Careers make no sense to me anymore.
They’re lightweight. Many people fall for the delusion that they like their career based on the current and future money they can earn from it.
No one wants to admit that. It’s like saying you went to a strip club.
But it’s true. The modern career is where you settle for a type of work based on little research and your inner fortune-telling ability to lie to yourself.
It’s sad. Obsession is a different path.
Obsession hides in strange places
I never knew I had an obsession.
I called them hobbies or side hustles. First it was drums, then DJing, and later, writing. I took up these hobbies outside of work hours.
At different phases of my life, one of those hobbies was all I could think about. I thought it was normal. I thought I just loved music or writing.
But now I’ve studied obsession, I realize it wasn’t love at all.
I was obsessed. My current obsession of writing has lasted 9 years. I’ve become so obsessed with it that I quit my job 18 months ago to do it full-time with no backup plan. All I knew was I wanted to write.
To not write felt like an inability to breathe while an ax murderer holds your head under water trying to drown you so they can kidnap your family.
What many of us have is an obsession hiding in plain sight.
If we can harness it, it can unlock a whole new life we could previously only have dreamt of.
Financial stability will be the death of you
Once people have enough money they settle.
The desire to keep going or make something happen in the world dies off. I always tell people the best times in my life are when I’ve been at rock bottom. The hunger and drive hit different.
I did things I wouldn’t normally do. I didn’t take no for an answer. I became relentless and unstoppable in the face of my obsession.
Once I began to make more money in banking I got lazy. I delayed my inevitable exit from corporate life because there was zero urgency.
The comfort of meetings and endless free lattes was too much. My boss always thought I was a superstar. He only ever encouraged me so I had this fake sense that I was awesome.
Maybe I was awesome at banking, but I hated it. I wasn’t obsessed with it.
No.
I was obsessed with the art of writing words on the internet that might help other humans I’d never be able to meet. If your obsession forces you towards going broke, maybe that’s a good thing.
After all, it’s only when you risk it all that you have a chance to feel what it’s like to have all you desire in this one life.
Obsession eliminates all other choices
Traditional productivity teaches the importance of to-do lists.
Time management in the workplace teaches us to prioritize important tasks and use time wisely. Modern finance gurus teach us time is money.
Each of these are decision-making frameworks.
When it comes to obsession nothing else matters. You don’t make decisions based on money or how much time you can save.
This is a scarcity mindset.
Obsession is based on doing your obsession or not doing it. There is no other choice. Why? Because you live for your obsession. It’s the oxygen you breathe and the blood that pumps through your veins.
Without your obsession you feel dead.
You don’t want stacks of cash deep down. You want this…
We can fill our time in life up with whatever we want.
Far too many of us fill time with tasks that make money. In a way this is a shallow way to live.
Going all in on an obsession is different. You choose an obsession you’ll do for the rest of your life. It’s something you’re willing to die for.
Like if someone tried to stop me writing on the internet I’d wage war against them. I’d throw all of my resources at them to get back to my obsession as soon as possible.
This level of commitment looks different. You act different. Some might even think you’re a crazy person. Good.
Having too many side hustles is a disaster
The average person lives an index fund life.
They invest their limited resources across multiple different priorities and then wonder why they never find success.
They dabble. They flap around. They ask a lot of questions. Overthink. Procrastinate. And even masturbate to the idea of some random Hollywood fantasy that isn’t tied to reality.
Obsession unlocks the power of focusing on only one thing.
Instead of hoping, wishing, and experimenting — you go all in on the one thing you know will feel good despite the results.
Results are arbitrary. They’re not the driving force, the obsession is.
Self-care doesn’t make sense when you’re obsessed
The self-care movement is a cult.
They preach comfort and taking care of yourself. Like sitting on the couch watching back-to-back seasons of some dumb Netflix show is really taking care of yourself.
They say life is all about balance.
Balance puts me to sleep. I want freaking chaos. That’s what obsession is. It’s unpredictable. It makes you wake up in the middle of the night to write down an idea or send a random email to Richard Branson.
Following your obsession is self-care.
It’s taking care of your deepest wants and desires and helping you come alive and break away from the pack of sleepwalkers who die at 25, retire at 65, and get buried at 75.
Chaos fuelled by obsession is exciting. It’s what they call living. The problem is most of us have forgotten because we haven’t been obsessed with anything since childhood.
Society beat the obsession out of us with a baseball bat so we’d conform and live a life of servitude.
True freedom is being obsessed with one thing.
The clues to your hidden obsession
99% of people think they don’t have an obsession.
They do. The challenge is in the past, before the internet, you couldn’t live off your obsession. Now you can. Why? An obsession needs people. An internet connection gives you access to billions of people.
So it’s no longer about the challenge of finding people. It’s about following your obsession to attract the right people.
Two questions that revealed my obsession:
- What topic do I google the most?
- What makes me angry when I don’t do it for 3 months?
Choose a compounding obsession to automate future success
Obsession is the missing ingredient in success.
Once you remind yourself of what your obsession is, all you have to do is let the results compound over a long enough timeframe (like 5 years).
This is how seemingly ordinary results become extraordinary over time and look impossible. Compounding obsessions produce exponential growth.
The inputs of high energy, passion, and meaning create the outcome.
So if your life feels off or you think you can be more than you currently are, perhaps obsession is what’s missing. Think about it.
Then become obsessed with one beautiful thing.
