2023 Six Months In. What's Next?
Tick-Tock
Hi friends. Welcome to the YouTopian Journey. Today’s issue discusses why you must make the rest of 2023 count!
If you aren’t subscribed, make sure to do so. Better yet, become a paid subscriber for full access to our growing archive, most of which is paywalled.
Also make sure to give this post a like as it truly helps and contributes to our growth.
A WORD FROM OUR SPONSORS
Revolutionize the way you read newsletters.
Meco is a distraction-free space for reading newsletters outside the inbox. The app is completely free and packed with features designed to supercharge your learnings from your favourite writers. Become a more productive reader and cut out the noise with Meco - try the app today!
WHERE DO YOU STAND?
“When young, one is confident to be able to build palaces for mankind, but when the time comes one has one’s hand full just to be able to remove their trash.”-Goethe
It’s nearly the end of June, 2023.
Half of 2023 is gone, never to return. Winter is gone. Spring is gone. Summer is about to begin.
Looking back on the first half of the year, where do you stand? What have you achieved? What progress have you made? What goals have you defined and even reached? What setbacks have you faced?
These are difficult questions to face, let alone answer. But answer them we must.
Why?
Because the vast majority will refuse. They will not take part in this line of questioning. It only causes them pain and opens them up to personal humiliation as few want to accept the reality of the situation.
And what is the reality?
That despite the opportunity of a new year, more time, and more chances, the multitude didn’t take advantage of any of these blessings.
Instead they faced the challenges of society by doing what everyone seems to do best, complaining. Social media, dinner table conversations, lecture halls, all filled with complaints.
“To bewail one’s lot is always despicable: it is always the outcome of weakness.”- Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols.
And now is the perfect time to complain. Inflation, high gas prices, interest rates, the cost of rent, limited opportunities, canceled and delayed flights, long lines, high grocery bills, and so on.
Understand, it is only going to get harder, not easier. The prosperity you desire is a myth. Nothing will ever be perfect. Despite how difficult everything is and how the difficulties will continue to mount, the clock keeps ticking.
Life keeps happening.
Time continues to run out.
Nothing will change this fact. Nothing will break this law of existence. We all have six months left for this year. Six months left of 2023. Six months that can be filled with complaints and wasted away. Or six months that can be seized and filled with glory!
Six months could be a lifetime. Or it could pass in an instant. It could be filled with personal achievement and overcoming the challenges you face. Alternatively, it could be filled with binging Netflix, meaningless work, engaging in drama, and complaints.
The choice is yours and yours alone.
You must heed the call of your own personal ticking clock and answer the questions that plague us all.
Do you remain on the sidelines?
Do you take responsibility and act?
Do you desire to have something to show for your time?
Do you wish to look back on 2023 as a lost year?
Understand that lost time is never found. Past years can’t be repeated. Life doesn’t provide an option for a re-roll.
You must make your choice and make it now!
“Step by step, walk the thousand-mile road.”-Miyamoto Musashi
THE TIME IS NOW
“People are strange, they neither wish to live nor die.”-Epictetus
There will never be a better time than the present moment to act. Circumstances may change, but that is to wait for sunshine and we need every available moment.
The multitude foolishly continue to waste their most precious resource. They squander it at every turn. They want to free themselves of the responsibilities of a troubled existence, but at the same time remove the opportunities and possibilities that are found within those troubles.
It is far easier to march along with the herd. To wither away. To waste your time on the trivial. To take the long walk into oblivion, never to return.
Do not make this mistake. This path is comfortable and easy, but it is never a worthy exchange for a life where you can command your time and use it for something worthwhile.
"Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are."-Søren Kierkegaard
You must face the reality of the situation, no matter how frightening it may be.
And what is this reality?
Simple.
We all live a finite existence.
Our bank accounts are finite.
Our friends and family are finite.
Our experiences are finite.
Ultimately, our lifespans are finite, try as we might to change this. No matter how healthy we eat, how much we exercise, how often we meditate, we simply cannot exist forever.
“Soon, you will have forgotten everything. Soon, everybody will have forgotten you.”-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
This is precisely why we must act now.
But you may ask why? When everything is so limited and finite, is anything infinite for us? Yes one thing, the most important thing!
Our potential.
Our infinite potential is what unlocks the infinite possibilities that await us, should we pursue them.
And we must pursue them, regardless of the difficulties, the costs, and the reality of our short and finite existence. It is through our potential that we can achieve anything, obtain anything, and defeat everything that may stand in our path.
Yes, it will be difficult.
Yes, it will be painful.
And yes, it will be worth it.
It will be worth it to reflect back on your time and what you spent it on, knowing that the sacrifices made and the setbacks suffered meant something. Paradoxically, these painful experiences that were avoided by the multitude are what the truly great among us celebrate. What seems difficult in the present is often looked back as a stepping stone by your future self.
What are you waiting for?
There are still six months left this year.
Make them count.
Leave the distractions, the doubts, and the excuses to the mediocre. You have something to achieve, something to build, someplace you desire to be.
Begin now!
“Examine the lives of the best and most fruitful people. . .and ask yourself whether a tree that is supposed to grow to a proud height can dispense with bad weather and storms; whether misfortune and eternal resistance…do not belong among the favorable conditions without which any great growth even of virtue is scarcely possible.” -Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science
SHARE THIS
If you could share this post, I promise you that it will help someone in your network that truly needs to see it today.
Trust me.
Shaun