When everybody in your house is asleep, and you’re staring into the bottom of a glass of bourbon, do you see your life like this Henry David Thoreau quote, “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation”?
If that’s you, you probably think the world has cheated you. You agreed to work hard, play by the rules and be a good person and in return, the world promised to give you a sense of purpose, the occasional adventure, and enough money to stay ahead of the bill collectors. But the world lied, and now you get this quote from “Fight club.”
“We’re the middle children of history man, no purpose or place, we have no Great war, no Great depression, our great war is a spiritual war, our great depression is our lives, we’ve been all raised by television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars, but we won’t, and we’re slowly learning that fact. and we’re very, very pissed off.”
If that’s you, it’s time to do something different.
Today is the day for you to stop wasting your life watching tv, playing video games, or scrolling Facebook and instead Do Something.
What is the “Something”? You decide to set a goal to become the best version of yourself. When you do, you’ll discover the true contentment that comes from measuring your performance against what you’re capable of instead of what another guy can do.
Contentment is different from being happy. I’ve been content when I wasn’t happy. Heck, I’ve even been content when I was mad. How is that possible? Because contentment is internal, not external. Internal is not dependent on where you live, what you drive, or how much money you have.
BTW, when you start working on becoming the best version of yourself, you’ll stop living for the approval of others and therefore dying when you don’t get it. Instead, you start living by a higher standard, your personal best.
That’s your new yardstick. Your best.
Before you ask, “how do I know what my best is?” I’d say you already know. There’s not a man in the world who can lie to the guy in the mirror. You KNOW when you stopped at 70% even though other people think you were terrific. You know when you gave it all you had. And THAT is the definition of being the best version of yourself, when you know you gave it everything you had.
Here are three rules I follow as I try to become the best version of myself.
Do what’s right
Do My Best
Put others first
Do you have a plan to become the best version of yourself? If not, borrow my three rules until you develop your own. But no matter what, set the goal so you can start escaping your life of quiet desperation.
PS
“Get the truth and never sell it; also get wisdom, discipline, and good judgment.” Proverbs 23:23