Think about death.

Brothers of TRP,

Introduction

I am making this post to relay a particular strategy to you that I have tried to use on my path towards success. While I stumbled upon this through experience, I was not the first, nor will I be the last. Many, from the Stoics of ancient Greece to the Buddhist Monks of Tibet, have used a variation of this concept. I am writing it because it seems to me that a while great many among us agree with the principles of TRP, the goals, the purpose, the direction, and even a sense of enthusiasm, many of us lack the internal mechanism for actualizing it. We don't have the mental precedent for how to make such sweeping, fundamental changes to who we are and how we relate to the world. TRP isn't like the rest of reddit that you read for entertainment. You're not here to kill time. You're here to change your worldview and change who you are. You have to take these ideas and apply them to yourself in practice, every hour of your life.

Something holding us back

We all came here to make ourselves into better men, to live better lives, to learn the truth and to set ourselves free. But there is so much bullshit that holds us back. We try but somehow it seems so elusive. It often appears that there are so many obstacles, such a fuzzy path between ourselves and who we want to be. There are peoples' expectations of us, our bad habits, things we think we ought to do but don't really want to. Weight of past bad decisions. People we've tied ourselves to that we shouldn't have. We try, every day, to focus our minds onto the things we want to do, and hone ourselves into the men that we want to be.

Fear, and Comfort

And most of all, there is fear. The biggest curse of the beta, the man who lives in chains, is that he lives in fear. He has to be careful what he says and does. He is not a free man. Fear is a killer. To live your life in fear, in anxiety, in hesitation, in doubt. This is not a free life.

I have a lot of friends who suffer from this problem. I myself suffer from this problem. A lot of us talk tough but we all suffer from it, it's only human. But the most common solution I see amongst the men around me is to seek comfort. Find some little familiar routine that from which you can find shelter from the things that you fear. But comfort is not a solution. Comfort is elusive. It makes you feel better but it doesn't solve the problem.

I used to be one of these people. A bred from birth miserable whipped beta whose heart races and hands tremble at the thought of offending the great matriarchal authority figures. There was a point in my life which was so stressful and chaotic, when I was so beholding to forces destructive and chaotic, that it seemed I was approaching the point at which I'd have nothing left to lose.

What really matters?

This is when I began to think about death to keep things in perspective. The extent to which I found that this keeps things in perspective is remarkable. I made it a habit. I thought about death constantly. Death, change, the temporary nature of all things. \"Embrace the suck,\" as another TRP'er once said.

Death is the all-encompassing master-key god mode of IDGAF. We don't think about it very often. But we should. You're going to fucking die and it might be way sooner than your favorite actuary charts predict. So will everyone you think you care about.

And so will I.

So many of the things that we fear have very little real meaning, very real little impact on our lives. We fear others' approval. We fear rejection. We fear not living up to our expectations. We fear not living up to our parents' expectations. We fear losing our job, our money. Fear, anxiety, doubt.

\"Oh no, my girlfriend is mad at me again. Now she's pouting.\"

\"Oh no, I didn't get an A on that exam.\"

\"Oh no, my wallet got stolen. I lost 200$ in it.\"

\"Oh no, I have ketchup on my face during my job interview.\"

\"Oh no, someone hit my car. Now it's dented.\"

\"Oh no, I got fired.\"

Thinking about death

Let's put these tragedies in perspective.

Close your eyes, and focus very intensely on imagining the scenario of lying paralyzed on the ground as the life bleeds out of you and you fade out of this world. Think of any war movie you've seen, imagine horror men feel as their guts are ripped out and they scream out trying to bargain away just a moment more of life. Now make it you. This is you. You are dying. Let it linger. Let the morbidity hit you. Hold this image in your mind.

Then open your eyes and tell me how much you really care that your girlfriend is mad that you left the toilet seat up. Tell me how much you really care that so and so made fun of you. Tell me how much it really matters if some fucking girl won't give you her phone number if you hit on her. Tell me how much anything you're afraid of really matters at all.

Confidence

We talk a lot about confidence and success around here, of being IDGAF. A lot of guys who experience divorce rape come out stronger for it because lingering fear of impending doom is far worse than the experience itself. Because once they swallowed it, they came out the other end a (poorer but) free man. These guys whose lives have been ruined have also been given a new lease on life because fuck you they're still standing.

A very large component of confidence is being able to parse out what is truly important, and what is truly not important. Things which are worth your concern, and things which are not. You don't have to be Chad Thundercock to be confident. But you do have to know what does and doesn't matter.

Conclusion

And I can tell you, brothers, the things which are truly worth your concern are so precious few in number. And the things which are just pointless, distracting bullshit, are so very many.

So the next time you come up against a situation or a problem which invokes a sense of fear or anxiety in you, weigh that problem against your own mortality, and then see how important it really is.

tl;dr think about death.