Being too comfortable is a bad thing

I have come to the realization that I've been living too much of a cushy life and it is having a bad impact on my "drive." I can't think of the antonym of the word "apathetic" at the moment so I'll use drive for the time being.

Things are just too cushy for me and it is too easy for me to just simply exist. It also having a negative impact on my ambition. Sometimes I used to wonder what is it that continually drives these ultra rich CEOs like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and etc one after making billions of cash. Money simply isn't the motivating factor anymore. It is often confused that ambition is some how linked to making money, but often that it isn't the case-- many ambitions can be accomplished with the help of money. I think it is a concept that gets confused quite often.

Knowing how to follow your heart

My mind works in scientific manner, in that I generally use logic to work things out. Sometimes, some gut feelings are thrown in to the mix when it comes to being creative and coming up to new ideas. But when things are boiled down, we are simply applying these processes and sometimes we forget to ask ourselves what ends are we trying to achieve.

What I have realized after getting into the workforce is that it is easy to forget for what reasons are we working for, or even if we had reasons for getting into what we are doing in the first place. You've graduated and you're on your own now, it's now time to for you to make it on your own now and the problem is that it is too easy to get focused on surviving. Wake up, work, pay the bills, take 2 days off on the weekend-- lather, rinse and repeat. There is more to life to this and after spending a pleasant day chatting with friends and working out at home, I suddenly became pissed off.

My biggest beef is that I should be getting more out of my life and that I should be less tolerant of myself being complacent with just going along with the flow.

What are your deepest wants?

I believe that people are defined by their deepest wants. I get bored meeting new people and when I ask them "so what do you enjoy doing" and they respond with "well, I dunno." I get bored real fast. Seriously then, do you have a reason to exist?

One of my favorite movies is Fight Club. It's a fucking brilliant movie. My favorite scene is where Tyler Durden sticks up the convenience store, simply to scare the shit out of the clerk because he stopped going to vet school because it was too hard.

My favorite quote from the movie was right after the scene with Tyler's monologue:

"Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of Raymond K. Hessel's life. His breakfast will taste better than any meal you and I have ever tasted. "

Many people who've had a near death experience usually walk away with a new lease on life-- maybe because they've realized that there are many things that they still want to do, but haven't yet. For those of us that haven't had an experience like that, I think that we forget that we all are dying, day by day-- time isn't something that shouldn't be taken for granted.

One of the best experiences of my life is leaving Canada. I find it ironic that I would find leaving one of the livable cities in the world to live somewhere else to be a good thing. But there are things that I have learned on my journeys that I would have never learned by staying at home. The thing about learning how to travel is that you know that your time is limited, thus you make the best of that limited time by doing the most you can. This is how I should be living my life everyday.

When I came to Japan, I ended up being more traveled compared to many of the Japanese that lived here, simply because it felt like I was traveling instead of living here. The ironic thing is that I split an apartment with a Japanese guy that lived in Canada for about a year and he was far more traveled than I was. For the 24 years when I lived in Canada, the furthest I've ever traveled was to Toronto. I've never really seen Banff or Niagra Falls. When I lived in Canada, it just felt like that I could go there whenever I wanted. When you start living like that, you'll end up not doing things.

Your heart will want to take you to strange places

The most ingrained thing of our youths is how our we would be taught to not have dreams off the beaten path. From a survivability point of view and of a parent it makes sense because it is what they are most focused on at the moment. Paying down the mortgage and raising kids is tough work, not that I have kids or a house... I've just done the calculations so I know in advance. But the thing is that values change depending on your age and the conditions you live in, the problem is that people don't do a good job of appreciating this idea--as if values are something unwavering and set in stone. They do change and you've probably not noticed it.

There is more to life than just surviving and it is quite often the part of life that gets forgotten, because sometimes the things that we want are strange... not strange as in weird, but simple different from everyone else. Maybe one person's dream is to be a musician and another's is to travel the world. I cannot answer why we want the things that we do or why you want something different from what I want, but despite wanting different things I can recognize the common things that we share is that happiness is linked to getting what we want.

It's better to try and fail instead of not trying at all

This should be obvious and Shakespeare had his head screwed on straight when it came to love, but this applies to everything else in life as well. I'm not going to make any guarantees that you are going to succeed in everything you do-- you probably are going to fail at something and you will, I guarantee it. The more important thing is if you can keep on going despite failing. If there is a barometer to knowing how/when to take a risk it should simply be that-- for those that have played Texas Hold'em poker, you know what exactly I am talking about.

How much are you willing to lose, how much can you lose?

I think that one thing that isn't really appreciated is knowing how much we can actually afford to lose and still keep on going-- there are so many thing in our lives that simply aren't necessary, but we are still too afraid of losing our so called "creature comforts." After living in Japan for a while, I've already ditched the TV and love living life without it. I can cut back on eating out and bring down my food costs significantly by cooking cheap but healthy meals. I can cut down my expenses further by cutting out expenses for going out for drinks. If I need really cheap housing, sharing an apartment is an option. When push comes to shove, I know I can bring my living expenses way down, bring living expenses down to $800~$1000/month. At this level of income, even a $7/hour job for 8 hours/day can sustain this life at bare minimum, with a university degree, you can easily do better.

So my advice to young adults right now:

Failing isn't the end of the world, success is knowing how to survive failure. While you're unmarried and without kids, these are going to be the freest years of your life. If you want to try something big, this is going to be your only shot. Use it wisely, never be complacent.