Risks aren’t bad.
Forget everything you learned in school.
Your teachers, they didn’t want you to take risks. They never took risks–why your teachers taught, instead of doing what they really loved.
Danger keeps normal away.
Your social circle doesn’t want you to take risks because people can’t handle change. People at the bottom of the value hierarchy don’t like change; it’s always bad for them.
People at the top embrace change because change is good for them. For others, those who aren’t optimistic, change means bad news is coming.
To the coward, change means a natural disaster destroying the home they worked twenty years to scrape enough just to get the down-payment for the mortgage.
To the winner, who takes risks every day, change is a bit different. Change is going from a small house in New Mexico to a mansion in Los Angeles, and a summer house in Spain.
Coward or Winner?
Cowards hate risks.
And cowards are dangerous people. You don’t want to be a coward, and you don’t want to be around cowards either. They run away from everything emitting even the slightest stress. Sometimes, cowards run from their own shadows.
Cowards are the people who: Can never catch a break. It’s never the fault of the coward; it’s always the world that’s unfair to the coward.
Cowards run.
A coward will ruin you. When you need a coward the most, they’re gone.
Sometimes we’re the coward. Sometimes we miss opportunities placed gently in our lap, where all we have to do is grab them because we: accidentally forget to set the alarm to wake up in time for a life-changing appointment.
There are no accidents. If something matters enough, You’ll see it completed at any cost.
The coward outside of yourself is the lifelong friend who shows his true colors when he runs away from a fight. Now you’re stuck fighting two opponents instead of one. The Coward? He ran home to mommy, the glass of milk already perspiring when the coward’s soft, white skin open the door for his after-school snack.
If this is you: be mad.
There’s Nothing Left to be Afraid of
- All the lands are explored.
- The world is nerfed.
- There’s no contact allowed in school.
- No pillagers.
- No invading armies.
If you’re reading this, you live in a country with internet access. You may live in America. Nearly all professions are safe; unless you’re a soldier, or working in a dangerous trade.
Your chances of dying from your path are low. You’re more likely to die getting hit by a car than you are accomplishing your dreams–thousands of times over.
What is there to be afraid of?
If everything you do is simulated, like a video game, are you playing the right game?
The middle class is a pack of sheep.
The middle class fear risk; they’re perfect pawns for the elite. No one is oppressing you, but, you still protest in the middle of the street because you don’t have enough rites; instead of accomplishing your dreams many Americans find ways to complain about how miserable their lives are.
The effort to complain and the effort to win are almost identical. But one is risky. Good. No one ever built a statue for a man who didn’t take risks.
The middle class are the perfect slaves.
They have just enough to complain about their positions. But, they also have enough to stay in line. They won’t riot. They won’t overthrow anything. The middle class is too afraid of losing their jobs, losing their tiny homes, or their weekly visits to Starbucks on the weekend to do anything about their current positions. Prozac helps.
The rich have no masters. They fear nothing.
The middle class need the strength of the Samurai to cut their fear to ribbons.
Rich doesn’t mean rich in money. But rich in time. That’s one reason you’re fearless and invincible as a kid: no one owns you.
Having a master is being a slave of some kind. Or, for a better circumstance, a student. But you can’t be a student if your lifestyle commands you to travel to the same office every day for a company you hate working for.
The poor don’t have the same fears as the rich.
They’re more likely to revolt. Look at other countries. Revolutions happen all the time. But not in America. Because in America, you have just enough to think you have a chance at something great, but never make it.
The poor Americans take risks. They get farther–unless they’re lazy. Great minds rarely come from great homes.
Often, the oppressed, downtrodden, and abused become the best leaders because they’ve suffered and take risks to prevent suffering from coming back again.
Normal people wait for life to happen to them.
Take a risk every day.
Like a vitamin. Be on the edge of what’s possible. Do something that makes you uncomfortable. Even a little bit uncomfortable. Like, asking for a ten percent discount the next time you go out for coffee. Seems like a waste, right? Jordan Peterson doesn’t want you to waste your life. How can you speak at your own Ted Talk when you can’t ask for a discount at your coffee shop you’ve gone to for the past four years? Every day?
Take a risk every day to develop an immunity to the sensation of fear. Fear always comes with new risks. Even for the adventurer who climbs the highest mountains all over the world. The difference is the response to fear.
Respond to fear like you would a child having a tantrum. The tantrum isn’t real. Do not give in to a crying child, do not give in to petty fears.
This is Your World
Internalize this mantra: This is my world. Everyone else lives here with me. Don’t be embarrassed or ashamed of getting what you want. Don’t be afraid of how others will perceive your efforts.
Some people never do what they want because they’re afraid to stand out. They don’t want to cause any trouble. But what if trouble is the answer? And everyone is wrong? It’s easy to see something’s wrong: no one is happy.
Get comfortable with the thought of rebuilding. So what if you start over? Everything you own is on lease from your life expectancy. You’ll die one day. What will matter to you more? The times you played it safe or the times when you swallowed your fear and took action?
You have time. Sure, you can wait. But don’t you want the life you want…Now? Why wait until you’re retired and old to paint if you want to be a painter?
Real painters–paint. But many real painters will never swipe a brush against a white canvas because their fear is more powerful than them.
Don’t let your fear command you.
Instead, embrace some fear every day.
Get comfortable with fear.
Realize what fear is: Fear is a tool. Fear tells you: What you’re doing matters. Don’t mess this up. Pay attention.
Take a risk every day. Stop fearing fear–embrace fear.
