You're Not Lazy, Bored, or Unmotivated

This is a republishing of The Steady Fella Newsletter. Every week readers use the timeless insights on passion, productivity, philosophy, and happiness from this newsletter to build towards the life they want.

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Happy Sunday! This weeks newsletter is about the source of modern obstacles.

I don’t know you, but I do know 3 things about you:

1. You have free time to consume information on the internet
2. This means you’re in the top half of the worlds wealth distribution
3. Which means you’re fighting modern human battles

Number 3 is the focus of this week’s newsletter.

You most likely have a roof over your head and a fridge full of food; therefore, your obstacles to happiness are largely abstract.

Things like laziness, boredom, procrastination, self-doubt and a lack of motivation are your struggles.

However, when we look closer, the common denominator of these modern struggles is fear. No matter how many struggles you can list off they’re ultimately the same thing.

So you’re not lazy, bored, or unmotivated - you’re just scared.

You’re not unmotivated

There is no such thing as not being motivated, simply because everything humans do is driven by an incentive - that’s how we function.

Whether it’s money, happiness, freedom, fun, etc. there’s always something driving us.

For example: you want to grow a YouTube channel but you say you have no motivation to do so.

In reality, you have motivation (fun, money, happiness, fame), it’s just that growing a YouTube channel makes you vulnerable and gives you the fear of failure.

So when you think you’re unmotivated, you’re actually just afraid of what it takes.

You’re not bored

You’re most likely lying whenever you say you’re bored. There’s no reason to be bored when technology gives us access to unlimited stimulation.

We only pretend to be bored so we can fill our time with meaningless distractions. Because without the distractions we have to face existential dread. Which is when you question whether your life has meaning, purpose, or value.

You’re not bored, you’re scared of being alone with your thoughts.

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” - Blaise Pascal

You’re not lazy

Laziness is a scapegoat. We use the word when we can’t identify real issues.

David Price says, “no one wants to feel incapable, apathetic, or ineffective. If you look at a person’s action (or inaction) and see only laziness, you are missing key details.”

For example: if you have a friend that stays home all day, watches TV, and rarely wants to do anything else, they aren’t lazy. There’s likely an underlying factor - invisible boundaries in their head like self-doubt and a fear of embarrassment.

All of our abstract modern-day struggles are symptoms of the same disease - fear.

Fear was a tool that helped ancient humans survive, but now it’s a burden that prevents modern humans from being fulfilled.

If you want to learn how to overcome fear, I suggest reading a previous newsletter titled “The Old Instinct that Hurts Us Today”.

In the newsletter, I explain the techniques “systematic desensitization” and “removing ambiguity”, from neuroscientist Dean Burnett and author Tim Ferriss.

This weeks quote

We attract into our lives what we are - Benjamin Hardy

We get what we are worthy of. You can’t achieve a million-dollar dream with a minimum wage work ethic.

This weeks reflection

After reading this newsletter do you remember any instances where you thought you were bored, unmotivated, or lazy, but were really just afraid of something?

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