tldr :

“Everything is burning. Thus, I must do something to survive.” is terrible motivation in any shape or form.

Don’t let it taint your life.

All is well and All the best.

You must never say, “I must work or I will stay stuck in this hell forever. “

In media, it is a really seductive narrative or plot device that someone is in danger, in a bad position, and the whole story arc is to get into a better place, in a better state.

That you are going from unsafe to safe.

And we also sell the narrative to ourselves that we cannot just muster enough motivation if we think we are safe right now. Or if we have a notion of satisfaction, we cannot progress. That we have to imagine discomfort, dissatisfaction, danger to move ahead.

I also operated with the same mentality till now, and it has been fucking exhausting. A few days ago, tiredness is essentially your brain assessing a task and determining that hey it’s no good.

You procrastinate studying because studying is hard, if it was not hard, you wouldn’t need to study it. So there is a wager that when you sit down to study, you are putting in a lot of energy and effort.

What if you just forget it? What if you don’t understand it? What if it is of no use?

Your brain just signals that you are tired, and you don’t end up doing it. This will preserve your time and effort.

And your context can affect this calculation a lot.

Imagine you perceive your context (maybe current life) as something really bad, really unsatisfactory, really full of discomfort. And now if you try to do something hard, your brain is going to be terrified of it because what if this specific thing won’t break us out of this cycle? What if it just takes up our resources and energy? We will be worse off. We will be in a bad situation with even less resources.

So while in media it sounds really cool that someone is moving from a really terrible situation to a really good one, you should not try to make it your life’s narrative. No matter where you are, you should just fucking brainwash yourself that this is fine, this is good, this is satisfactory, this is safe, this is really safe, I’m not in danger, that I can spend my resources and get to a better place.

You will be in constant threat assessment mode, and it will make your brain really stingy with resources, and it will keep wasting your resources on scanning these threads and making your behavior out of whack.

Another way this ghost haunts you is thinking that this current place or context is unacceptable. This is not for me, blah blah blah. That you will have something so much better in the future. But that makes it so hard to work in the present. Every effort feels really tiring. Every step that can get you closer to your target feels a lot heavier.

Maybe there is wisdom in the saying that there is no good weather or bad weather, just your reaction to the weather. The very story we tell ourselves to escape a “bad” situation can trap us inside it, because a brain that perceives itself as unsafe will refuse to spend the energy required for change.

To do well, you must accept you are well and it is going to get better. Because if “I am not well and I will be well” was a consistently productive path, we will see way more social mobility.

Why is it that the rich get richer? Why is it that the smarter get smarter? Why is it that the content feels more positive? Why is it that kids from stable families lead better lives? Because they’re starting from a positive point and wanting to get to an even more positive point.

So you have to perceive your current starting point as a good point and not a dangerous, inhospitable to life one. This is your life. Don’t turn it into motivation porn.

This is you. This is your life. This is not a story.

This is not a redemption arc. There is no plot device here. It’s just you. It’s your life. Please be positive.

When, for the sake of generating motivation, you assume yourself in a bad position so that you can use it to do it in a better position, Your brain is basically characterizing itself as a poor bastard. And once it assumes that role, it’s not going to want to spend any energy or time. It is going to be really stingy with the resources.

And if that is the case, how are you going to do anything that is going to get you to your goals? It’s counterproductive.

This also ties in with the narrative we have of the permanent underclass and AI. People are grinding their bones with the motive to escape the notion that they have imagined themselves. I don’t think that’s sustainable, and only a select few might be able to work in those conditions. But most are just going to increase their burn rate and stop way sooner than if they just had some normal mindset.

Another example that also shows how pervasive this negative standing can be is studying something because you think your current job is collapsing. If you truly believe that your current job is collapsing, you will be in such panic that you will get tired a lot faster, your brain will shut down, and you won’t learn effectively.

That’s just not a good mental state to be in. To do anything hard, you must first think that all is well.

Those who feel financially secure, take business risks. They splurge. They’re okay with spending.

Those who feel mentally safe and fit will do the same with intellectual endeavors.

Those who feel safe with their body and its fitness and stamina. will use it. Those who are insecure about its strength or stamina will not participate in things like gym or marathons and such.

We tell ourselves we’re financially behind, so we must tighten up and grind our way to wealth—while the grinding is done from a psychological position of poverty, which makes us brittle, risk-averse, and exhausted. We tell ourselves we’re mentally not sharp enough yet, so we must study with a desperate, self-critical intensity—while the desperation signals to the brain that this is a threat, not an exploration, and learning efficiency collapses. We tell ourselves our body is unacceptable, so we must drag it to the gym in shame—while shame makes the body a source of pain to be managed, not a vehicle to be enjoyed, and consistency evaporates.

This also explains why gratitude feels good.

Why is it good for you? Because you can feel gratitude for something only when you feel good about it, when you are satisfied with it, when it is above satisfaction. It is a condition beyond and above safety.

So expressing gratitude essentially means you are safe in current conditions and you’re appreciative of current condition, and that allows you to do so much more.