I came here to turn things around. I’ve done a good job with that. Forgoing alcohol. Improving confidence. A new group of friends. Fighting lust. Clearing my mind of the junk that has accumulated. But with this clear mind, I’m now looking to the future. I’m listening to what is calling me.
I need this future vision. I must find a future that is worth me working and going all out in the present. I don’t love my job, but with a deeply inspiring vision of the future, I light up and am able to work my job with joy and passion. This is because my job becomes a means to an end. My job is what I’m doing in order to achieve this dream of the future.
I think there are two aspects I desire for the future. Freedom, and Glory through transcendent work-ethic.
What I really want is to live abroad in Europe. I want to hike the dolomites, ride trains through Italy, dance in Barcelona, eat pizza in Sorrento, camp on top of a mountain in Switzerland, walk the streets of Florence, explore Prague, meet a girl in Paris, experience Christmas in Strasbourg, and witness the art, culture, architecture, food, people, and life in a thousand other European towns.
I must earn this though. Beyond external earnings. I must earn this life internally. I must be the best version of myself. Someone who is chasing the rising Son. I must be disciplined and work on something beyond myself… beyond me in the present. Through this upward striving, I earn the life I’m living. I justify it to myself. It’s not all pleasure and comfort. It’s also sacrifice and effort.
This past year I traveled to the Philippines. I discovered what it was like to not earn my pleasure. I was in one of the most beautiful places in the world, but I couldn’t enjoy it because I was acutely aware of my lack of upward striving. I knew I wasn’t living up to the standard I knew I was capable of. This knowledge ate me alive and would not allow me to enjoy myself on vacation. I hadn’t earned it.
What will be my dream for the future that I will work towards? How will I justify this life to myself?
Mastery of a physical pursuit. Training every day. In the gym, on the fields, eating right, not drinking, resting and recovering. Soccer. Train for speed, power, athleticism, and skill. Develop myself into a competitor. This will require a huge amount of time, so I won’t be able to chase it at full speed if I’m working a full time job for someone else. That’s why this year on Lana’i, my aim is to build a successful blog. With a blog, I can work for myself, wherever I want, without relying on others, or conforming to a company’s schedule.
Don’t think you can just sit back and relax now that you’ve been on and confident and made friends for the past month. No! Keep your head up and your shoulders back. Be confident. Be social! Be disciplined about your growth! If you sit back and get comfortable then you can lose what you just built! This is how you atrophy!
Do NOT ATROPHY!
Keep going! You have a lot further to go. Who knows just how great your potential actually is. You could know everyone in your town. You could build the most recognized business. You could sculpt an awe-inspiring physique. You could become a great athlete. You could be the spark that ignites the fire in others’ hearts. You could change your family’s lives. You could change your friends’ lives.
Last week, you thought to yourself, “Okay, I’ve mapped out my life. I’ve made friends. I’ve learned my new job. I’ve met a girl. I can rest now. I can take it easy.”
Wrong.
This is only the beginning of your life. The beginning of this new arc… and you want to take it easy? Now?? When you’ve just seen what the potential for this new life is?! NO! This is the time to ignite! This is the time to be overwhelmed in fire! BURN! BURN!!!!!!!
What is Drive? Drive is that thing inside me that wakes me up and pushes me forward. My Drive is my inner spark. It’s the feeling that I can’t stand to live without. I’ve lived without Drive before, and I never want to return to that again.
Drive is desire. It’s a very deep desire that makes discipline and sacrifice worthwhile. We don’t get to choose what this deep desire is though. I’ve learned that I can’t just pick any outlandish goal and expect myself to be filled with a beautiful, emotionally charged dream, full of meaning and purpose. I can’t expect myself to sacrifice for a goal that doesn’t resonate with my heart. As I learned from Harry Potter, “the wand chooses the wizard.” Just so, a deep desire chooses me as its avatar.
We have to look for the goal that calls to us. We must meditate on what our beings genuinely long for. We have to be quiet and listen for the thing that we would happily sacrifice for.
How do we do this though?
We should watch where our mind goes when we are doing a task we don’t enjoy. If we feel stuck in life, what do our daydreams look like? What are the visions of the future that excite us? That make us feel enthusiastic? Pay close attention to these ideas. They are glimpses of the path we are meant to follow. The path that would make life worth living. The demanding path that would fill us with such pride and joy to follow.
Chasing a genuinely deep desire such as this will feel like a perfect alignment in your mind and body with the world.
Here’s the issue though. We live in a world of satisfaction. We never want for anything because all of our needs have been (artificially) met. We are never bored. We are constantly flooded with stimulation from tv shows, video games, social media, and porn. We drink alcohol, party, hook up, and over indulge in easy, unhealthy food. All of these vices are things that satisfy us… they sedate us.
We have thoroughly distracted ourselves from our own lives.
Satisfaction is the anathema of Drive. Being satisfied erases true desire. In order to find that Drive, spark, and purpose in our lives, we must be dissatisfied. We must be hungry. We must forgo much of what the world is sedating us with. Fight against distractions. Fight against lust. Fight against constant stimulation. We must wake up!
By removing the junk of the world from our lives, the dust settles, our minds clear, and our eyes are opened. We wake up to our true selves. We can finally see the path that has been waiting for us. The path that has chosen us. The future that inspires us.
At this point, meaning has returned to life, and purpose is found day after day.
Discover your Drive, and wage war against the sedatives of the world.
Today, and every day, there is a countless number of people who are wasting away. They’re alive, but they are lonely, anxious, depressed, and aimless. They spend all of their time in their room, suffering from self-imposed isolation. I was one of them.
Our rooms are comfortable. In today’s world, we are able to spend all of our time watching tv, playing video games, surfing the internet, and scrolling on social media. By filling our time with these activities, we never need to face the world and overcome any sort of social anxiety. But we also never get to reach for our potential.
This “wasting away” has become progressively more prevalent, especially after 2020 and the isolation that Covid-19 brought. Around this time, I suffered a torn ACL and broke up with my girlfriend. This was when I began to experience this exact issue of deterioration in self-imposed isolation. During this time, I became so accustomed to being alone that it became difficult to re-integrate with normal society and life when the dust finally settled and everything returned to normal. In the years following 2020, I spent most of my time in my room, reading books, watching motivational YouTube videos, writing, analyzing my dreams, playing video games, and overthinking.
During this time, I had forgotten to live. I forgot how to be alive.
Before this time, I lived vibrantly. My personality shone like a light and I was filled with joy everyday. I didn’t waste away in my room. I was the driver for change. I was the catalyst that made things happen. I inspired action. I created stories. I explored and adventured. I lived.
This all seemed to change internally though when I was vulnerable and hurt, and unable to socialize due to the lockdowns. I receded into myself where things were comfortable and safe. I stayed in my room. I played video games. I listened to podcasts and watched YouTube videos. I watched porn and drank too much alcohol. I lived a life of comfort, fun, and pleasure as I ran away from any responsibility. It sounds great, but these were easily the worst years of my life.
There’s no meaning without sacrifice. There’s no purpose without striving.
We are not meant for comfort. We are not meant to waste away in our rooms. Our lives are meant to be lived. It’s not about survival. Surviving isn’t living. Life is meant for social connection. It’s meant for adventure and exploration, love and family, goals and dreams, discipline and hard-work, friendship and laughter, travel and experience.
If you find yourself living life without meaning, wasting away in your room, here’s my suggestion to you…
Try to find a vision of the future that resonates with your heart. Meditate and discover what calls to you. What lights you up inside and makes itself known as a worthy path to follow? That inspiring vision of the future may surprise you. When I began asking myself that question, these answers came to mind.
Build a castle
Buy a old timey sail boat and sail the world like a pirate
Write a book about chasing my potential
Move to Italy and train to become a goalkeeper
Three month body transformation
Everyone is different, so find your own unique vision of the future that would make life worthy of leaving your room. Then go pursue it. This is how you stop wasting away. This is how you live the life that you were meant for.
After traveling through 7 different countries over the course of 6 weeks, it’s difficult to narrow down the best memories. So much happened. It was nonstop from the moment we got off the plane. Certain experiences still rose to the top and stood out among the rest. What follows is a list, in no particular order, of at least some of those top experiences… but certainly not all of them.
1. Dinner Cruise in Prague
Prague was one of our favorite cities in general. The people were incredibly hospitable, the food and beer were great, and everything was cheap (or at least cheaper than Paris). Not to mention the city had an awesome medieval atmosphere to it. On our second night there, we decided to go on a buffet dinner cruise down the Vltava River, which flows right through the heart of Prague. We dressed up and upon arriving, we were greeted with complimentary glasses of Champagne. We drank wine, ate an incredible amount of food, and listened to the live music. It was fantastic.
2. Befriending Our Waiter in Barcelona
On just our third night in Europe, we arrived in Barcelona and ate at Restaurant Sedna, which was right underneath our VRBO. Our waiter’s name was Levan and he was awesome. We had a great time with him and he brought us shots as an after-dinner act of hospitality. We then returned to Restaurant Sedna for dinner the next two nights and saw Levan each time.
William and I travelled around Europe for the next month but returned to Barcelona for our final 3 nights. There was no way we weren’t going back to see Levan. He remembered us immediately. We hung out with him each of those final 3 nights and got to know each other better. We’ve since stayed in touch and will hopefully see him soon here in America. How fun life can be sometimes.
3. Hiking a Dreamscape in the Italian Dolomites
I love hiking. William learned that quickly on our adventures. The best hike I went on, hands down, was in the Italian Dolomites. We were staying in a tiny, fairytale town called Alleghe, which sat on a picturesque lake surrounded by towering mountains. I had the itch to go for a hike so I found one that started at the edge of town. I climbed the mountain for three hours, and the beauty I saw was breathtaking. The higher I climbed, the better it got. When I reached the peak, I was surrounded by a scene I had only ever imagined in my dreams. It was a surreal moment. One I will take with me forever.
4. Celebratory Cigars with my Brother in Switzerland at 2:00 AM
The universities of Alabama and Tennessee have this tradition. Whichever team wins in football that year gets to smoke celebratory cigars at the end of the game. William and I had said that if Bama won, we would have to find some cigars. Well on the day of the game, I had gone for a hike. At the top of the mountain, I discovered a lone restaurant that just so happened to have a box of cigars for sale. It was too perfect. I bought two of them and made my way back down the mountain.
We streamed the football game from our hotel room and Alabama managed to win the game. It was 2 am and quite cold in Switzerland when the game ended, but that didn’t stop us from going outside and lighting our cigars. We stayed out there for almost an hour just talking about our trip up to that point and where we would go next.
5. Playing Uno at 4:00 AM with Our Hostel Mates in Venice
Venice was a fantastic stop on our trip. One of the things that made it so great was the people we met there. We stayed in a hostel and befriended a few of the other people sharing our room. The whole room housed about 20 people in it. This being said, we did not sleep that well. But who needs sleep when you’re exploring a new city with friends you just met?
On our last night in Venice, we went out with our friends and got back to the Hostel around 4 am. For some reason, we decided that the best thing to do in this situation would be to play Uno on the floor of the hostel. So that’s exactly what we did. We laughed and had the greatest time. (We all paid for it dearly when we had to wake up 5 hours later to check out).
6. Delicious Dinner in Barcelona After a Four Hour Travel Day
This memory is plain and simple, but superb. William and I had travelled for 14 hours on four trains from Nice, France to Barcelona, Spain. We checked into our hotel at 11 pm and were worried that no restaurants would be open for dinner. Well… we forgot we were back in Barcelona. We walked outside the hotel and an entire street of restaurants was alive and bustling. We sat down at one and enjoyed the greatest meal of fried peppers, fresh olives, and a massive portion of paella, with a liter of beer to help wash it all down.
Tell me this doesn’t look amazing:
7. Running Down a Mountain to Catch the Train Back Home
During the first week of our adventure, my family and I visited Mont Serrat, a monastery on top of a mountain, an hour outside of Barcelona. We took a cable car up to the top, but as you now know, I prefer to hike. So as my family took the cable car down the mountain, I decided to run down instead. When I began my descent, I had exactly one hour to get down before our train arrived to take us back to the city. I did not feel like missing that. The run down the mountain was beautiful and exhilarating. I was high on life. I ran down countless stairs, along a gorgeous path, and eventually made it to the main road with 10 minutes remaining. I was pushing my levels of fitness at this point but I was too close to stop. With less than five minutes to go, I ran up onto the train platform, victorious.
I felt sorry for the people standing next to me on the train back though. But hey, I was proud of myself.
I love hiking. It’s perhaps one of my favorite things to do. It seems to resonate with a foundational part of me. My desire to hike is somewhat of a mystery. Why would I want to climb up steep slopes for hours, rain or shine, and end up exhausted? Just for a nice view at the top? No, I think it runs deeper than that. Hikes are very meaningful to me. They excite me. For years now, I’ve even had recurring dreams of beautiful mountains and discovered trails. Many of my friends joke that mountains “call” to me. Perhaps they do. But why? Here’s what I think…
A mountain, and it’s trail to the top, is a symbolic physical metaphor for Life and the pursuit of a goal.
The summit of a mountain is the goal. That’s where the beautiful view waits. That beautiful view has to be earned. A climb is required to get to the top. In other words, effort must be put in to reach a goal. The higher the summit, the harder the climb. The harder the climb, the fewer people at the top.
That journey up the mountain is where everything important happens. It’s where growth occurs. It’s where challenges are faced and overcome. It’s where strength is found. The climb is what makes the summit rewarding. At the peak, it’s the knowledge of what it took to get there that gives the view a deeper beauty. A beauty that goes beyond physical.
Each mountain, each goal, is an opponent, and the journey to reach the peak is the test to see if you are a worthy rival.
At the base of a mountain, the summit stands high and looks down intimidatingly, daring me to attempt the ascent. The climb is difficult, but there is a purity to the challenge. A peace that comes over me as I begin to see myself making progress towards the top. Progress towards a goal brings positive emotion. The journey upward is filled with its own beauty as well. Waterfalls, fields, flowers, and other hikers.
One just needs to look for beauty to see it.
Many people get too caught up with the end goal and forget to enjoy what’s around them as they advance. In doing so, life loses its beauty and turns cold. I would also say that if one does not see the beauty on their journey up, the likelihood of reaching the top diminishes.
Someone who enjoys the hike will go much further than someone who enjoys the view.
There’s beauty to be found in every hike, and each one is unique. Everyone has their own path to follow. Their own goal to chase. Their own mountain to climb. Some people never attempt the climb. Don’t be one of them. Keep your eyes open for the good and beautiful, and find a hike that you enjoy.
The Adventurous Mind 