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miraculouskpop · 6 years ago

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MKP Series | Ladybug and Wolf

Chapter III: This isn't a Story.

Oh Sehun was quite the interesting character for a teenager. Quiet, calculating the objectives laid before him and taking haste action. Perhaps his actions are a little too immediate for understanding, but his intelligent excuses makes up for irrational decisions. His thoughts aren't too immature, at least he thinks so himself, and new talents keeps appearing whenever he learns a new subject. He’s smart, naturally attractive (although he could improve his skin tone…) and carry silent charm that woos both students and teachers.

Yeah, he’s everything losers want to be. So what? Like he gives a shit. Girls love him, boys want to be his posers and teachers ready to place him in honors class. It’s the sweet life, right? Perhaps. He doesn't consider it as sweet, but it’s a hell lot better than dealing with this shit.

This was an incredible case of stupidity.

Yes, he admit that he made a terrible decision. It’s burning his ass every single day whenever snobs laughs at his failures. People assume he’s some quiet moron sulking through humiliation, hah! They don't know a genius when they see one…

“We meet again tomorrow at four. In the meantime, maintain the training and we’ll overview your new diet plan.” Diet plan. Cut this, remove that, reduce this amount and add more repulsive garbage to his digestive system. Four months in and Sehun is ready to succumb to his bubble tea cravings. It's horrible having sugar withdrawals and being restricted from eating bungeoppang, it’s living hell. Wanna know what else is horrible? Everyone treating him like some stranger.

He’s not a stranger.

Sehun left the studio with no one to accompany him. Oddly, this pang sat within his chest for days now. This feeling of deep loneliness, although it’s something he’ll never speak of publicly. Unfortunate to say, but he missed those ugly boys fawning over him, the girls constantly annoying him with cellphone requests. Sehun had to transfer to another school in order to reach distance between the dormitory and that cursed entertainment building.

Those bastards.

But it was him alone who signed the final line. Your fault. His mind whispers, and Sehun realized that he probably deserved it. He didn't know anyone, and it seems that nobody's interested in knowing him either. Maybe they all joined for one purpose, and that’s attaining SM’s official status as celebrity.

Sehun walked briskly into the midnight hour. He didn’t want to be bothered with anyone, let alone deal with the summer heat radiating against his skin. He knew signing the contract would lead to rigorous training and mental stability, but he vowed he could do it. He can do anything if he just believed, right? If only his current actions would reflect the hopeful notion that he’ll succeed. But it really doesn’t matter, anyway.

The teen stood at the stop light waiting for the electric sign to flash green. Sehun preoccupied himself by scrolling naver on mobile ((slow internet due to pissy coverage)) and played some hip hop music. The moment the light flashed green, Sehun pushed past the crowd. However, what Sehun didn’t realize he legitimately pushed someone, particularly an old man, onto the ground. Sehun froze in surprise, “I’m sorry sir. Are you okay?” He felt embarrassed and somewhat guilty to for not paying attention. Sehun bend his knees to help the old man, and then notice how short the elder was. The old man simply chuckled as he carefully grabbed his cane. “I’m quite fine,” he said, “Getting rather old for these late travels... Thank you young man for helping me. What’s your name, child?”

“Uh, Sehun. Oh Sehun.” It felt strange talking to an old man in the middle of the street. “Well then, Oh Sehun, would you like to attain a gift far superior than physical needs?”

Uh…

Sehun stared blankly at the old man. What the hell is this guy talking about? “Um, not really-“

“I understand your hurting deeply. Your depression outweighs your confidence, and sometimes it is hard concealing sorrowful emotions.” Sehun immediately lunged on defense. How dare this ignorant old goon tell him that he’s depressed! He is not depressed! In fact, he’s doing a hell lot better than normal! This ridiculous pruned nutbag. “Excuse me, but I need to leave-“

“If you had the opportunity to become a hero, would you accept?”

“Sure, yeah, whatever. I gotta go now. Bye.” Ugh, this man is giving him the creeps. Sehun raced across the street before the light turned red. He couldn't help but to shudder at the strange circumstance. What was that all about? Talk about weird. When he finally made it to the moderately fair dormitory, Sehun could feel his insides churn in distress. After abandoning his friends for his current lifestyle, he haven't met anyone rather interesting. No one bothers to talk to him, and his previous friends are too preoccupied with school clubs and other friends.

Okay, it hurts. It’s nobody's fault but his own. Sehun released a dreary sigh before punching in the codes to the entrance. Better take a shower and go to sleep…

He made it up the stairs and unlocked the door. It’s considered a small officetel to some, and thankfully he doesn’t have to deal with crooks stealing his stuff. Darkness swallowed Sehun whole, yet he felt emptier than ever before. He trekked through the living room and into the bathroom, took a hot shower, changed into his pajamas and returned to the tiny space for a kitchen. He then ate a small bowl of whole wheat cereal and slices of an apple. Oh, how he missed sugar cereal…

Sehun walked to his bed and prepared to sleep when he found a box resting idly against his pillow. Huh? He doesn't recall a box. The teenager snatched it, opened the box and found an intricate metal watch inside. Hm, looks very nice. He pulled the watch out the box and inspected it. Tiny white paw marks trailed the edges of watch. In the center there was a symbolic white wolf with the hand formed as a silver paw. Behind the wolf was a full moon, and Sehun found it rather unusual for a watch, but nonetheless liked the design.

Looks cool. Sehun slipped his wrist between the hooks and grinned. Wondered who would give him this? It fits his wrists perfectly…

There was a small click, and then a flash of bright light.

Sehun winced when the light began to fade. Like, what the heck just happened? The teen shook his head, and noticed something rather… Different. Different in what way? Well, there’s something floating in front of him.

. . .

… What the absolute fuc-

“Excuse me, but if you’re planning to swear, please reconsider it.” That thing said. Holy hell, did it just spoke? What the hell is this? Sehun immediately back away in horror. He blinked, and blinked again. Hell, he even rubbed his eyes to ensure he wasn't seeing things. However, that floating thing was still there! “What the hell are you?!” Fear drowned out his senses as he continued moving away from the thing. Hair stood above Sehun’s neck when the thing flew towards him.

“Don’t hurt me!" Sehun covered himself in case the thing decided to possess him.

Nothing.

Sehun peeked to find the thing directly facing him. By its expression it seemed unamused, and its arms folded in a rather irritable fashion. “Cut the hogwash. You are the new miraculous holder, and I’m your guardian. The name is Apollo, by the way.” H-huh? Sehun looked at the thing in confusion. Wait. Thing isn't the correct word, but rather wolf.

Is he, Oh Sehun, listening to a floating bobbleheaded wolf? “I must be crazy.” He whispered.

“Crazy? Hm, perhaps. But this situation is nowhere near insane. I am very much real, and your conscious is simply denying my presence, but don't worry, it’ll become accustomed very quickly.” “Apollo” said.

No, no, this not real… It can't be! “Oh child, don't you know it’ll only make the circumstances more difficult? Just accept things as they are.”

“I… But…- you’re not real!”

Apollo tilted its (his?) head, “Oh?” Its voice was deep for a tiny creature. “You are responding to me, so this only proves my statement. This is reality now, and your brain can easily process the situation if you only accept it.”

“What the hell are you?” Sehun sneered at the creature. Grey fur covered its entire body, leaving silver tufts by the edge of his jagged ears. Bright topaz for eyes, Apollo gazed at him, “I am a kwami. Specifically speaking, I am a seven thousand year old god inhibiting the body of a Eurasian canis lupis. Or wolf, if that would be simpler for you.”

“Why-“

“I’m assuming you're inquiring why I am here? Well, I honestly have no opinion. Fate destined us, and since I’m your new guardian I must teach you the ways of being an efficient miraculous holder. I am the god of protection, mobility and wisdom. I am the Alpha and the Omega, and I will guide you for where you need to be.”

Sehun grew confused, “What?” He didn’t understand any of this. A wolf god mention about destiny and guardian junk, none of it makes sense! “Miraculous holders are people inheriting a magical jewelry piece. We kwamis fuel the jewelry piece with our powers which gives the miraculous holders their own special abilities.” Abilities you say? A spark of interest captured Sehun. He didn’t understand the process whatsoever, but having special powers brought out the inner fantasy child within him. “So, if I accept you, then you’ll train me to become a skilled superhero?” Just imagine not only being a professional dancer, but an attractive badass superhero fighting crime with girls wetting their underwear every damn second.

… Omit the underwear part.

“Hm, exactly.”

“Okay, deal.” This is so… So freaking amazing. “So, uh, what now?” He already accepted this errm, kwami wolf, so it does it mean he already have magical powers? “If possible, may we properly discuss this over some tea?”

… Tea? “You drink tea?” Sehun asked in bewilderment.

“Oh yes, and I would gladly consume a bowl of tofu.” Tofu? When did a carnivorous mammal ever desire tea and tofu? “Okay… I don't have any tofu, but I do have tea. Is green tea fine?”

Apollo smiled, “Perfectly.”

And so, here Sehun sat at the table with a tiny wolf creature sipping away at some tea. “This watch is considered a miraculous, right?”

“Exactly. It represents the abilities of wolves, and might alter your own perception. You see, previous miraculous holders happened to release their inner “wolf” when paired with me. Not only does your physical appearance change, but your mental state as well.”

Sehun narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “What do you by mental state?” He doesn’t want to become a literal werewolf pissing and shitting all over people. Apollo held up a paw, “No need to worry, it’s nothing of what you would perceive. Your regular human senses would be heightened by the third cubed. I suggest when transforming to practice managing the senses before anything else, afterwards I'll train how to conduct yourself when fighting.”

“Do I defeat bad guys?”

“With this brewing evil I detect, you'll be battling more than akumas alone...” Apollo then lapped up some more green tea. Sehun had many questions to ask the kwami starting with these quote, “akumas”. What where they exactly? “To simplify your questions, an evil human decided to manipulate and abuse one of the kwamis. Keeping this in mind, the miraculous holder is abusing the butterfly kwami who can bestow any human being supernatural abilities. Since it’s manipulated into negative energy, these powered beings are titled akumas.” Akuma, huh? Sounds interesting to fight. “What powers do I get? Do I become awesome with badass weapons? Or like, I have psychic abilities and-“

“Relax yourself Sehun,”

Wait.

How do this wolf know his name? He doesn't recall giving out personal information. “Yes Sehun, when I awoke from my slumber I already knew my wielder’s name. It’s the first step to creating an intimate bond.”

… Oh.

Sehun slumped in the chair. Thousands of thoughts attacked his mind relentlessly, and it begged the question. Why him? What does he have to offer? Looks? “Why am I chosen? I mean, like, it’s not like I wanted to deliberately help people. I’m not exactly superhero material…” More likely anti-hero because it’s sound way more cooler. Apollo looked at Sehun with a sarcastic, “are you serious?” Look. “I honestly have no conclusion. But you’re selected to become a miraculous wielder. Regardless, would you like to try out your abilities for testing?”

“Hell yeah! " Sehun shouted, then he quickly resolved himself. “I mean, sure, I’ll try.” Guess he can miss a night of sleep for this. “You have to state my name, then the term, “howl shift,” and-“

“Apollo, howl shift!”

“Wait! I’m not finished-!“ Apollo couldn’t complete his sentence for he was sucked into the watch.

#ml #miraculous #miraculous ladybug #miraculous kpop #miraculers #au #fanfiction #kpop #exo #f(x)#blackpick #bts #fiction #fanart #tikki the kwami #apollo the wolf #chapter three

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myaekingheart · 7 years ago

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Let's Take a Moment to Talk about Eating Disorders

This is the only thing that's been running in the back of my mind for days, weeks, maybe even months so I think it's time I sat down and really talked about this for a second. First off, I really hate myself. Let's just get that out of the way. If I didn't, I probably wouldn't be putting myself through so much torture. Not that I can even control much of this. The issue is that I know I have an eating disorder, but I just don't know what the fuck it is. I feel like eating disorders are very hit-or-miss in the diagnosis department. There's a handful of really well-researched and apparently common ones and then anything that doesn't fit the bill gets tossed into a junk drawer full of wide spectrum scenarios. I am one of those people in the junk drawer. I don't fit into any of the other boxes. I am an outlier, an unusual suspect. Of all the cases in which I am the strange, uncategorized lowlife, I never thought that the same would apply to eating disorders, as well.

Should I see a doctor or a therapist or something for all of this? Probably. Will I ever? I guess we'll see what happens. The thought of sitting in a room with a stranger going over all of this just comes off as unnerving and intimidating. Granted, not that spewing all of this nonsense out onto the internet is any better. At least here, I'm not guaranteed anyone will listen. I can tell you all I'm carrying the child of a one-eyed alien and you'd all probably go about your business as normal. But in a doctor's office, that's another story. They're staring at you taking notes on everything you're saying and the worst part is that you're shelling out tons of cash for them to do so. Then they'll look over everything they wrote down and overanalyze you, diagnose you with fifteen million different problems, and hand you a prescription and send you on your way. Probably. I've never done this sort of thing before so I wouldn't know, but that's how I assume it happens. Either that or it turns into a commitment where you're obligated to return once a week to chat about your problems and your pseudo progress. What a waste of time. Just like this entire paragraph.

Anyways, back to the important shit: the whole reason I'm even typing out all of this crap at 8am on a Wednesday. I have some unidentified problem and I don't know how to fix it. I've always had problems but I feel like more recently, they've only gotten worse and that scares me. When I was a kid, I had some mild eating issues but I don't ever remember it being anything too drastic. My earliest memory of disordered eating was when I was about three. My parents were having some kind of party and all I remember is sitting on the floor in the basement-turned-playroom among all the other kids while a marathon of Mr. Bean tapes was playing on the TV. I specifically remember the one where he meets the queen, the scene in which he's having trouble with his fly and has his finger sticking out of it to look as if he's whipped his dick out. Lovely to think that Rowan Atkinson gave me just the slightest first glimpse into understanding male genitalia. But anyways, I don't remember what exactly happened at this party to make me do this but somehow I must've spiralled into panic and that manifested itself in a refusal to eat. I went almost a full 24 hours without eating, if I remember correctly, and was fixed only when my mom whipped out a vintage Fisher Price nurse we fondly called Nurse Peggy who convinced me to nibble on some Ritz crackers. I don't have too many other wildly vivid memories of Nurse Peggy but according to my parents, she needed to be whipped out A LOT. I guess I was just one of those kids who didn't like to eat, or was a wildly picky eater. I remember panicking one time because my mom made tuna noodle casserole, one of my favorites, but there was a dark piece of mushroom in it that I swore was the missing leg off one of my little plastic ladybugs and it terrified the fuck out of me. But yeah, so this shit has evidently been going on for quite some time.

Ironically enough, around the same time this eating bullshit started, so did my anxiety. My very first panic attack had to have been when I was about three years old, as well. My mom and I were on ebay looking at a vintage Fisher Price castle when I guess I got so excited that I spiralled into a full-blown anxiety attack. I remember becoming suddenly overwhelmed with a loss of control over my body, shaking and hyperventilating and feeling like I was going to be sick. I have a very distinct memory of my mom tucking me into her bed and calling her own mother in an absolute panic, asking her what the hell she ought to do and being fully ready to drive me to the emergency room if need be. Obviously I calmed down after a while but it was the most terrifying experience of my young life. Little did I know that it was only the first of many panic attacks. Probably about ten or so years ago, I was officially diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. In fifth grade, I was having panic attacks every single night to the point where it became disgustingly routine. My doctor took what I told her into consideration, diagnosed me, and prescribed me some anti-anxiety meds. They didn't last very long. Sure, they made me feel great but all I could think about was what my doctor told me about there being a high risk of addiction. I've never been one for medications for that exact reason (when I was little, during Red Ribbon Week one year we were literally given a coloring page about how you shouldn't take medicine if you don't need it and that doing so can kill you-- I distinctly remember it was two panels of two kids in a bathroom and I'm pretty sure there was a medicine cabinet filled with drugs and it was all very Schoolhouse Rock-esque in style but carried a very dark and brooding message). That coupled with the fact that the medication gave me some pretty hefty bathroom issues, I gave up on it after a couple of days. I know you shouldn't quit any medication without a doctor's consent but quite frankly, I didn't give a fuck. I wanted off and I wanted off now. Looking back, sometimes I wonder if giving up on those pills was the wrong decision, if I would've been better off if I had continued them all these years. Sometimes I wonder if I needed them more than I was willing to admit. Anxiety has affected and influenced every aspect of my life from irrational panic attacks during college orientation to trichotillomania during times of stress or when I'm insomniatic to, you guessed it, eating disorders.

Sometimes I feel like my brain is a playground and all the disorders going on in my head are small children running rampant together at recess, playing tag and hide and go seek. They all work in conjunction with one another like the cogs of a clock, winding together and grinding together. Anxiety is the queen bee, the line leader, and everything else follows suit in response to it. I pull my hair out sometimes because I'm anxious. I don't sleep because I'm anxious. I don't like high ceilings because they make me anxious. I don't eat because I'm anxious. And if anxiety was to have a little sister, it would be called emetophobia. I've been emetophobic for as long as I can remember, even though for the longest time I didn't have a word for the disorder. It was just that terrible, debilitating fear of throwing up. There was one girl back in first and second grade who used to tease me about it. She'd just sit there at lunch and say puke or barf or vomit and I'd instantly lose my appetite and feel woozy. I wonder if she ever regrets doing that to me. I wonder if she even has any idea the affects that had on me as a kid. Obviously nobody thinks vomiting is pleasant, even those with the more well known eating disorders who induce themselves (I doubt they find the actual act pleasant, regardless of how purging themselves makes them feel) but with me, the hatred and discomfort toward it is so extreme that it-- you guessed it-- gives me panic attacks. This has been perhaps the most recent culprit of my eating issues as of late, this emetophobia. And unfortunately, this isn't the first time something like this has happened.

When I was a kid, during the time I was getting panic attacks every night, one of the big things I feared was vomiting. A few days after my birthday that year, I had eaten a slice of leftover cheesecake at 9:34pm while watching reruns of I Love Lucy and later that night, I violently threw up. I still even remember what it looked like ten years later if that gives you any indication of just how bad this vomit phobia is. The cheesecake tasted like coffee and because of this, I couldn't stand the smell of coffee for a year or two afterward, having massive freakouts when my parents would make their nightly cups and forcing them to spray Febreeze throughout the entire house to try and mask the scent. To this day, the smell of coffee still sends a shiver down my spine. One of the main reasons why I don't drink it. Because of this experience, however (and the fact that almost every time I have vomited, it's been at night), I quickly fell into this vicious cycle of situational restriction. I refused to eat after dark out of the absolute fear that nighttime alone would cause my vomiting. This honestly became incredibly debilitating, and was especially a nuisance when daylight savings time ended and it began to get darker earlier. I'd constantly try and get my family to cater to this irrational fear, begging for dinners as early as 4pm just so I could avoid the possibility of thowing it all up after dark. Eventually, this all somehow petered out and I got back onto a more normal eating schedule but for the longest time, this was a massive problem and I'm terrified to say that I think it may be making a comeback.

The past few months have been pivotal for me. I spent a year straight toiling away in college in order to get my associate's degree as quickly as possible, then literally the very next day after my last final exam, I moved 300 miles away into an apartment with my boyfriend. It's been taking a while to adjust and I still find myself having some troubles even now three months later. In a way, a part of me feels like perhaps I wasn't entirely ready to move out in the first place. I can't drive, I've never had a job. I basically fall behind in every single aspect of adulthood except academically. And even though my boyfriend and I had been planning this months ahead of time and spoke of moving in together very early in our relationship, it still feels like everything moved outrageously fast. Living on my own has been wildly different than living with my parents, as well, both for the good and the bad. The good involves a newfound sense of freedom and the excitement of starting a new life-- one in which my boyfriend and I are not long distance, the beginning of spending the rest of our lives together. The bad, however, includes a chaotic aimlessness, a lack of structure, and crippling reponsibility. In the short few months I've been living on my own, I've found myself spiraling into a series of strange habits that are probably good for my finances but bad for my mental health, and the majority of them revolve around eating. First and foremost is the comeback of the nighttime fears. Because my boyfriend works retail, he works a broad range of hours that can fall anywhere from early morning shifts at 6am to closing shifts where he doesn't come home until almost midnight. This makes our routine very unstable because things change every day. Some nights we'll eat dinner at a solid 7pm and other times, food won't even be a thought until almost one in the morning when he gets home and has taken some time to relax. In a perfect world, this would be great. I always wanted to live aimlessly with zero structure, just eat and sleep whenever I please. Now that I'm here, though, the implications are terrifying. I've been getting panic attacks every single night for the past month or two whenever I eat without fail. But they're not the normal types of panic attacks that involve hyperventilating and full-body trembling and sweaty palms. Instead, these are much quieter and more akin to a persistent fear than anything else. It's a rising in my chest, a lump in my throat, the feeling that I can't swallow or that the food is going to come back up like acid reflux. It's the constant feeling that at any second, my chair is going to tilt back or a giant hand is going to peel the ceiling away or the floor will cave in and an immense gravity wil suck me down to the earth's core. This isn't so much a problem with breakfast or lunch or whatever the fuck you can consider my daytime meals these days. It's only at night when things get heavy and I feel like everything is caving in. Because of this, I feel like I can't eat. Even if I wanted to, even if I'm starving, I physically cannot bring myself to overcome these feelings and just eat. Every time I try, my throat tightens up and I'm seized by this overwhelming sensation of something rising up within me and my body jolts in the same way as when someone sneaks up behind you and touches your shoulder or your back or your arm. I spend my nights hiding this as I glance at my food, shift uncomfortably in my seat, rub the back of my neck or tug on my earlobe or squeeze my foot, constantly chanting over and over again in my head to just breathe, that I'm fine, that I'm not going to be sick. For a while, I just attributed all of this to leftover symptoms of a cold I had a few months back. I had insane postnasal drip which, as an emetophobic, I refused to hock up and spit out so it just stayed in my system building up and circulating and choking me. A part of me is still convinced that's part of the problem. But now I know that it's also so much more than that. It's not just leftover phlegm, it's also anxiety and restriction and absolute fear.

The other big contributing issue here has to do with obsession. Obsession with ingredients, obsession with calories, obsession with body image. This is where the more textbook features of eating disorders come into play. I've always had a love-hate relationship with my body image. I've always been very petite, always the shortest kid in my elementary school classes and I could still fit into size 3T skirts when I was in, like, second grade. At first, it wasn't anything other than just being small. I was still a healthy weight for my height and age, I had some baby fat on me. I looked fine. Second grade, however, was when everything hit the fan. I think at the end of the day, it all boils down to my teacher. I remember her as this chubby woman with gray hair and glasses who kind of reminded me of Ursula from The Little Mermaid. She was the first teacher I ever had who never blatantly praised me. All my other teachers were incredibly kind and nurturing women who saw so much potential in me and made me feel like I was capable of anything. I'm not saying that this is entirely the greatest tactic just because I don't think we should teach our children that they are the best ever and that they can do absolutely anything no matter what (just hang on here, I'm not sadistic, I'm making a very valid point), but I'm not saying that being really tough on them is great either. I firmly believe in teaching our children that they can do whatever they set their minds on given that they work hard. That success is directly influenced by effort but that they can accomplish anything so long as they just work for it. It's a very Tiana-esque method (from The Princess and the Frog). My second grade teacher, however, was one of those really tough women. I always felt like nothing I did was ever good enough for her. I remember getting freaked out after she lectured us on the dangers of plaigiarism and watched us sinisterly as we worked on a classwork assignment about it, then graded us harshly and marked points off if even a snippet of a sentence was exactly like the passage. She also made us use those stupid rubber grips on our pencils that forced us to hold them a certain way and she'd yell at us if we took them off. Now, for some kids I understand that this kind of discipline is good for them but I was not like most kids. I started reading when I was two and always colored inside the lines. In third grade, I found out I was mentally gifted and spent the rest of my elementary school career spending one full day a week doing additional classwork in gifted programs. My mind has a very specific way of working that this bitch was not tolerant to. It was exactly like that quote about how you can't test a fish on it's ability to climb a tree and expect it to do well. No matter what I did, if I didn't do things her way, she wasn't satisfied and that was really detrimental to my self esteem. It was this year that I started really changing for the worst. I lost all my baby fat and became incredibly thin. I was still a super picky eater, restricting myself to things like carrots + dip and chicken nuggets. This was also about the time when I started becoming really moody and disagreeable, which has honestly never changed since. I used to come home from school in a really good mood, like my parents would pick me up and I'd be happy and bubbly and ramble on about my day. Instead, now I was snappy and rude and easily frustrated. School wasn't coming to me as easily as it used to. I'd spend hours staring at one homework page struggling to figure things out and breaking out into tears because I just couldn't grasp it. Granted, this was never an issue with vocabulary homework, which I excelled at no matter what, but math homework was the devil. My dad and I would get into heated arguments about it because I just could not understand no matter how hard he tried to help me. I'd get angry with him because he'd try to show me the solution in a manner that was different than the way my teacher taught us in class and I was so hellbent on doing everything to cater to the teacher's methods that I would lose my mind if anyone even so much as considered forcing me to do things a different way. Again, this harkens back to that god-awful second grade teacher. This was a recurring thing throughout all of school, even to this day. I have constantly felt obligated to the best in everything I do, whether that's academically or socially or personally. Despite my academic success, socially I've hardly ever been fluent. There was a time as a young kid when I was very outgoing and unfiltered but after years of being bullied and just pushed around, I gradually crawled into my shell to the point where sometimes I can't even fully be myself around my own parents or boyfriend because I get nervous or second guess my decisions, overthinking reponses until it's too late. To everyone else not within my social circle, I'm just really quiet and perhaps a bit intimidating. The resting bitch face is strong with this one. I struggled to retaliate against the harsh words of classmates or the pressures of friends who craved popularity, attempting to force myself into a box in which I did not fit. I was that lanky nerdy kid with the glasses and crooked, oversized teeth who looked like a walking skeleton with pigtails. Sometimes I look back at picture of myself as a kid and wonder how the fuck I didn't even die, I was so goddamn skinny. My childhood best friend came from an Italian family who was very focused on good food. Looking back, it's no wonder I'd sometimes catch her mother glaring at me at the dinner table because I just never fucking ate. I'd take a few bites and then say I was done, then run back off with my friend to play. I don't know how I even had any energy, honestly. I swear I must have been running on empty.

High school, as I remember it, saw a brief intermission in my eating issues. There were a few instances where things were difficult for a time but they weren't anywhere near as monumental as my childhood eating issues, I don't think. Rather, my focus in high school was more on rejecting college, having fun with my friends, and obsessing over boys. Things didn't really hit the fan again until my first year as a full-time college student. As an adult, this is when I began to take things a little more seriously in regards to eating disorders. This was when my IBS started, which has remained a staple in my digestive issues ever since. Everything I ate made me double over in pain on the bathroom floor so I resolved to just not eat. Can't suffer from digestive cramps if you have nothing to digest. This was obviously directly linked to a lot of personal stresses I was facing in my life, what with all the changes that were getting tossed at me left and right. It was a very monumental time filled with a lot of new experiences and fears. I was trying to adjust to the fact that I was actually an adult now and that I'd never step foot in my high school again (which, even though I hated, I had grown rather attached to), never hang out with my friends again (because the majority of them left me), never pass my crush in the hallway ever again (granted, he graduated a year before me and I'm living with him now so that all worked out). The minute winter break started, I caught a nasty cold during which I was sleeping a lot and barely eating. It wasn't until after this that I realized something was seriously wrong with the way I looked. I had always been thin but this was like advanced thin. This was needing a belt on size zero jeans thin. This was dangerously thin. From that point onward, my obsession with my weight and eating habits has been an uphill battle of more adult proportions. I struggled for months afterward to get back on track, to gain the weight back, to push through the crazy intense IBS pains and start really eating again once and for all. It worked for a time and things went relatively well. I got back on track, I started adjusting to college, I got a boyfriend who cares deeply about me. Things were going well. Now, however, is when I feel like I'm slowly slipping off the wagon again.

Because of timing, I spent from August 2016 to August 2017 in school non-stop so I could get my degree and move in with my boyfriend when the lease on his old apartment expired and his roommate moved in with his own girlfriend. I didn't mind doing this. After all, it meant earning my degree quicker and moving in with my boyfriend sooner. A year straight of school wasn't all that awful anyways. Summer courses weren't really anything to write home about, I got through them and then I was done. It was no big deal. Or at least not until finals week. Things started out alright but I was on a massive time crunch. Everything was chaotic, a massive whirlwind. I felt so much pressure to do well, knowing that if I failed any of my tests it would drop my grades and I'd put myself at risk of having to retake classes and essentially ruining everything. I was really hard on myself about academics and added even more stress by procrastinating on packing. A part of me didn't quite register that all of this was really happening in the first place, not until I started moving all of my things into boxes and seeing my room grow barer and barer every day. The peak of the week came the night of my history final. My teacher was incredibly disorganized and let things overflow into the very last day of class so that not only did we have a final to worry about, but we had to wade through an hour and a half of boring presentations beforehand. I was suffering from a rather nasty headache that day, some jaw pain probably caused by a wisdom tooth coming in, so I took what I thought was plain ibuprofen before class. I gulped down two pills and thought I was good to go. What ensued was basically evidence as to why I always reject medication. As it turns out, the pills I took werent't actually ibuprofen but migraine meds with massive amounts of caffeine in them which, as I have recently discovered, I am intolerant to. This would further explain why the coffee flavored cheesecake as a kid sent me into a panic attack and made me puke, why premade brownies are potentially dangerous (my boyfriend and I bought organic brownies from Lucky's Market a few months back that had non-alkalized cocoa powder in them which, surprise surprise, has 4x the caffeine was cocoa powder processed with alkali. I had one fucking miniature brownie and within minutes I was shaking, hyperventilating, and ran to the bathroom on the verge of throwing up. I also realized just today that this also may have been the reason why I vomited a few years back after having eaten a brownie at a Disney resort), etc. I was struggling through the entire night, shaking uncontrollably with sweaty palms. I was dizzy and constantly felt like I was going to puke. I barely made it through my final exam but forced myself to finish because I knew I didn't have time to reschedule. This incident has drastically affected my own eating habits, however. Ever since, I have been wildly obsessed with what's in my food, shying away from sweets and always checking ingredients labels and refusing to drink any soda but Sprite (which, thank the lord, is both delicious and caffeine free). That moment has made me insanely paranoid, though, and a little too mindful (in the bad way) of everything I put into my body. I am so terrified of ever putting myself through something like that ever again that it leads me to restrict even more than normal. The same goes for the way my IBS affects my eating habits, as well. I'm constantly previewing menus for potential restaurants I might end up going to, thinking long and hard about the food I'm going to order. There are certain places where I don't even deviate on the menu, I stick to the same thing every single time I go there no matter what. I am terrified of trying something new and having an adverse reaction to it. With that in mind, I've just come to terms with the fact that restricting just seems easier. None of this is anything new, though. I've been restricting for as long as I can remember. There is, however, one other contributor that is new and that is finances.

Up until now, I have lived under my parents' roof where they paid for everything and I didn't have to worry one bit. They'd let me pick out whatever I wanted in the grocery store and the kitchen was free reign. I could eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted and that was great. I didn't think about restricting as much back then, except for when it came to IBS. Now, however, things are different. My parents support me financially when it comes to bills and rent but other than that, I am basically on my own using whatever financial aid money I have leftover from my past year of school. I can afford things but I know that until I get a job or start school back up in January and get more financial aid, that that money is what is going to carry me through things like grocery trips and dinners out. It's incredible how much more analytical you become when it's your money that starts being spent on necessary things. Because of this, I've found myself and my relationship with food transforming and probably not for the better. My boyfriend and I are very aimless when it comes to grocery shopping. We don't meal plan, we haven't been couponing, we don't write shopping lists, and we don't seem to make a habit of rationing meat out for multiple meals. We basically just go to the grocery store, grab whatever we want, and hope for the best at the checkout counter. Coming from a home where my parents meticulously plan grocery store trips and buy certain things in bulk, this is a cold shock to me and it's difficult to figure out how to navigate. What I lack in physical lists, I try to make up for in overthinking during the trip itself which then only makes me come off as slow and confused. My boyfriend even described it like I was acting drunk once but it's all because my brain is trying to process so much all at once, like walking into a test after having not studied and never even attended a class. There's a lot going through my head and not a lot of time for me to process it. I don't like doing things this way but I don't know if I even have the motivation to work towards being a more organized shopper. But anyways, because of this our grocery costs tend to rack up pretty quickly which makes me feel guilty and almost uncomfortable since I know we only end up getting a limited number of meals out of that haul. This is where the restricting comes in. Grocery money is always in the back of my mind which essentially translates into this desire to make everything last as long as possible. I greatly ration my food and restrict myself out of the fear of running out and having nothing to eat. I live for leftovers and I make sure I eat just enough at restaurants or during homecooked meals for there to be something to put in the fridge at the end of the night. This doesn't always mean I eat until I'm full, though. Most often times, I'm not that full. Not that I could eat any more even if I wanted to (see a few paragraphs above). This would work great if not for the fact that I'm also obsessed with expiration dates. If something has passed it's expiration date or we have leftovers that have been in the fridge for a while, even if they are actually still good and safe to eat, I will not eat them. I threw out an entire pack of baby carrots the other day because they were one day past the expiration date and they looked dried out and therefore I considered them unsafe to eat. I have never had full-on food poisoning in my life before and I don't ever plan to because it seems my goal in life is to be as delicate and restrictive as possible so as to prevent myself from ever throwing up. If I do, I have failed and will overthink it for the next couple weeks. I get so paranoid every time I get sick that it's going to happen again that I just starve myself because I assume you can't throw up if there's nothing in your stomach (newsflash: you can and I learned that the hard way-- I went almost twenty four hours with barely eating something once and I ended up violently vomiting right before I had plans to go out with my best friend and ever since, I have also been terrified of not eating enough and doing the same exact thing to myself again. So basically, if I eat too much, I'm scared I'll throw up. If I don't eat enough, I'm scared I'll throw up. If I eat anything at all, I'm scared I'm going to throw up. It's real fun). The worst experience of this starvation-after-vomiting thing was in sixth grade. It was the day of a huge standardized test and I was not feeling good at all but I knew I couldn't afford to miss this and my mom refused to let me stay home so I sucked it up, did my best, and went to school. The doors hadn't even opened yet and I was already losing it. Literally a full minute before the teachers opened their doors, I started puking down the entire sixth grade hallway in front of EVERYONE. My friend immediately jumped into action and dragged me to the nurses office as I left a trail of vomit behind me. It was the most traumatizing experience of my life and I will never forget it. After this, I refused to eat for days. I went home, my mom gave me a bath, and I slept on the couch for hours until lunchtime when my mom brought me home a Subway sandwich that I could barely eat without feeling like I was going to be sick again. The day passed in a haze and the next morning, I guess I was looked upon with varying shades of disgust and humor. In a way, I think I kind of unwillingly became some sort of legend at that school because everyone remembers me as the girl who puked down the hallway. The next day was like the big celebration for finishing all of those rigorous standardized tests and as such, my teacher bought donuts for everyone. I love donuts so the normal part of my brain was rejoicing but the traumatized side was in a fetal position in the corner having a panic attack. I did end up grabbing a donut but whether I ate it or not was another story. Sometimes I wonder if deep down everyone in my class knew I had some sort of eating disorder because eating that donut the day after I got sick was like trying to teach a fish how to fly and everyone knew it. Everyone saw I was struggling, everyone knew I had a problem. I don't remember if this was an everyone thing or not but I do distinctly remember the boy sitting next to me was watching me eat and egging me on like I was running a marathon. It almost felt like I was the age I am now and attending a kegger where some frat guy is shouting "CHUG! CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!" Just like that, it was simultaneously motivating and condescending. I swear, everyone was watching me as I struggled to just eat that goddamn fucking donut. I never did finish it. I think I ate about half before tossing it in the trash and making peace with failure. It all still haunts me to this day, though. Especially because I put myself through the same torture day in and day out with my eating nowadays. I stare at the food on my plate and I can hear the voices in my head screaming at me to down the damn thing, meanwhile inside my digestive tract is a bunch of blaring sirens and flashing lights for absolutely no goddamn reason.

Will any of this ever get better? Who fucking knows. By now, I've come to terms with the fact that this is an endless cycle and that it's something I will have to struggle through and face time and time again for the rest of my life. Do I enjoy that fact? Absolutely fucking not. But is it realistic? Yeah, I think so. I don't know if there's ever such a thing as true eating disorder recovery, or if I'll ever even find out what the fuck kind of disorder this even is. It's hard to try and treat something that's so complex and that also doesn't seem to fit into any of the commonplace categories. Sometimes I wish I had anorexia or bulimia instead solely so I could at least pin a name to this torture. Otherwise, I don't know how to cure what doesn't even have a name. Sometimes I wonder if this even actually is some sort of eating disorder or if it's just the conglomeration of multiple different issues combining into one giant super disorder that's wreaking havoc across my entire wellbeing. I have no goddamn idea but fuck, do I wish I knew. If only I fucking knew.

#this is just a bunch of personal bullshit #it's redundant and stupid but i just needed to get it all out #so you can happily avoid this if you'd like #eating disorders #ramblings

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simplemlmsponsoring · 6 years ago

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Reframing the “Risks” of Entrepreneurship: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Probability

Entrepreneurship is inherently risky, right?

After all, there are no guarantees in business and the stats on failure are grim.

Yet, as any investor knows, with great risk (sometimes) comes great reward.

These are opposite sides of the entrepreneurial coin.

But here’s the thing…

There’s a BIG difference between risk and uncertainty.

This distinction is crucial for aspiring entrepreneurs who want to make strategic investments when growing their business.

So, what’s the difference…

In The Signal and the Noise, famed statistician Nate Silver explains that risks can be calculated, whereas uncertainty cannot…

Risk is like a game of poker: the rules are well-defined and the chance of success is quantifiable (i.e., measurable). Uncertainty, to borrow Silver’s analogy, is like an irrational fear of “monsters” lurking in the dark, where the possibilities and outcomes are undefined, unknowable, and uncontrollable.

As you can imagine, most people can navigate risky situations, while they are often paralyzed by uncertainty—after all, who really knows what might happen!?

Now, you might think you know how this applies to your business, but you’re probably wrong.

Because many times, what you think of as uncertainty (those scary things that go bump in the night) are actually just risks you haven’t fully measured and quantified (and thus haven’t psychologically prepared for) yet.

Need an example? Perfect, because I have one…

The “Risky Business” of Going into Overtime

Perhaps one of the best examples of well-quantified risk comes from the world of football.

Don’t fret, non-sports fans! I’ll keep it brief.

Picture this…

It’s the fourth quarter. Your team just scored a touchdown on the final play of the game as the clock runs out.

Yet the scoreboard stares you down, 20-21.

What happens next?

You have two choices:

Kick the extra point to go into overtime, or… Go for the two-point conversion and put the game into the history books!

Which do you choose?

Because if you screw up the two-point conversion, it’s game over.

Angry fans and egg on your face.

Meanwhile, the average extra-point completion rate in the NFL sits around 85%, which is pretty dang close to a sure thing.

The choice to force overtime seems like the right choice, doesn’t it?

Sure, you still have to WIN with overtime—but at least you’ve got time to breathe, regroup, and put together a plan to come out ahead.

So what’s the correct choice?

Well, Nobel Prize-winning economist Richard Thaler (along with colleagues from Cornell and the University of Chicago) wanted to crunch the numbers to see which was statistically the “best” choice of action based on real-world data.

He dug through a decade of NFL games to figure it out.

Thaler’s findings were nothing short of fascinating.

He discovered that teams went for the “safe bet” of kicking an extra-point and forcing overtime a staggering 90% of the time.

However, those teams only ending up winning the game 40% of the time.

On the flip side, the measly 10% who took the road-less-traveled and went for the 2-point conversion won 50% of the time!

Now, that might not seem like much of a difference at first glace, but it actually means you’re 25% more likely to win by making the “riskier” choice—that’s HUGE!

But only 10% of teams do so because of the threat of immediate failure.

This is what Thaler calls “sudden death” aversion; players FEEL more uncertain about the outcome and thus wish to postpone any feelings of “what-if” and find more comfort in the less-safe choice.

This isn’t a conscious decision, of course, but here’s what’s especially interesting about this…

NFL players are no strangers to high-stakes decision-making; after all, the average play only last 4 seconds!

Yet the bias against going for the 2-point conversion persists, despite the increased probability of winning.

Kinda crazy, right?

This is a classic case of psychologically mismanaging risk and behaving irrationally in response to perceived uncertainty as a result.

The Big-Picture Perils of Risk Aversion

Listen: people are hard-wired to be risk-averse.

It probably dates back to the “caveman” days where daily life was fraught with danger.

But for a more contemporary example, look no further than the investing habits (or lack thereof) of Millennials.

Growing up during the “Great Recession,” they’re wary of the market where sharp declines impacted the portfolios of the older generations.

Some stats say that approximately 70% of Millennials have the bulk of their assets in cash.

Which, while maybe their fears are understandable, will come back to bite them when it’s time to retire.

Oh, and before you get too hard on “the kids these days”…

This behavior is a repeat of the generation that came of age during the Great Depression of the ’30s.

History has a way of repeating itself, after all.

And this speaks to a bigger point…

Despite decades of data showing that market returns are predictable, despite short-term peaks and valleys, people let their irrational fears over the present detrimentally impact their long-term success and security.

This is what happens when you let fear dictate your future!

Life will FORCE you to make choices, sometimes too late to have a meaningful impact on the outcome.

And just like the risks of investing in the market, maybe you find yourself feeling uncertain about any potential loss of time or money when it comes to getting your business off the ground.

If that’s the case take a moment to appreciate the biggest risk in the room…

That is, the risk of not taking a risk at all.

The Risk of Making a “Safe” Choice

Jim Carrey has a brilliant personal story to illustrate this.

During a now-famous commencement speech from 2014, Carrey spoke about his father who he was adamant could have been a great comedian, much like himself.

However, Carrey noted that his father chose not to act on his ambitions.

Rather than pursue comedy, the elder Carrey decided to become an accountant, something perceived as the “safer” career path.

Yet he ended up losing his accounting job while Carrey was a teenager, resulting in the family living out of a van and doing whatever they possibly could to make ends meet.

In other words, even a “safe bet” isn’t free from risk.

If you need a much-needed dose of inspiration, you should hear it from Carrey himself in this clip from Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond:

youtube

This begs a few bigger questions…

What “risks” are you avoiding right now? Are you choosing a “certain” path that might not be so certain at all? Have you taken the time to quantify the potential outcomes of your current course of action?

Look, the future will always be unknown, but that doesn’t mean it’s uncertain.

We can, after all, make informed decisions about our probability of success (more on that in a moment).

So rather than allowing yourself to be paralyzed by fears and “what-ifs,” it might be time to rethink what you currently perceive as a risk.

And that actually leads us to our last point…

Not All Risks are “Risks” at All

As you’ve learned in this post, there’s an important distinction between risk and uncertainty.

And many people are guilty of conflating the two, confusing what can be managed (risks) vs. what is uncontrollable (uncertainties).

Thus, we need to reframe our psychological relationship with risk.

Because, here’s the deal…

Risk represents well-defined probabilities.

So while most people think of risk in a negative light, risk is, by definition, well-defined and calculable.

Which doesn’t sound all that “risky,” does it?

Now, let’s apply this insight to entrepreneurship…

Kinda like going for the 2-point conversion attempt, starting a business isn’t about flying blindly.

Simply by doing your homework to find a time-tested, proven business playbook means you’re setting yourself up to win.

After all, you can look to successful business models, used by people who’ve “walked the walk,” and replicate those strategies yourself.

And while you might not get the exact same results, your probability of success is far from uncertain.

In fact, you might even say it’s a “risk” that’s practically not a risk at all.

Ready to take a calculated risk with a strong probability of success?

Then I strongly recommend signing up for Elite Marketing Pro’s FREE 10-Day Online Recruiting Bootcamp, where you will discover a proven business-building strategy called “attraction marketing,” which has a decade-plus track record of creating well-quantified success stories.

You’ll learn about about the specific tools and techniques you can use to connect with prospects online, so you’ll never have to act desperate, chase down or strong-arm anybody to make a sale, or deal with cold calling and rejection, ever again.

These methods allow you to build your business automatically—where prospects reach out to you (instead of you having to reach out to them).

The bottom line is that, in today’s age, you don’t need to be pushy, obnoxious, or overly-aggressive to build a successful business!

So if you’re ready to get started…

Click here to access our 10-Day Online Recruiting Bootcamp today!

Sincerely, Andrew Draughon Director of Content Elite Marketing Pro

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#business #carrey #like #might #people #point #risk #time #your #ATTRACTION MARKETING

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andrewdburton · 7 years ago

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How to build confidence and destroy fear

My mission at Get Rich Slowly is to help readers achieve personal and financial freedom. I want to help you master your money and your life.

Generally speaking, we focus almost exclusively on the financial side of the things. This week, I’m going to shift gears and share some of the things I’ve learned about overcoming fear, finding happiness, and achieving personal freedom. (Don’t worry. We’ll get back to the hard-core financial talk very soon.)

In December’s discussion of wealth habits, I talked about what T. Harv Eker calls “financial blueprints”. Actually, I talk about them all of the time. Understanding your money blueprint is a vital part of changing your relationship with money.

Our blueprints are created through lifelong exposure to money messages received from people around us, especially our family and friends, and from our country’s culture and mass media. Eker says the unfortunate truth is that most of us have faulty blueprints that prevent us from building wealth.

“When the subconscious mind must choose between deeply rooted emotions and logic, emotions will almost always win,” writes Eker.

He says that most of us are motivated by fear, especially when it comes to money. We don’t call it fear, though. We say we’re motivated by security. Eker notes — correctly — that fear and security are essentially two sides of the same coin. The tough truth is that money doesn’t dissolve fear.

Eker writes:

Fear is not just a problem, it’s a habit. Therefore, making more money will only change the kind of fear we have. When we were broke, we were most likely afraid we’d never make it or never have enough. Once we make it, however, our fear usually changes to “What if I lose what I’ve made?”

Like Eker, I’ve found that fear motivates a lot of people. Instead of making decisions based on goals and desired outcomes, most folks make fear-based decisions. As a result, they get less out of life than they’d hoped, less out of life then they might if they knew how to overcome their fears. (For more about this, see last week’s article about scarcity mindset versus abundance mindset.)

I’m not judging. I’ve been there. For years, I let fear rule my life. But over the past decade, I’ve learned how to quell many of my fears. Better still, I’ve learned how to act in spite of my fear. As a result, my life (financial and otherwise) has drastically improved.

Today, I want to teach you how to destroy fear and build confidence. To begin, let’s talk about death.

Note: Long-time readers have seen some of this material in other forms. This is my attempt to gather all of it into one place.

The Regrets of the Dying

Australian singer-songwriter Bronnie Ware worked in palliative care for many years, spending time with men and women near death. As she worked with her patients, she listened to them describe their fear, anger, and remorse. She noticed recurring themes.

In 2009, Ware wrote about her experience in a blog post that went viral. She turned that article into a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying. When people die, she says, they often express one or more of the following sentiments:

“I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.” People (especially men) often find themselves trapped on what economists call the hedonic treadmill. They work to achieve material wealth and status, which should bring happiness but doesn’t. Instead, they want more. So, they work harder to achieve even greater wealth and status, which should bring happiness but doesn’t. And so on, in an endless cycle. People trapped on the hedonic treadmill are never happy because their reality never meets their ever-increasing expectations.

“I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.” In order to keep the peace and avoid rejection, we sometimes bottle our emotions inside. But refusing to be open and honest leads to a life of quiet desperation. Sure, the barista at the coffeehouse might laugh if you ask her to dinner; but it’s also possible that dinner could lead to the love of a lifetime. On your deathbed, you’ll regret the things you didn’t say and do far more than the things you’ve done.

“I wish I’d stayed in touch with my friends.” In Aging Well, George Vaillant summarizes more than fifty years of Harvard research into adult development. “Successful aging [is] best achieved in relationship,” he writes. “It is not the bad things that happen to use that doom us; it is the good people who happen to us at any age that facilitate enjoyable old age.” In The Blue Zones, his book about populations of people that live longer than most, Dan Buettner writes that two secrets to a long and healthy life are making family a priority and finding the right “tribe”. At the end of their lives, people who failed to foster friendships regret it. (Here’s my summary of The Blue Zones.)

“I wish I’d let myself be happier.” Happiness is a choice. Your well-being doesn’t depend on the approval or opinion of others. Happiness comes from one place and one place only: You. This idea, which is well-documented in happiness research, is the key to personal and financial success. (On Thursday, we’ll explore this notion at great length.)

“I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, and not the life others expected of me.” Ware says this regret is most common of all. “When people realize that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it,” she writes, “it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled.” We spend too much time doing the things that others expect of us. (Or the things we think are expected of us.) But living for the approval of others is a trap. We can never hope to please everyone. In fact, it’s nearly impossible to please anyone – other than yourself.

These regrets share a common theme. In each case, the dying lament having spent too much time seeking outside approval instead of focusing on their own feelings, values, and relationships. This is true regardless of wealth and social status.

Ware isn’t a nurse and she’s not a scientist – her observations are based on experience, not empirical data – but from my reading over the past decade, her conclusions match the research into happiness and human development.

Money can’t buy happiness – at least not directly. Money is a powerful tool, it’s true. Abused, it brings sorrow and suffering. Used wisely, it opens doors, delivers dreams, and fosters joy. Although wealth is no guarantee of well-being, the more money you have, the easier it is to flourish.

But here’s the truth: You don’t want to be rich – you want to be happy.

On your deathbed, you want to have lived a life without regret. To do that, you need to face and defeat your fears. You need to find joy in day-to-day activities, and use that happiness as a platform to procure passion and purpose. You need to forge freedom, both personal and financial.

The Source of Fear

Our lives are filled with fear.

Some of our fears are physical. We’re afraid of spiders, snakes, and dogs. We’re afraid of heights, crowds, and enclosed spaces. We’re scared to jump out of airplanes (or even to fly in them), to go swimming, or to touch a drop of blood. We’re afraid we might be mugged.

Some of our fears are psychological. We’re afraid of failure, darkness, and being alone. We’re afraid of the future. We’re afraid of death. We’re frightened of being judged by others, and scared to ask someone for a date.

Some fears are rational. I, for instance, am scared of bears. This is a healthy, rational fear. Bears will eat you. When you ignore your fear of bears, you can up like Timothy Treadwell, the man profiled in the film Grizzly Man. (Sorry if that’s a spoiler for anyone.)

If you’re walking alone at night and a thug demands your money while holding a gun to your head, you’ll feel afraid and rightly so. This is a natural, rational fear.

These healthy fears have a biological basis, and are the product of millions of years of evolution. A fear of snakes (or bears) has helped the human race to survive. A fear of heights keeps you from spending too much time in places where you might fall to your death.

But sometimes rational fears can become irrational or excessive. It’s one thing to be nervous while walking on the edge of a crumbling cliff high above a river; it’s another to suffer a panic attack on the seventeenth floor of a well-constructed, glass-enclosed office building. (Or to worry about a bear attack in Paris!)

Still other fears are mostly (or completely) irrational, yet they’re very common. An estimated 75% of all people experience some degree of anxiety when speaking in public. I’m one of them. I’m aware of no biological basis to be afraid of giving a speech in front of 500 strangers, yet doing so makes most of us sweat and stammer.

Healthy, rational fears keep you alert and alive. Irrational fears and anxieties prevent you from enjoying everything life has to offer.

If It Bleeds, It Leads

If our lives are filled with fear, that may be due in part to the prevalence of internet, television, and radio. Our fears are fueled by the modern mass media, which makes money highlighting extreme and unusual events.

Here, for instance, is the front page from the 18 January 2014 on-line edition of USA Today:

Human trafficking! Attacks on Americans! Identity thieves! Remains of dead boy! Elsewhere on the front page, there are stories about extreme weather, a new truck that burst into flames, the background of a high-school gunman, a gay teacher forced to resign, and so on. And this is a normal, uneventful day.

If you pay attention to the news, you might think terrorist attacks are common, bicycles unsafe, and that it’s dangerous to let children play unattended in the yard. Yet statistically, terrorist attacks are exceedingly rare, riding a bike increases your life expectancy, and your children are safer outdoors than you were when you roamed the streets twenty or thirty years ago.

The events in the news are newsworthy only because they’re the exception, not the rule. They’re statistical outliers. Yet because we’re fed these stories daily, we think these things happen all of the time. As a result, we’re afraid to live normal lives.

I have a friend who’s reluctant to leave her home. Because she’s been assaulted in the past — an unfortunate event, but a statistically unlikely one — she lives in fear of being assaulted in the future. It’s true that by appearing in public, my friend runs the risk of being assaulted again. It’s far more likely, however, that doing things outside the house would bring her pleasure and fulfillment.

To some degree, each of us is like my friend — but not as extreme. We are all filled with fears, and these fears hold us back.

To live a richer, more fulfilling life — a life without regret — you must first overcome your fears. You can start by exposing yourself to new experiences, by interacting with your environment and allowing it to change you.

It all begins with the power of “yes”.

The Power of Yes

For a long time, I was afraid to try new things, to meet new people, to do anything that might lead to failure. These fears confined me to a narrow comfort zone. I spent most of my time at home, reading books or playing videogames. When opportunities came to try new things, I usually ignored them. I made excuses. I wasn’t happy, but I was complacent. I was safe.

Then I read a book called Impro by Keith Johnstone. It changed my life. (Fun trivia: Here’s where I learned about the book.)

Impro is a book about stage-acting, about improvisational theater, the kind of stuff you used to see on the TV show Whose Line Is It Anyway? I’m not an actor, nor do I want to become one, but several of the techniques described in the book were applicable to my everyday life.

In one section, for example, the author explains that in order for a scene to flow, an actor has to take whatever situation arises and work with it. She needs to accept and build upon the actions of her fellow actors.

Once you learn to accept offers, then accidents can no longer interrupt the action. […] This attitude makes for something really amazing in the theater. The actor who will accept anything that happens seems supernatural; it’s the most marvelous thing about improvisation: you are suddenly in contact with people who are unbounded, whose imagination seems to function without limit.

I thought about this passage for days. “What if I did this in real life?” I wondered. “What if I accepted offers and stopped blocking them?” I began to note the things I blocked and accepted. To my surprise, I blocked things constantly – I made excuses to not do things because I was afraid of what might happen if I accepted.

When online acquaintances asked to meet for lunch. I’d refuse. I was scared they might think I was fat or stupid. (Or that they might be an axe murderer!)

When a local television station asked me to appear on their morning show as a financial expert, I was afraid of looking like a fool, so I refused.

When a friend wanted me to join him to watch live music at a local pub, I declined. I’d never been in a bar (yes, I’d led a sheltered life) and was nervous about what might happen.

When another friend asked me to bike with him from Portland to the Oregon Coast, I said no. It was a long way. It seemed difficult and dangerous.

These are only a handful of examples. In reality, I blocked things every day. I refused to try new foods. I didn’t like to go new places. And I didn’t want to try new things. Or, more precisely, I wanted to do all of this, but was afraid to try. My default response was to find reasons something couldn’t be done instead of ways to make them happen. Because I focused more on possible negative outcomes than potential rewards, I avoided taking even tiny risks.

After reading Impro, I made a resolution. Instead of saying “no” to the things that scared me, I’d say “yes” instead.

Whenever somebody asked me to do something, I agreed (as long as it wasn’t illegal and didn’t violate my personal code of conduct). I put this new philosophy into practice in lots of ways, both big and small.

When people asked me to lunch, I said yes.

When people contacted me to make media appearances or do public speaking gigs, I said yes.

When friends asked me to go see their favorite bands or to spend the evening chatting at a bar, I said yes.

As a result of my campaign to “just say yes”, I’ve met hundreds of interesting people and done lots of amazing things. I’ve eaten guinea pig in Perú and grubs in Zimbabwe. I’ve climbed mountains in Bolivia and snorkeled in Ecuador. I’ve learned to love both coffee and beer, two beverages I thought I hated. I’ve learned to ride a motorcycle. I’ve shot a gun. I’ve gone skydiving and bungie-jumping. I published a book. I sold my website (and bought it back again!). I wrote a monthly column in a major magazine.

These things might seem minor to natural extroverts, but I’m not a natural extrovert. I’m an introvert. These were big steps for me. These experiences were new and scary, and I wouldn’t have had them if I hadn’t forced myself to say yes.

In recent years, I’ve come to look at saying “yes” like playing the lottery. Every time I do something new, there’s a chance I’ll win big. Let me explain.

The Lottery of Life

My work nowadays involves meeting and chatting with folks from all walks of life. They email me to say, “Want to have lunch?” and I say, “Of course!” We talk about podcasts or travel or bicycling or comic books. Whatever strikes our fancy. When we’ve finished our tea or Thai noodles, nothing seems to have happened — not on the outside, anyhow.

What’s happened, though, is that we’ve both received lottery tickets. By meeting and chatting and sharing ideas, we’ve been given tickets in the lottery of life.

I also get a ticket whenever I try something new. (Because I now try new things all of the time, I’m accumulating a lot of lottery tickets.)

I get tickets when I say “yes” to things that are scary or difficult too. When I spoke at World Domination Summit in 2012 — something that scared the hell out of me! — I got a lottery ticket. When I flew to Ecuador to talk with people about Financial Independence, I got a lottery ticket. When I introduce myself to strangers or “important people”, I get a lottery ticket.

But note that these tickets are rarely handed to me. To get them, I have to take risks. I have to move outside my comfort zone. As much as I enjoy sitting on the couch in the evening watching Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee with Kim, neither one of us receives a lottery ticket for doing so. To get tickets, we have to do things.

The prizes in life’s lottery are many and varied.

When I learned Spanish, for instance, I received a winning lottery ticket that has paid off in all sorts of ways. I made new friends (my tutor, my English student), traveled to new places (Perú, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador), read new authors, tried new food, watched new movies, and so much more.

When I was in Quito a couple of years ago, I rode the teleférico, the cable-car that carries visitors 4000 feet up the side of a nearby volcano. During the fifteen-minute ride, I chatted with two couples that spoke only Spanish. If I hadn’t learned Spanish, I couldn’t have understood them, much less conversed. But because I do speak Spanish, I enjoyed a pleasant chat about one couple’s life in Venezuela and the other couple’s life in Quito. Plus I garnered a restaurant recommendation for later that evening. Yet another small prize I won simply because I took the time to learn another language.

That’s an example of receiving a small payoff from the lottery of life. Sometimes, however, you hit the jackpot.

In 2008, I received an email from a blog reader. He’d be in Portland the following week and wanted to know if I had time to meet for lunch. “Sure,” I said. “Let’s do it.” I met the reader and his wife at a local Thai restaurant. We had a great conversation. I was impressed by his story and his drive. I gave him blogging tips. He told me stories about traveling the world. His wife showed me how to stretch my injured hamstring.

Over the next year, my new friend shared a couple of guest posts at Get Rich Slowly. He stayed at my house one night when he got stranded in Portland.

Eventually, this guy — whose name was Chris Guillebeau — moved to Portland. Our friendship grew. In 2010, I joined Chris for a train ride from Chicago to Portland. On that trip, he shared a crazy idea. “I want to create a conference and hold it in Portland. I want you to be on the planning team,” he said. For the next three years, I helped to organize the World Domination Summit, which grew into a grand party for 3000 people.

Saying “yes” to lunch with one stranger had a ripple effect that continues to spread throughout my entire life. Because of that one action, I’ve met hundreds of incredible people, some of whom have become close friends. I’ve traveled to Norway. I’ve spoken on stage before one thousand people. Chris and I collaborated to create the Get Rich Slowly course. (And the payoff continues: I’ll be presenting a three-hour workshop on Financial Freedom at this July’s edition of WDS.)

Not every meeting or experience pays off so handsomely, of course. In fact, some are disasters! But most provide some sort of reward, and sometimes those rewards are enormous. Prize-winning tickets are so common and fruitful, in fact, that I’ve almost become addicted to playing the lottery of life. I relish making new acquaintances, going new places, and trying new things.

I used to think I was unlucky. Good things happened to other people, never to me. Everyone else had more fun than I did. Now, eight years since learning to say “yes” to life, I know the truth. Success breeds success. When you do something well, you open doors to new opportunities. When you fail to act, doors remain closed.

Wishing won’t make you happy or wealthy, and good things don’t just happen. Luck is no accident. Luck isn’t magic and it’s not a gift from the gods. You make your own luck.

Luck Is No Accident

What we think of as “luck” has almost nothing to with randomness and almost everything to do with attitude. According to psychologist Richard Wiseman, only about ten percent of life is truly random; the remaining ninety percent is defined by the way we think. Wiseman says we have more control over our lives — and our luck — than we realize.

John Krumboltz and Al Levin, the authors of Luck is No Accident, agree. In that book, they write:

You have control over your own actions and how you think about the events that impact your life. None of us can control the outcomes, but your actions can increase the probability that desired outcomes will occur. There are no guarantees in life. The only guarantee is that doing nothing will get you nowhere.

This has certainly been true in my own life. When I sat at home, afraid to do things and meet people, I was “unlucky”. Once I took action, my fortunes changed.

Wiseman says that “lucky” people share four attributes:

Lucky people make the most of opportunity. This is more than just being in the right place at the right time. Lucky people must be aware when an opportunity presents itself, and they must have the courage to seize it.

Lucky people listen to their hunches. They heed their gut instincts.

Lucky people expect good fortune. They’re optimistic. They think win-win. They make positive choices that benefit themselves and others. They tend to assume the best.

Lucky people turn bad luck into good. They fail forward, learning from their mistakes and finding the silver lining in every cloud. There’s a Spanish saying, “No hay mal que por bien no venga,” which can be roughly translated as, “There is no bad from which good could not come.” Lucky people believe this.

In Impro, Keith Johnstone writes:

People with dull lives often think their lives are dull by chance. In reality, everyone chooses more or less what kind of events happen to them by their conscious patterns of blocking or yielding.

This, my friends, is truth — perhaps the fundamental truth.

Our attitudes produce our luck. Choice is the backbone of life and meaning. This theme will appear repeatedly at Money Boss, and not just when discussing luck and fear.

At the heart of happiness is choice. We make meaning in our lives through our choices. At its core, freedom is about the ability to choose. And our financial states — for good or ill — are largely defined by choice.

Everyone chooses more or less what kind of events happen to them. Learn this quote. Learn to love it. Because you already live it, whether you know it or not.

Allow me to pause for a moment to acknowledge that yes, some people enjoy better circumstances than others. Systemic poverty is a genuine problem. It’s a barrier that some people have to overcome in order to achieve success. And yes, shit happens. You could get hit by a truck tomorrow. To me, these things are obvious and should go without saying. Yet, if I don’t explicitly mention them, I’ll get nasty comments and email.

Action Cures Fear

Saying “yes” is the first step to fighting fear and living a life without regret. But saying “yes” isn’t enough by itself. To cure fear, you must also take action.

Cody is a personal trainer in Portland, Oregon. He coaches athletes to lift more and run farther than they believe they’re able. Cody says one key to achieving peak performance is acting in spite of fear.

When lifting weights, for instance, many athletes — especially novices — become intimidated. They may be physically capable of living a given weight (and may have even lifted that very weight in the past), but they’re afraid to do so; they think about what might happen if they drop the bar. Others might imagine the pain and suffering that comes from running a marathon, the long hours of work ahead, and allow those thoughts to stop them from attempting the race.

Cody says that successful athletes overcome their fear by turning off their brains and taking action. Instead of waiting for the moment when fear subsides — a moment that might never come if she keeps thinking about it — the veteran forces herself not to think about what she’s doing. She simply does it. She lifts the weight or scales the wall or dives into the pool. She keeps running and doesn’t think about the distance that remains.

At the start of the classic science-fiction novel Dune, our young hero is put to a painful test. To calm himself and focus his mind, he recites this litany against fear:

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

If fear is the mind-killer, then action is the fear-killer. To overcome fear, you must reach a point where you’re no longer thinking — only acting. Thought creates fear; action cures it.

Cody’s insight isn’t new. Motivational speaker Brian Tracy has said, “If you want to develop courage, then simply act courageously when it’s called for. If you do something over and over again, you develop a habit. Some people develop the habit of courage. Some people develop the habit of non-courage.” (Tracy’s famous advice for doing what you fear? Eat that frog!)

In The Magic of Thinking Big, David J. Schwartz writes, “Action cures fear. Indecision, postponement, on the other hand, fertilize fear…When we face tough problems, we stay mired in the mud until we take action. Hope is a start. But hope needs action to win victories.”

Schwartz advocates a two-step plan to build confidence and destroy fear:

Isolate your fear. Determine exactly what it is that scares you.

Take action. Figure out what action will counter your fear, and then do it.

“Hesitation only enlarges, magnifies the fear,” Shwartz writes. “Take action promptly. Be decisive.”

Often what we’re actually afraid of is the unknown. We like certainty, and choosing to do something with an uncertain outcome makes us nervous. That initial step into the unknown can be scary. But after the first, each subsequent step becomes easier and easier. When you act, you remove the mystery.

For years, I was frightened to speak in front of crowds. I avoided it. And when I agreed to speak, I put off preparation until the last possible moment. But when I began to say “yes” to offers and opportunities, I had to learn to speak in front of crowds. At first, I didn’t like it. But over time a funny thing happened. The more talks I gave, the better I got — and the more I enjoyed it. I’m still not great at it, but my fear fades a little more each time I step on stage. Action is curing my fear.

Action Creates Motivation

At home, Kim wakes at five o’clock to get ready for work. Most days, I just lie there. “I don’t need to get up,” I think. “I’ve nowhere to go.”

But I’ve learned that if I don’t get up, I regret it. If I stay in bed, I don’t make it to the gym. I miss work deadlines. I have less time to do the fun stuff, like hiking, and reading, and riding my motorcycle.

So, I get out of bed. I get dressed. As unappealing as it sounds, I go outside for a walk or a run — even when it’s raining (as is frequently the case back in Portland). The first few minutes suck. I’m tempted to turn around and return to my cozy bedroom. Before long, however, I find I’m actually enjoying myself. I return home invigorated, eager to get things done.

photo by Antony Mayfield

If I were to wait for motivation, I’d sleep all day. By forcing myself to take action, I find the motivation that was missing before.

Feeling Good is a popular self-help manual by David Burns. The book helped a younger me through an extended bout of depression. Part of the solution was to overcome my chronic procrastination, procrastination brought about by fear. In Feeling Good, Burns describes the problem.

Individuals who procrastinate frequently confuse motivation and action. You foolishly wait until you feel in the mood to do something. Since you don’t feel like doing it, you automatically put it off. Your error is your belief that motivation comes first, and then leads to action and success. But it is usually the other way around; action must come first, and the motivation comes later.

You see, action primes the pump. It creates momentum. It instills confidence.

Another way to boost confidence is careful preparation. Anxiety is largely self-doubt and insecurity — an underlying belief that you cannot handle whatever is before you. Anxiety often causes fear and procrastination. Because of this, preparation plays a key role in mitigating fear.

When you prepare — to speak to a crowd, to hike through a bear-infested forest — you decrease your doubt. You can’t eliminate the possibility of failure, but you can drastically reduce the odds. You rehearse possible situations. You practice the required actions. You allow your imagination to explore (and cope with) worst-case scenarios. Preparation helps you to do your best.

And that’s the important thing: If you always do your best and you do what’s right, then you needn’t fear the results. Sure, bad things will happen sometimes. But if you’ve done well and done what’s right, the negative outcome isn’t your fault — it’s just how things are. If you’re unprepared, however, you must own the negative results.

When we’re prepared, we feel competent. When we feel competent, we feel confident. When we’re confident, our fear fades into the background.

Action Is Character

A decade ago, I was full of hot air. And I was lazy. And depressed. This wasn’t a good combination for getting things done. I talked a lot about the things I wanted to do, but I never did them. I found reasons not to. I even had trouble keeping up my end of the household chores, which frustrated my wife.

I was a Talker.

Maybe you know somebody who’s like this. A Talker seems to know the solution to everything, has great plans for how she’s going to make money or get a new job. She can tell you what others are doing wrong and how she could do it better. But the funny thing is, a Talker never acts on her solutions and her great plans. She never gets that new job. She’s out of work or stuck in a job she hates.

To everyone else, it’s clear that the Talker is full of hot air, but he believes he’s bluffing everyone along — or worse (as was my case) isn’t even aware that he never follows through on his boasts and promises. Sometimes a Talker conflates talking with doing. When confronted, a Talker has excuses for not getting things done: He doesn’t have time, he doesn’t have the skills, the odds are stacked against him. When a Talker does do something, he often takes a shortcut.

That, my friends, is the man I used to be.

Something changed in the autumn of 2005. I began to read a lot of books. Not just personal finance books, but self-help books and success manuals of all sorts. As I read the books, I discussed them with my cousin, Nick. During our conversations, I’d sometimes lament that X was a priority in my life — where X might be exercise or getting out of debt or reading more books — but that I never had time for it. Instead, I “had to do” a bunch of other stuff instead.

“Well, then X isn’t actually a priority,” Nick would say, which made me angry. I’d argue, but Nick would point out that the things we actually do are the priorities in our life. What we say doesn’t matter; it’s what we do that counts.

It took me a long time to learn this lesson, but eventually I began to align my life with my stated priorities. Instead of just talking about doing things, I did them. I stopped looking for shortcuts and started doing the work required to get things done. Unsurprisingly, this worked. When I did things instead of talking about them, I got better results.

Today, I am a Doer.

In his notes on The Last Tycoon, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, “Action is character.” Fitzgerald meant that what a fictional character defines who that character is. Superman is a superhero because he does heroic things, not because he talks about doing them.

The same is true in real life: You are defined by the things you do — not by the things you think or say. If you never did anything, you wouldn’t be anybody.

We Are What We Repeatedly Do

We are what we repeatedly do — not what we once did, and not what we did only once.

One mistake does not define you, nor does a single act of kindness. These events may provide glimpses of a potential you, but who you really are is revealed by what you do on a daily basis.

You can say that health is important to you, but if you don’t eat and act healthfully, it’s just not so.

Thinking about writing doesn’t make you a writer; writing makes you a writer. If you’re not writing, you’re not a writer.

You can say your life’s too busy and you want to slow down, but so long as you keep scheduling things, you’re showing that you value your busy-ness more than the downtime.

I’ve self-identified as fit for almost seven years. For most of that time, I have been fit. I’ve eaten well and exercised often. But during the past couple of years, my attention has been focused elsewhere. My priorities have shifted. During my RV trip across the U.S., I allowed my diet and exercise regimen to slip until today they’re average at best. I can see it in my body and feel it in my mind.

Talking about fitness and having been fit in the past won’t make me fit today. To be fit, I have to do the work to become (and remain) fit. Fitness will return when I choose to eat right and exercise once again. Not just once, but every day.

If you don’t like who you are, choose to be somebody new.

We are what we repeatedly do.

Note: This quote — “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit” — is frequently attributed to the philosopher Aristotle. However, Aristotle never wrote this. Instead, the quote is Will Durant’s summary of Aristotle’s philosophy.

Summing Up

Whew! That’s a lot of information. Let’s summarize what we’ve learned today.

On their deathbeds, people generally regret the things they did not do rather than the things they did. They also regret having spent so much time seeking outside approval instead of focusing on their own feelings, values, and relationships. In short, dying people regret having been afraid.

Some fears are physical. Others are psychological. Some fears are rational. Many are not. Healthy, rational fears keep you alert and alive. Irrational fears and anxieties prevent you from enjoying everything life has to offer. In part, our irrational fears are fueled by the mass media. We’re bombarded by news of the exceptional and the unusual, so that we come to believe life is more dangerous than it actually is.

A mighty weapon in the war against fear is the power of yes. By teaching yourself to accept opportunities in life, you can gradually overcome your irrational fears. You can teach yourself to become bold, to try new things, to meet new people, and to enjoy a more rewarding existence.

This is one of the secrets of lucky people. What we think of as “luck” has almost nothing to do with randomness and everything to do with attitude. Everyone chooses more or less what kind of events happen to them. You make your own luck.

It can help to imagine that life is like a lottery. Any time you do something — especially something new — there’s a chance that your life will be vastly improved in the long run. When you say yes, you’re given a lottery ticket. Often that ticket won’t pay off. But sometimes you’ll hit the jackpot.

Saying yes isn’t enough by itself. To cure fear, you must take action. Action boosts confidence. So does preparation. When we’re prepared, we feel competent. When we feel competent, we feel confident. When we’re confident, fear fades into the background.

If you always do your best and you do what’s right, then you needn’t fear the results. Sure, bad things will sometimes happen. But if you’ve done well and done what’s right, the negative outcome isn’t your fault — it’s just how things are. If you’re unprepared, however, you must own the negative consequences.

The bottom line? Action is character. You are defined by the things you do — not by the things you think or say. You are what you repeatedly do. If you don’t like who you are, you must choose to be somebody new.

What have action and fear to do with personal and financial independence? Everything!

The first step toward freedom of any sort is facing and fighting your fears. “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face,” Eleanor Roosevelt once said. “You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

From these humble beginnings, you can progress to greater things.

Next, we’ll explore personal well-being. We’ll talk about what happiness is, how it’s achieved, and what you can do to maximize happiness in your life. Because happiness too is an important part of achieving personal and financial freedom.

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