Stories

Apple

Thinking of escaping that 9-to-5 job to be your own boss? Think again with these thoughts on consulting versus traditional careers.

We are told that being lost is bad. On the contrary, I rather enjoy being lost.

I’m 29 and have no clue where I’m going. I binge-eat sometimes and I’m alone most times.

But a wise man by the name of Trevor Carss once said: “Having no clue is sometimes better than having a clue.”

While being completely unfocused, clueless and out of control, I did manage to write and illustrate 60 children’s books. I did manage to create over 400 quirky YouTube videos and podcast episodes. This was all in spite of my severe depression, failed therapy sessions and multiple emergency surgeries to recover my eyesight.

Maybe we should all deviate from our focused paths to see what’s lurking in the woods.

I’d say most of us earthlings in the world doesn’t know how to live our lives. There are no hard-and-fast rules of conduct for when we’re put here on Earth. We do our best to figure it out along the way. We learn. We stumble. We grow.

No goals? No dreams? That’s okay too. Why burden yourself with the details when that’ll only make things worse? I can’t tell you how many celebrity morning routines I’ve come across that make me cringe. Who can actually enjoy their life by forcing themselves to wake up at 3:30 am every day? Would 5 am really hurt? Let’s make it 6.

There was no goal to create the volume of work that I created. It just happened because I did nothing else all day but stay lost and unfocused.

Right now, you feel nonexistent. No one knows what you’re really going through, and you care not to share the raw details with anyone but yourself. Maybe you lay in bed for 16 hours a day, contemplating grand ideas and dark ones. Most of my dreams for stories have come from those 16-hour sessions. You move your fingers an inch, and in a cinch, you have a word on a page. Even if it takes 16 hours to make one word or one line, no one can truly take away what you’ve created. And the people who want to are jealous of your ideas.

You are the most powerful person in the world at this very moment. Some of the most amazing people in history have been depressed. Lincoln. Churchill. Van Gogh. Countless entrepreneurs. Every artist and creative you can think of. The list goes on. You are not alone among these greats.

There is something about the darkness that unleashes a power you never knew you had. It seems a shame that we should look down upon it when some of the very best ideas have been born out of depression.

Out of calmness comes clarity. Out of darkness comes light. You are the ashes, on the brink of becoming a phoenix. Embrace what you’re going through now, as it is only fleeting.

Be highly unfocused and out of control. We already have too many structured people, fitting into a box.

Apple

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