Around two weeks ago, I had one of the most significant and impactful conversations I've had in a long time.
I have to admit this was a selfish statement. The conversation was significant and impactful in the sense that it reaffirmed some changes and new ideas that have been steadily developing in my mind, both regarding my personal philosophy as well as regarding the way I can and have to serve my audience. Whether it was impactful on the other person involved, I’m not so sure.
I had a coffee with my, as he likes to say, cosmic friend.
Believe it or not, in the span of a year and a half, I bumped into this guy on the street in three different countries, without us being in contact or aware that we'd moved to the same place. He was one of the first people I met when I first left my home country in January of last year. We spent only a couple of days in the same place, but it was more than enough for him to leave a lasting impression on me. We ran into each other on the street where millions of people walk every day about 9 months later, thousands of miles away from where we first met. Last week, another 9 months after our second encounter, I was walking down the street in a new country I moved to when I heard "David! David!" It was him again.
My friend, who will stay unnamed, is one of the most interesting people I've met in my life. Also one of the most educated. At least in matters of philosophy and religion.
The very first time we met, we ended up having an almost 3-hour-long conversation that included Buddha, Jesus, psychedelic experiences, silence retreats, Nietzsche, and Jung. All topics initiated by him.
He is also, to put it lightly, not living up to his potential. Or, let's not put it lightly. That's not what we're here for.
One of the first things he said to me when we sat to have coffee the other day was, "David, I am wasting my life. I know I am. And if something doesn't change soon, I will spend the rest of my life hating myself."
You see, no matter how interesting, educated, and kind-hearted my cosmic is, he has been living in an extremely undisciplined and irresponsible way for a little too long.
He is the perfect example of what happens when a person continuously makes the wrong choices, doesn't learn from their mistakes, keeps succumbing to their lowest desires, refuses to even try to change, and repeats the cycle.
The situation I found him in at this time was the following: jobless, no true friends in life, depending on charity from his family for basic survival, and managing to screw up a relationship with a lady who was seemingly the only person in his life who saw him beyond his flaws and failures and believed he could change.
I want to point out that there is no shame in finding yourself in any of these situations, especially the financial one. We are human. We make mistakes. We screw up.
But where his story becomes problematic is when you realize this is not his first time being in the same or similar situation. It’s also not his second time. Nor the third.
However, he is also not the first person I met who didn’t learn from his or her mistakes. What makes his case unique, or at least interesting for us, is what he shares in common with you and me: his love for big ideas.
You see, my friend has a set of philosophical, religious, and spiritual beliefs that he subscribes to. If you were to ask him how one should live, or at least how he should live, he would be quick to answer. However, all of this stays in the realm of knowing, believing, and talking about it. It's not actualized and brought to life through real-world action.
As mentioned before, he is aware that he is wasting his life and even says it himself. He is living a life of failing on his duties and responsibilities and indulging in cheap and short-term pleasures (of which at least one is an addiction). It’s a life of no self-respect.
Contrary to what you might expect based on how much I have to say through my writing, in real life I prefer to listen. And when someone shares their personal struggles with me, I am not quick to give advice. So I listened carefully to the compilation of moments where my friend let himself and his loved ones down and felt disgusted with what his life has become. I developed a close enough connection to him to be able to feel angry while listening to this. Angry at him for wasting his potential. Angry for the harm he was causing himself and the emotional pain he was bringing to his loved ones. But I felt empathy in equal measure, knowing how difficult it can be to get out of the downward spiral once you've fallen into it deep enough. His story also made me realize that, if it weren’t for a couple of important people in my life and a fortunate set of circumstances, I could’ve ended up in a similar situation as my friend. With the exception that I wouldn’t be able to travel around the world while ruining my life.
Once he was done retelling his most recent and biggest failures, he surprised me by asking directly, "How can I change?"
"You are embodying your philosophy. Every time we met, I could see that you were actually living true to your values. Do you think I’m a lost cause?"
Most of all, it felt uncomfortable to hear this. The very first thing I had to say is that I know he’s not a lost cause. Then, I had to remind him, just as I should maybe remind anyone reading this, that I am far from someone who has it all figured out. Yes, I have an ideal, and I am making an effort to move closer to it, but I am nowhere near reaching it.
Once I got that out of the way, I could finally focus on the part of his question that made me hopeful: his willingness to change.
However, I didn’t stay hopeful for too much longer.
I believe the last couple of years of personally dealing with self-destructive thinking and behavior patterns, as well as overcoming both internal and external struggles, gave me enough competence to at least try to help him. And one of the biggest realizations I received through my personal experience was that, whether I was trying to eliminate a bad habit, deal with my anxiety, or solve my financial struggles, nothing could be achieved solely with thoughts, no matter how great those thoughts were. I had to get my head out of the clouds and focus on real-world action.
So I started discussing with my friend what are some changes that he could make in his life tomorrow morning, if not today. What are the actions where the barrier is low enough so that he wouldn’t need to "fix" himself before committing to them long-term but would rather use them as a lever that would initiate his change. And you know what’s the most encouraging fact about this? When you approach personal change in this manner and ask these questions, there is not a single person, no matter their situation, that isn’t able to find multiple small but significant changes they can make in their life today.
However, as soon as we started talking about the concrete stuff—the stuff that might seem boring and unglamorous but undoubtedly makes one’s life—my friend found a way to shift the conversation to the higher plane. He escaped from discussing daily real-world actions into religious, spiritual, and philosophical ideas that had no bearing on the actuality of his life. This is where I started thinking about my audience.
I can’t count how many times over the last couple of years I engaged in a conversation with a follower/reader who reached out, saying they wanted to change something concrete about their life, only for them to turn it into an intellectual discussion with no real-world effect. I’m not sure how this sounds coming from someone who likes to talk to you about philosophy and psychology and reference some of the world’s greatest thinkers, but there isn't much intellectual discussion needed to change your life. At least not to change your life from the state of you hating it and being miserable into having some stability that allows you to work towards creating something greater out of yourself and your life.
But back to my friend for a brief moment before I turn fully to you. We spent somewhere around five hours walking together that day. With more patience than I knew I could have for someone who isn’t my family, I listened to the philosophical gymnastics he used to explain why he didn’t, and probably won’t, make any real effort to change his life or to avoid the topic entirely. The question of not getting drunk or high every day turned into a discussion about the fabric of reality. The question of developing a regular sleeping pattern turned into a question about the nature of consciousness. As we parted ways, I told him that I'd be there for him whenever he decided to take concrete action to better himself. It looked like he smiled and acknowledged me just to make me feel good.
When I arrived at my place, I wrote a note to myself and to you. I would like to share it with you in its raw form, edited only for grammar errors. Although it may not be stylistically the best way to conclude this essay, I feel it will express most genuinely why I'm sharing this story and what I want you to take out of it.
Yes, it’s cool to talk about the fabric of reality. Much cooler than talking about how to wake up on time, develop healthy habits, and stay consistent.
But I don’t want to talk to you about those cool, abstract questions if you are at the point in your life I think you are.
Far too many people around me, both in my private life and in this amazing online community we created together, don’t have some of the most important human needs met.
Usually, one or more of the following is true: they are struggling financially, have trouble creating or maintaining healthy relationships, can’t stick to productive habits, fail to move closer to their goals, and have little or no sense of self-worth.
As I’ve experienced all of these myself, I’ve come to realize that the responsible thing to do is to recognize that you can't afford to get lost in, or maybe escape into, the world of big ideas that hold no weight in real life. You must face the hard facts of your reality and address them with concrete action.
I’m not saying to lose your sense of wonder and curiosity. Never. There is always a place in life for the things that don’t serve the purpose of achieving some specific goal but are done, experienced, read, or talked about for their own sake. You don’t need to choose one or the other. But the unglamorous and often boring reality of daily, consistent action is what brings to your life the stability and structure that are necessary to attain the privilege of spending time on cool and abstract questions without it being an irresponsible escape from your responsibilities.
If you are not satisfied with who you are and what your life is and are not making any real-world effort to change that, I don’t want to talk with you about the fabric of reality.
Everyone is free to use the depths and heights of human thought for whatever they want. But if you are using humanity's great and intriguing ideas just to avoid the things in front of you that need addressing, that's not much different than using Instagram or Netflix to do the same thing, if you ask me.
Thank you for reading.
Free Resources:
My free ebook: The Lost Art of Reading
Paid Resources:
The Art of Showing Up: A Clear and Practical Method for Mastering Consistency
The Gold Pill: Timeless Ideas for a Life Worth Living
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You are so right about this. We use our intellectual interests to distract ourselves away from the realities of our lives. It's simply more entertaining and exciting than doing something as humbling and as simple as getting your shit together day by day
Superb read as always friend... inspiring many around the globe. Thanks for sharing 🩵☝🏻