Demon Slayer
“Like a seed, most of Us already have everything needed to grow into something Great.”
2021 is now history and 2022 has arrived. I hope everyone had a good New Year Celebration. 2021 was a very tumultuous year for many of us personally but definitely for the country. For me, it's definitely increased my empathy for others and gratitude for the progress I made personally. Many of us have laid out our objectives for the year and are excited to go out and conquer our goals and continue to grow.
But are you conquering your demons?
All men have demons. I don't mean in the spiritual or physical sense, this ain’t Doom. There are plenty of demons that men have, some revolve around past traumas, some revolve around the burden of manhood. They will be discussed in another entry because today I'm referring to vices and negative characteristics. But what is a vice exactly? What makes a characteristic negative? The simple answer is any characteristic that is consistently contributing to your life in a negative manner. Vices are negative by default of course, but they are usually habit-based. Now that I've defined what I mean by vices and negative characteristics. Why do they matter? How do you identify them? What do you do about them?
The only demons we’re killing are the personal kind
Why Do Vices Matter?
In the modern-day vices and negative characteristics are typically downplayed or in some cases glorified. Don Draper from Mad Men is a good example. He was a dapper guy that was smooth, had a way with women, was admired by men, and was killing it in his career. He was also a functional alcoholic. While it seemed like they show some of the issues he had with alcohol. It didn't seem to be an impediment to his success in any way. His alcoholism didn't appear to be a strength but it wasn't shown as a weakness either. Would he have been more successful without alcohol? No telling because he's a fictional character. However, the real-life equivalent of Don Draper definitely would be even more successful if he didn't have an alcohol problem.
Don doesn’t think he has a problem he thinks you’re the one with the problem
Everything consumes resources, literally everything. Every action, every thought takes resources. Some thoughts and actions push you toward your goals and help you gain more resources, others take you away from goals and contribute negatively to your pursuit of objectives over time. You are like are car driving to a destination. How you govern yourself physically, mentally, and emotionally is your car maintenance, your plan of action is your road map, your fuel is your discipline and desire, and your actions and thoughts determine your speed. Don’t be fooled literally every action and thought you have contributes to how fast you are going toward the goal. These positive and negative actions all work to build or slow momentum. The more things that contribute to your goals positively such as following your schedule, self-reflecting, meeting with your mentor, working purposefully all contribute to an increased speed. Negative things such as (in Don’s case) substance abuse, browsing social media for hours, procrastination. Those things all decrease your speed. You may get to the goal but you will get there much slower and depending on how many negative thoughts and actions you have you may even stop the car or put it in reverse. A good example is weight loss. Let’s say you’re trying to lose 20lbs. You have a diet set to cut calories 6 days a week and work out 5 days a week. The first week is going good and you lose 2 lbs. However, you slack off in the gym and cheat on your diet several days a week after that. You’re down to losing half a pound per week, but at least you’re making progress. Since you are slacking off it ends up taking you 9 months to lose the remaining 18 lbs. If you had stayed true to your game plan, you were disciplined, and you dropped those vices you would’ve lost the weight in 2.5 months, but you let those negative characteristics and vices slow your speed so it took you almost 4 times as long to get to the goal. That is what vices do they slow you down. The worse part about it is most vices are fun on some level. Crappy food tastes amazing, playing video games for hours is fun, p0rn/women are always enjoyable, smoking doesn’t feel bad to most people, alcohol always gets the party started. The other catch is none of these things are bad at the right amount, but what is the right amount, how do you know when it’s bad?
What is a Vice really?
We all like to have a good time. Almost all my friends have at least one story about me having TOO good a time. That “too good” is when you know it’s a problem. Taking a scheduled break to let your hair down, to relax and recharge, to step away and decompress is not just good it’s necessary. I have an entire entry about it. When the things you do for enjoyment start to impede on your life it might be a vice. Now I’m not saying it’s an addiction, I’m saying it’s a vice. When you are prioritizing those non-productive actions over the goal, it might be a vice. When you’re procrastinating in favor of the non-productive action it might be a vice. Vices don’t necessarily need to be sinister things that society has deemed risque or fringe behavior, it can even be things that most of society would deem healthy. Someone might consider running as something healthy, but if you’re running to the point that you’re ignoring your doctor, forgoing other parts of your health, or as a way to escape your problems (yes there are people like this) then it is a vice. What's truly sinister about a vice is that it will creep in and start slowly derailing your progress. It’s not like a crack addiction, which is essentially a very quick countdown clock to very obviously messing your life up. It’s a slow cooking process that starts with warm water, that turns hot, that turns scalding, that turns into a simmer, to a light boil, to a rolling boil. By the time you’re at that rolling boil state, you’re at the point where that vice has become an addiction and you don’t know how you got there.
Vices can boil your dreams away as brutally as boiling a lobster
So What do we do about it?
Do all vices turn into addictions? No. I don’t think most do, but some can and you have to be vigilant to ensure they don’t. So you’ve identified a vice, what do you do about it. First thing is to identify why you do this activity. Is it born of some desire to relax or decompress, or does your desire to do it come from the want to escape feelings, problems, or thoughts? If it's the latter you need to face those feelings, problems, or thoughts? Look them in the face and identify them. That can be difficult to do alone (I know from experience), so I always suggest a licensed therapist (that licensed part is important). I don’t mean a life coach, or an advisor, or a family friend, or a pastor. I’m emphasizing this because if your escapism is tied to a desire to escape negative thoughts and feelings then you need a mental professional. When your body is sick you wouldn’t want to go to an unlicensed doctor, so why go to someone that isn’t a trained professional when it comes to your mental and emotional wellness? If your vice is centered more around procrastinating or deprioritizing goals because you enjoy your favorite vice too much then I would suggest a “reduce and replace" approach. What I like to do is simply schedule a hard set amount of time that I will be doing that activity (the reduce), and replace some of the time that I normally spend on that activity with something I enjoy that actually helps me with a goal. As an example, If I like to play a basketball video game 8 hours a week (NBA 2K, if you’re playing NBA Live leave my blog and never come back) maybe I taper that back to 3 hours a week and replace it with actually playing basketball the other 5 hours. This way I still get to play my video game but some of that time is getting used as cardio to help my body get in or stay in shape. It’s easier to do that with some vices than others but it can be done. I want to be clear, this isn’t one size fits all. It’s what works for me. Some people may need to replace their vice entirely. If you have pulmonary issues and you’re smoking cigars you don’t need to reduce, you need to replace. When you’re already in a weakened state you should be maintaining a vice that will compound those physical liabilities.
Get that discipline sword out and slay those demons that are holding you back
Again it’s a New Year. For many people, it’s a restart and is a time to look toward new possibilities. It is a new year and just like every new day, it’s a chance that many people don’t get. Be grateful for it and take advantage of it. For me, it is a chance to optimize. A chance to further optimize my mental, physical, and emotional health. I’m at a place where I have to be optimized to take advantage of the opportunities I’ve been blessed with. I’m expecting this year to be one of the best of my life. I’ve put the plan together, I have the resources. I just need to be diligent, focused, disciplined, and committed. It can be a banner year for you as well. I believe you have what is required for this to be a greater year for you than last year. You can continue to grow and improve. Self-awareness will help you identify those inner demons that need to be conquered. I promise when you do conquer them your growth will be explosive and you’ll be able to reach heights you didn’t know you could.
Go be great this Year!