where we’ll naturally find success, in whatever form success takes for us. Doesn’t have to be the traditional form.

But success isn’t something you strive for so you can feel whole.

Rather, you start by finding the wholeness within yourself, and from that place, you do whatever you feel compelled to do, and things are going to work out okay.

You’re going to succeed in living the life you’re here to live, and you’ll succeed in feeling whole, because you’re already feeling whole.

But it can’t be a strategy - “oh, now I need to feel whole so I can become successful”. Doesn’t work that way.

And it’s not some point out in the future that you’re seeking, a point of crossing the line into wholeness-land.

It’s a moment-to-moment decision. Sure, you can train it and get better at it. But it’s always going to be a moment-to-moment decision.

Like having 20 mini-awakenings in a half-hour.