Last month was my 6 year anniversary of enlisting in the military. Before you thank me for my service, just know that my reasons for joining were completely selfish; I needed money for school and something on resume other than an assortment of customer service jobs.
Of course, I don't currently "use" (My side hustle is tutoring kids in physics and math in person. Something I have quite a lot of fun with and would not be able to do without what I learned en route to a physics degree, so I guess that counts, sorta) my degree and I don't work for anyone. Say what you want about higher education, but it did do something valuable for me.
It gave me a long-range target to focus on. When you're working on things that take a while, you take a different approach to the rest of your life. First, you stop reacting tactically to daily annoyances. This means you stop causing them yourself. Suddenly, everything I did was centered around getting more time to study or making sure that I had enough money for gas to get to campus.
It's amazing how much your life can improve when you cut out things that don't help you get any closer to a long-range goal. I knew that my math was weak, so I started living my life in a way that gave me as much extra study time as possible. While I'm focusing on the long range goal of getting my degree, I was also focused on becoming heavyweight champion.
Of course, I don't become heavyweight champion, but everything in my life was centered around high performance in the gym. I don't think many people understand what your life becomes when you're focused on a long-range, highly difficult pair of physical and mental goals. If it didn't help me get closer to the goal, it was eliminated.
Long-term focus is how you keep from becoming a loser. Though we're never sure exactly how the future will turn out, even the most reckless of us can make the connection between what we do now and how our life will look in the future. But like most things in life, awareness of this fact does not automatically translate into action to take advantage of it.
Too many people let the lack of a definitive destination keep them from taking steps towards something better. This is pointless and foolish. Even your best laid plans may not come to fruition. The real payoff is in the personal transformation you go through to get closer to what you want. You don't need to know exactly where you want to end up to leave where you currently are. All you need is the intention to never return to the position that you're currently in.
I remember experiencing a really bad relationship. The details of the relationship are beyond the scope of this post, but I remember that it was during that relationship that I decided I would never be in this position again.
I remember the pain of being 27 years old and being forced to choose between rent and getting something to eat. Feeling that limitation was painful, and I had no idea how my life would look 6 years later, but I started taking steps to ensure that it would never again look anything like it did at that moment.
You don't need a destination to change your life. You just need to start walking away from what you are doing and in the direction of SOMETHING more constructive. It may not be what you ultimately end up doing, but it gets you moving towards something better. It puts you through trials that smash out the worst parts of you.
A long term version, coupled with focus, can change your life. It may happen in 2 years. I may happen in 6. Until you arrive, you're still moving away from the bullshit that was once your life.
You already know what you need to do. The rest is up to you.
