“Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent.”

Carl Sandburg

You Are Chasing Something That Never Ends

The path to mastery is an endless journey, not something you eventually attain. The goal post never stops moving, and the steps to mastery are boring, tedious, and often feel like they aren’t moving the needle at all. Every workout moves the needle less than a percent and has immense diminishing returns, but always ask yourself, “What’s the alternative?” “What if you give up?” “What will I think when I’m on my deathbed?”

Do you think you will be glad you wasted days of your life playing video games and scrolling on your phone, or would you rather have read all the great books and left a legacy of writing behind that can be read long after you’re gone? It doesn’t have to be writing; it could be any legacy. Perhaps you left behind a family business or an estate passed down through generations.

What’s the Alternative, Quitting?

In every area of life you want to gain mastery in, ask yourself: What is the alternative? What happens if you give up? Fortunately, giving up rarely ever crosses my mind, but I do things that may as well be giving up.
I justify them. I make excuses to make it look like I’m not quitting.

You Don’t Quit, You Just Pretend You Haven’t

There is too large a gray area between accomplishing your goals and giving up. Many lives are lost in this gray area where you fool yourself that you are doing enough, but deep down, you know you aren’t truly giving it your all. When it’s time to look in the mirror, we must be honest with ourselves.

Wasting time playing games instead of reading or writing = GIVING UP!

I may as well quit reading and writing and spend all my free time doomscrolling while frying my brain’s dopamine structure.

Not counting my calories, eating things I’m not supposed to, and just going through the motions in my workouts = GIVING UP!

Just allow yourself to become overweight, sick, and depressed because you don’t care about what you eat and spend half your workouts scrolling on your phone.

Stop Being Gentle When It’s No Longer Working

These statements may come across as rude or harsh, but sometimes the time for gentleness and sensitivity has passed, and you have to try something different.

At some point, you can’t continue to be the nice guy or gal to yourself because that allows excuses to seep in and disrupt your momentum. If you’re going to pretend to be disciplined, you may as well not do it at all, because you’re only wasting your own time.

Time Is the Final Judge

Question every action with this: “Is this action moving me closer to my goals?” if thats not enough, then remember that time is the most valuable asset in the world, it’s the only thing you can’t buy back, don’t let another second slip by.

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Book Ponder focuses on the incredible power of reading, and even though stand-alone articles like these are unique ideas, I like to credit any books that inspired or gave me the resources for the idea.