Why do you postpone yourself?

I know that a big part of the reason why you clicked on this video was because that sentence called out to you in the title and you'll be amazed to know that that um very insightful and um very mesmerizing sentence is 2,000 years old and it comes from the ancient stoic philosopher senica in fact um these are his letters and I recommend that you not only read senica but you that you get this University of Chicago press translation of it because it's a complete one I used to read um the penguin version which is only

a selection which is fine and it's it's much cheaper than this one so if you can only afford that it's worth getting but senica throughout his letters has this style that really calls out to us from the centuries and of course that's because Human Nature has not changed one bit in that time and this question of his why do you postpone yourself calls out to us because we know for a fact that we're guilty of doing this we all want to become more WI wi we want to become smarter maybe we want to become Kinder

maybe we want to spend more time with the people that matter to us or spend more time on things that really matter to us and so we think that we can only achieve this through only a roundabout way that we first have to work very hard possibly at a job that we don't like that much or that we like the money of but not much else of to then eventually one day get to a point where we can enjoy ourselves where we can finally be happy where we can where we can simply have the time

to do those things that make us happy and when I think of this um Henry David tho comes to mind he sort of had this gripe with the ing Railroad and and how it was infiltrating the entire country and really Changing Life at a rapid Pace because all of a sudden you could go to all these places much quicker and easier but he talks about how people think that they're going somewhere much quicker and easier by paying the ticket to get get on a train and that they don't consider the time they spent to make

the money to buy buy that ticket and he says something along the lines I really travel faster by foot than you on train because the time that it took you to make that amount of money also factors into the journey and when you factor that in really traveling by foot is much quicker and we do the exact same thing in in many other ways when we say oh I like to read but for me to spend a large amount of the day reading I need to become in a position where I have all that time

meaning I have to make a lot of money so that I can then relax and have my time to read so what we do is we put the first thing last and we can observe this in our days as well make a list of your principles make list of your goals and then look at the the flow of your day what is the first thing on your list of principles and what's the first thing that you do in your list of activities on the day I can guarantee you that the first thing on your list

of principles is not the first thing that you do um first thing in the day what you do is most likely at least at some point in your life you sleep in as much as you can and then when you finally do wake up the first thing that you do is grab your phone and do the exact last thing that you want to be doing which is looking at other people's lives comparing yourself to them and feeling all kinds of negative emotions and that's how you start your day and then what else the next thing

you do is get ready for a job that's only a means to an end the end being your happiness and the job supposedly being the means that will get you that and so at the end of the day when you come home from work you went to work but really the work of life you haven't put in a single minute on your list of principles which is which are your goals in life which are what you want to be who you want to be who you want to become and what kind of life you lead

that's the work of life and in that work you haven't done anything yet but naturally you're exhausted it's the end of the day you're tired you want to eat and you want to go to sleep or maybe you want to relax for a few hours and then go to sleep and so the very first things on your list of principles on your list of goals came last if even at all and most days we just and and not having done a single thing for ourselves not having done a single thing for the work of life

and that's exactly what senica points out in his letter to his friend he says you postpone yourself because you want to avoid avoid um Financial insecurity and that's why you dedicate your life to start a business and get it up and running so that it can provide for you in your passive time without being active and so you postpone yourself you delay life you say you will start living someday at some point when these Earthly profane goals of yours such as money wealth Etc um have been fulfilled and until then you delay your happiness you

delay your life and if you and I already know that some people are thinking right now well we need money we need a living we need to make money to do anything and if it gets in the way if I if I I need money and if I don't have it then well I need to go and make it and everything else comes after that no matter how much I would like them to come first and while that's partially true and and no one's here telling you to abstain from money entirely and more so think

about the fact that yes most of us need to have a car and cars cost money but almost no one needs the kind of car that they right now have I mean if you think about it car payments are I believe for most Americans car payments are the second biggest expense they have each month after perhaps a mortgage and some people don't even have that so some people their biggest expense is their car payment and do they really need that kind of car no M no matter what it is no matter how much utility it

gives them it's certainly several levels above in in comfort and and luxury and performance than they would ever need but they want it and senica also says hunger is cheap the pallet is what's expensive and that's exactly what we find here if we would forgo such luxuries and if we forwent other things that we simply want that we dreamed ourselves of having when we were a child when we imagined our adult life um we don't need the kind of car that we imagined then we don't need the car the kind of house and the kind

of partner in the kind of so-called Social Circle that we desired and admired back then but most people still cling to those fantasies and they try in their adult life to live up to a child's fantasy and in theory we know that this is ridiculous but we all have done this in our daily lives we have put what should come first last for many years so make yourself true list of your priority and make what comes first on that list come first on in your day too and in your life in general if you want

to spend more time with your friends friends that are really good for you actually good for you that further your mind that you have conversations with that make you into a fuller bigger person then you don't need to work to buy your time to do that you need to just want less and buy less and desire less and the less you desire the more money you will have without making more money without having to go and spend your life spend your time making more money to fulfill those extra mostly luxury additional desires wants and it's

down to you to deny yourself those things that are not necessary not needed by you in any way but just desired to identify them to see them and to get rid of them senica also says throw everything away whatever keeps you from what you really want um untie the knot or cut it off all together