What do you desire to do or achieve in your life, and how bad do you want it? And how hard are you willing to work to achieve it?

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The hustler spirit

A wise idea from my buddy Nietzsche— the idea that if we know what our purpose or why is in life, we can discover any “how”. This means,

If anything is important enough to you in life, you will naturally hustle hard enough to achieve that!

Natural hustle

In life, I think the primary question we should ask is,

How bad do I want it?

You should use your own naturalistic filter to determine this. You shouldn’t ever need to “force” yourself to do anything. You’re either passionate and enthusiastic about something or not.

A simple concept in life:

Don’t do anything you’re not passionate about in life.

In modern society, we have enough specialized labor for you not do what you don’t want to do. For example if you hate doing finances, you can always find someone else to do it for you.

Don’t do what you’re not passionate about.

I encourage you to only focus on doing what you’re passionate about. For example, my passion lies at the intersection of photography, blogging, philosophy, art, travel, culture, technology, physiology, and entrepreneurship. I dive deep into all these subjects, not out of some “duty” or send of “obligation”.

I study and research these things because I am naturally curious and passionate about learning more about these things. I don’t need to “force” myself to work on these things, yet I naturally pursue these interests 12 hours a day.

We are not cattle

Heraclitus once said, “All animals are driven by blows [cattle prods]”. For (dumb) animals, we train them by inflicting physical punishment upon them, or we prod them to move by whipping them (consider how jockeys whip their horses to run faster).

The problem is in modern society, we are getting trained like cattle. Our school teachers and parents give us the metaphysical prod of guilt, shame, and a sense of “duty”.

You ain’t a cow. Don’t let others prod you into doing what is “best for yourself”. Only you know what is best for yourself. Ignore ‘advice’ from other people; only listen to yourself, and obey your own needs and desires.

What is the fire of Entrepreneurship?

I think it is ultimately desire which drives our entrepreneurial spirit.

For example, when I was 15 years old, I really wanted a car. To me, a car was a symbol of freedom — I wanted to drive myself around, and do things according to my own schedule.

Thus, I started to learn how to hustle. I picked up some jobs tutoring kids, and started a business where I built custom computers (ordered parts on newegg.com) and then sold them for around a $100 profit. I collected all my shekels, and bought my first car– a 1991 Sentra XE (5-speed), for $1200 USD. It was probably one of my proudest moments of my life– the car was mine, and I worked damn hard for it.

Even when I was working full-time at my old office job (age 22), I had this insane burning desire to NOT work a corporate job. I wanted to be self-employed so bad, that I pursued this blog and street photography 110%. I hustled so fucking hard, because I wanted freedom so fucking bad.

Thus this is a principle I believe:

Hustle can only derive from desire.

Why is desire seen as a bad thing?

Yet the confusing thing is this:

In modern society, we are told that having desires is bad.

A lot of Christian and Buddhist-Zen morality tells us this:

All desire is bad, because it leads to dissatisfaction. When you don’t have what you desire, you are depressed. When you obtain what you desire, you want more (thus you will continue to be depressed).

Thus the solution seems to be:

“Do nothing, desire nothing, and you will never feel depressed.”

I think this is wrong.

Desire is good.

Desire is the stimulus to our life. A life without desire is a life not worth living.

Now, everyone desires different things. From a moralistic or ethical perspective, I don’t think there are any ultimate “good” or “bad” desires. All desires are either authentic (you truly desire it) or inauthentic (you have been suckered or tricked by others to think you want it).

Desire isn’t just desiring to buy stuff. Desire is having a desire to create, to mould, too transform, and to erect. For myself, I think the best desire is creative– the desire to CREATE and make stuff (whether photos, videos, films, poems, books, etc).

What do you desire in life?

Thus as a simple idea, ask yourself:

What do I desire in life?

Specifically.

What do I desire to do, become, or create in life?

For myself, I have discovered that ultimately, all material things are kind of “meh”. I inherited a fancy Rolex Oyster Perpetual Datejust from my grandfather from circa 1950’s, and it is beautiful. Yet, it hasn’t changed my life in any meaningful way.

It was always my dream to obtain a Leica M9, and when I did– it was great for about a month or two. Then soon it became “whatever” like all the other cameras I’ve owned in the past. I really wanted a 13” MacBook Pro Touch Bar (Space Grey), and once I got it, I just got used to it, and I don’t really appreciate it anymore (although having said that, it has aided me in being more productive).

The same can be said with phones, cars, clothes, homes, etc. We will eventually get bored and used to all material things.

The best way to avoid boredom

But what don’t we get bored of? Activity! We never get bored of doing things, or making things.

For example, there are some types of photography that I get bored of, but I will never get bored of the act of making photos, or the general art-concept of photography.

Conclusion

To conclude, some takeaways:

Be truly honest with yourself: “What do I desire in my life, and how bad do I want it?” And if you really want it bad, how hard are you willing to work to achieve or obtain it?
Don’t let others super-impose their morals and ethics unto you. Don’t let others tell you what you “should” do in your life, and how you can “improve” your life. Only you can dictate what is best for you.
There are no ‘bad’ or ‘good’ desires. All desires are subjective; just make sure you aren’t getting suckered into wanting to buy something that you don’t really want.
Activity is always more fun than ownership. Once you buy anything, it loses its appeal. Activity– doing stuff never gets boring. Thus, it seems to make sense to focus your life on action; writing, photographing, doing things and making things!

LIVE ON!
ERIC

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