Concrete

Life is full of the tradeoffs that we choose to make. We aren’t always conscious of these tradeoffs but they are always happening. 

When you choose to doomscroll on your phone instead of doing the task you are procrastinating, you are deciding that your immediate pleasure is worth the ongoing anxiety of having that task on your plate. 

When you decide to order pizza for the fifth night in a row, you are choosing convenience over your health and well being. 

When you choose to go out on Friday and Saturday night, you are choosing to prioritize your immediate pleasure over the pursuit of your long term goals. 

As you make these decisions repeatedly over the span of your lifetime, however long that may be, you slowly set your end destination in concrete. 

That concrete doesn’t set until you pass but it is solidifying the deeper you get into life, making it increasingly difficult to break free and choose a new outcome. 

Ultimately, you will end up wherever is acceptable to you. 

Naval Ravikant said this, and I could immediately feel the urge people would have to rebel against it—clinging to external explanations and avoiding the acceptance of the foundation they chose to stand on.

There are innumerable reasons for where you end up in life, but ultimately, you made the decisions to get yourself there. 

You allowed your feet to sit in the concrete for years without taking action to break free and chart a new path. 

You constantly prioritized long term risk for short term reward. And now you have realized that that trade off hasn’t been worth it. 

You don’t like your circumstance yet you did nothing to prevent it from becoming your reality. 

As you look down to your feet, you can see how hard the concrete has become, but it’s not quite solid. Are you ready to free yourself from it?