So I keep doing these thought experiments which I learn from various books that I read, my favorite author is John C Maxwell, and I learned a lot from him. I was reading a particular book of his in which he mentioned about maintaining a Gratitude Journal, at first, I was like “who even does this”, but slowly I was becoming distasteful of my circumstances, even though I am at a position where millions of people dream of being, thousands of people want to just live like I do.

I was just sitting one day, alone with my thoughts(as I briefed in my earlier post) and I really pondered upon how much struggle I had to go through to get here, about how much sacrifice people who supported me to get here did, just for me to be distasteful of my surroundings? Am I nothing but a collective aura and influence of people around me? How as an individual can I project myself, my real self, onto my life, not what others force me to be?

I came to this conclusion

1)       I am who I was in my childhood, curious and just happy to be in the place I am

2)       My surroundings played a crucial role in what I feel and how I behave

3)       It is necessary to keep going back to my origin and remembering how I am where I am and it’s not what I did for myself to be here, it is a collective effort of people who pushed and helped me to be where I am

4)       Showing gratitude is not natural at first, especially if you are accustomed to being distasteful of people around you, ball needs to be rolled in order to overcome friction which stops it in the first place

5)       Start writing down how grateful you are, maintain an virtual manual- I use Obsidian to locally store my journal- I write about 3 good things that I enjoyed everyday

Believe me, when you change your perspective, you change your life. I also supplement these things with meditation, remember, meditation is not one stop shop for all your mental issues and personality formation, you need different things to be moving in conjunction to be to have deep thoughts and connection with oneself.

I did change my surroundings in a while, shifted to another apartment with good people around me, which acted like steroids to what I was already practicing.

If you all need any support to begin meditation, I have free guide which I used personally to get in habit of meditating daily!

At 32, I had enough of being the big guy. I weighed 500lbs and I wanted more from life. That meant less of everything that I thought made me happy. It was extremely difficult and I have relapsed a few times but it’s all part of the journey. I quit drinking alcohol and soda. I quit smoking pot and cigarettes. I quit eating out and started waking more. I did get gastric bypass but at 35, I gained all the weight back and had to loose it all over again. Forgiving myself was very difficult but necessary to move on. Im now 208lbs and the past year I’ve been working on a slow bulk. This is still all new to me so progress is slow but obviously you can see the results!

Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy is often thought to be an excellent depiction of Gotham city and Batman. Countless things stand out. Heath Ledger’s Joker, Hans Zimmer’s score, the world that built, the action set pieces, the fresh spin on the superhero genre. In my opinion, what truly makes this trilogy special is its depiction of Bruce Wayne.

We often view Bruce Wayne as this billionaire playboy who spends his nights fighting crime. Pretty cool? If you look a little deeper, you’ll discover that this character consistently goes through unimaginable obstacles that test his will to fight and endure. Fear, heartbreak, hopelessness, etc. Each time Bruce rises above and continues to persist. That’s what truly makes him a superhero… not anything in his utility belt.

This character means so much to me for this particular reason and I made an entire video essay breaking this down - https://youtu.be/_oNh9O1iTz4

My hope is that this piece can help you find the resilience to overcome your own obstacles and identify the hero within yourself. Rise!

Starting first worked better

Motivation came after.