The endless pursuit of harder, faster, more, and better
This... plus something NEW.
If you’ve been reading my emails consistently over the past few years, you probably already noticed that this one is different.
I was going back through my old newsletter emails. I was trying to find links to a few specific things I’ve reviewed and recommended, and I found it to be incredibly difficult because as emails, they don’t actually exist anywhere except in my inbox. And that place? Well, let’s just say it’s a cluttered and jumbled mess, especially if trying to find something specific INSIDE of one email.
I started thinking about options… a friend of mine recommended Substack. I really liked the simplicity… and the fact that every email I send is accompanied by a corresponding blog post. Cool!
So I moved the entire catalog of both ‘Stepping Up’ and ‘On the Path’ over here.
You’ll still be getting my emails… but it’s going to be a little different. I like writing articles about one specific thing. I ALSO like telling you about the things I’m finding interesting and useful in my life. So I’ll be doing both. Not sure of the frequency.
You and I… we’ll just have to wait and see!
Today’s newsletter is a one-topic article. It sort of came out of nothing… when I was writing about something else, and this just spilled out of my fingers.
Hope you enjoy it!
Andy
The endless pursuit of harder, faster, more, and better
Have you ever wondered to yourself, “What IS the f-ing point of all this, anyway?”
And by “all this”, I mean all of life.
We want to be happy… and we think that in order to BE happy we need to “win” by being the envy of all those around us, achieving fame, fortune, and power. And what represents these in the world we live in? A big bank account, a high-paying job, a beautiful house, a “put together family”, fancy cars, lavish vacations, lots of followers on Instagram, expensive hobbies, you get the idea. To get these, we pursue things like degrees and accolades, achievements and accomplishments, money, money, and more money. We make sacrifices, compete with one another, do more to be better, work ourselves to the bone, constantly improve, get a side hustle (or 3), compromise our ethics and values by doing whatever it takes (including cheating, lying, manipulating, stealing). And when we get what we think we want, we’re satisfied, and happy… for maybe a day. And then, we start again, looking for the next thing… and the cycle continues.
We’ve been doing it like that since the beginning of modern time.
The Dalai Lama said it best. When asked what surprised him most about humanity, he said:
“Man.
Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money.
Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health.
And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present;
the result being that he does not live in the present or the future;
he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”
Another way of asking it… What’s the f-ing point?
Why don’t we ever learn? Why don’t we ever question the system… question our unquenchable thirst, that on the surface, seems like it would be satisfied by “getting there” and achieving all of what we say we want (fame, money, power). Why do we continued to be fooled? It’s like we’re been punked.
If you ask people nearing the end whether their life had meaning and purpose, whether they made a difference, and if their physical world success had quenched their thirst for true happiness, joy, and aliveness, even the ones who on paper look like they had it all will usually answer with a resounding, “No.”
Why DON’T we question the system? I’ve been studying myself for over 25 years, and thought to question the system… everything I’ve been taught, held as true, and generally accepted as “fact” had never really occurred to me until a few years ago.
And now I ask myself the question all the time.
You see, the system is BAKED into our psyches - culturally, societally, famiallily, and educationally, so that by the time you reach 50, you might not even realize it’s an option to think otherwise. Like a fish that has never lived a moment outside of the water… nothing else but the environment of water exists.
Well… perhaps it’s time you start asking yourself that question.
Why?
I can think of a whole bunch of reasons:
You don’t want to be nearing the end of your life and look back with regret
You want your life to be filled with more meaning and purpose
You can see that in spite of your best efforts to the contrary, when you get really quiet, and really really honest, you can admit to yourself that you’ve never, really been truly happy.
Even with all the success you’ve had, you still feel like you’re not enough.
You’re so exhausted from your life that you find yourself barely able to keep up.
You’re just barely tolerating your relationship with your spouse and family.
You measure your self-worth by how hard you work.
You have enough 10x over - money, cars, homes, influence, and yet you keep gunning for more.
You see life as a competition where winning means beating everyone else - more money, bigger house, fancier car, bigger job… and, there is no end in sight.
You’re starting to wonder what life is about if it’s not about competing (and winning.)
You’ve got to be better, smarter, faster, fitter, better looking on Instagram, etc. than everyone around you, in spite of how lonely and hollow it makes you feel inside.
You use money as the only true measure of your success and status in the world.
You’re an overachiever and workaholic… the only true focus in your life is work.
You’re driven by the fear that you won’t have enough of _______(fill in the blank with just about anything).
The only relationships you maintain with any sort of consistency are with people at work, or ones who will contribute to your economic success.
You’re so focused on pleasing everyone else in your life that at the end of the day there is no time or energy left over for you.
The only way you make it through your day is with a glass (or 3) of wine, or a good show to binge on Netflix.
You don’t really remember what it feels like to feel joy.
I could go on.
Do you see yourself anywhere in these bullets?
If so, perhaps it’s time to start to consider that the skillset you’ve developed to get you HERE (in the predicament described above), in spite of all the success it’s brought you in your life, will only serve to get you more of the same. And… it will DEFINITELY NOT get you someplace else.
Another way of saying it… the formula for getting more of what you’ve already got is easy… just keep doing what you’ve always done!
That doesn’t mean there’s no way out… it means that first you’ve got to start SEEING IT for what it is… an exercise in futility that has been going on for thousands of years. It’s HOPELESS… that is, the system and way of thinking we’re using to get what we think we want.
It’s like The Onceler says at the end of Dr. Seuss’ ‘The Lorax’, “UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”
And it’s not just about caring… you’ve got to point the bow of your ship in a slightly different direction, and then move that way. And it’s not going to be comfortable or easy - it’s not supposed to be, as you’re charting a completely new and different course.
To get started, show up in your life willing to ask any of the following questions,
What am I tolerating?
What am I doing regularly that is not bringing me joy? (and what will?)
How is what I’m doing getting me what I really want?
What if I were the cause of my own exhaustion?
Where am I doing things on autopilot, because it’s the way I’ve always done them?
How am I letting my desire to compete or win dominate my thinking, feelings, and actions?
How is my perception of winning getting in the way of what I really want?
What am I resisting?
How am I hiding?
What parts of me am I leaving out (because of the way they make me look) in how I present myself to the world?
How am I lying? (by either commission OR omission)
How is what I’m doing NOT getting me what I really want?
What is it I truly want for my life?
Where am I letting my pursuit of money override everything else?
How much _________(stuff, money, cars, homes, vacations) is enough?
How do I measure wealth?
How is what I’m doing keeping me stuck?
Where am I too comfortable?
How am I sedating myself? (ie. using something to feel just a little bit better to help you make it through hard days - and they are ALL hard days. That ‘something’ could be as small as a cocktail or glass of wine, and could also include shopping, exercise, social media, harder drugs, Netflix, watching sports, porn, etc)
What is it about my life that has me feeling like I must sedate myself in order to feel good?
This should give you plenty to chew on.
I highly suggest doing it - chewing on it.
We ALL have something in our life that needs addressing… the big question is whether that thing is getting in the way of you living your best life?
And as always… if you resonate with anything in here that has real meaning for you, and you’d like to talk about it… email me… let me know… we can schedule some time together.
Plenty to chew on here, Andy 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽