The confusing battle of hard work and regret | The Adulting Stuff

I want to win, and I hope you do, too.

I have been on this for a while now. Even though I'm currently working on a project that I would like to succeed at, I'm still not able to reach anywhere near the levels it would take to succeed at it. Let's call the pursuit X. Every morning I wake up and think about it, which is still a huge improvement to the times back when I had nothing meaningful in my life. Later on that rant, but now I am identifying myself in a constant mental battle. Even with clear goals and directions, it feels, and actually is, a perseverance battle versus the pleasures of modern life. The latter, which I'm addicted to, is anyone's and everyone's problem today, nothing new bout it. But what concerns me is, how can I get past it? How can I reach where I want to be? How can I replace the future pain of regret by embracing the current pain of hard work?

There used to be days, months, and years in the past times when I was confused so much that I would loop myself into ruts one by one. This year, with the help of my close ones as well as by working on myself along the way, have I found a promising, rewarding and definite route of career through which I want to put myself through. I have convinced myself that this is the best path based on where I'm at life, what my mental limitations are, what are my potential opportunities, and so on. It's always good if you have someone whom you can trust with discussing such ideas. But I also had long stretches where I had no one. Better to embrace those periods of being independent as much as you can because as of my realizations until now, you never really have anyone when it comes to carving the best path for you, only you can do it. Even if there is someone like that, it is better to imagine the former or else, yeah the obvious happens, you have no purpose whatsoever in the confidence that you'll be saved. Even if you go down that route, you can only reach such heights of mastery if you are able to be your own ultimate self when it comes to working towards your purpose,

Future regret scares me. Maybe not as much as I want it to be so that I can fuel my hard work using that, but when I think deeply enough, it is the worst situation that I can be in, which I myself have put me in, which I deserve to be in. This is the realization I want to hammer into the reader's mind as well, not just pass the message, but rather hammer it if I could, because I wish the same for me, I'm one of you.

Delayed gratification is what I'm trying to train my mind into, which starts with prioritizing meaningful activities over shallow or pointless ones that simulate the former in terms of hormonal surges and such. Reading a book instead of social media consumption, exercising instead of watching YouTube videos on how to exercise for the perfect body anyone has ever achieved in the whole of the solar system, learning skills over binging media, you get the idea.

It is a long conversation, and I'm convincing myself that I'm capable of it. I'm sure of the direction, I'm also in the dilemma of thoughts, simultaneously in the inaction of things. Taking one step at a time, I hope, you, me, and everyone who wants to be in a better place, is able to achieve this. Good luck!