Introduction
I started to become more active on my Substack beginning in July 2022. With the federal reserve increasing rates, this was my sign that the ship was beginning to crash, and we had a timeline to work with.
That timeline was three years, and since I knew that for the next three years, federal interest rates were going to increase, I decided to focus intently on what I was going to do with those next three years to make sure I came on come out on top.
I've completed my first hundred days of the three-year challenge and learned some amazing lessons. This article dives into some of the insights I captured.
Within this article, the reader will learn the following insights:
A unique perspective of reality
How thoughts are our biggest opportunity
Faith is a factor of just knowing
Resilience is a blessing that is learned with time
Extra additional lessons learned
Lesson One: An Authentic Version of Reality
As a pharmacist, one of the lessons we've learned in school and on rounds is the acronym known as SOAP. This stands for subjective, objective, assessment, and plan.
Subjective can be seen as the background or the story. For example, the patient came in reporting trouble breathing. Objective is the factual, measurable information. In this example, the patient's blood pressure is increased, heart rate is over the threshold, etc. Subjective is a story or experience; it's mental. Objective is measurable, tangible, physical.
Once we have these two, we can accurately assess what happened and create a plan because we have a solid basis for the situation's reality.
A subjective and objective perspective is vitally important to what is considered reality. We have so many stories that we play out in our heads that are very subjective but have little to no objectivity.
I spend so much time worrying or planning for scenarios that aren't necessarily grounded in reality. They have little to no objectivity to them. To be better grounded in reality, I needed to see solid factual evidence to say this was a problem.
So one of the most important lessons I’ve learned is to stop worrying about the problems in your head. If it’s entirely subjective, I can't do anything about it because it's not real.
Once it does become objective and becomes a problem, then I will address it.
Lesson Two: Thoughts are our most immense opportunities
We spend a lot of time in our heads and thoughts, which takes up a lot of energy. It takes up a lot of mental energy and, eventually, physical vitality. A substantial amount of this is due to our egos, which I explore more in-depth behind my first paid article, The Tyrant King.
I recommend becoming a paid subscriber to read this piece. It is vitally important to learn about the ego and how it drains our thoughts and energy.
As a healthcare executive, my day-to-day is based on planning and being strategic. I look at data, look at numbers, and I try to analyze possible situations. This takes up a lot of mental energy, and I've realized I'm exhausted once I'm off work. Mentally and physically, I was drained, and I had nothing. I had no energy for anything after 6 PM.
I realized that the position already requires a lot of mental energy. I only made it worse by using more mental energy to tackle imaginary, hypothetical scenarios with little to no objectivity.
Fortunately, I learned through alchemy that I could free up more mental energy.
First, I had to learn how to grasp that the thoughts in my head weren’t me. I mentioned this when discussing the difference between our minds and our souls. In addition, multiple books have this central theme, such as Don’t Believe Everything You Think.
Knowing about thoughts and how they connect with the ego, I started to recognize how the ego can be seen as an artificial construct. I began to see how the thoughts in my head weren’t necessarily my thoughts but “ideas suggested by individuals we’ve never heard about.”
This is a result of our ocular-centrist society, and the best thing I can do to help with my thoughts is to stay embodied. I’ll address this in a future paid article. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber by reading the entire ego article.
But the idea here about being embodied is that we need to remove the energy from our heads and put it into our bodies. And to do this, you need to do something physical.
You can think a lot clearer after you've done 50 jumping jacks. You're not as angry with a situation once you do 50 push-ups.
Lesson Three: Resilience is a Blessing Earned After Time
Part of this three-year challenge is to wake up every morning and journal what I plan to do for the day. At the end of the day, I journal what I did. I journal if I come close to my goal, what I did to get closer to my purpose etc.
So far, I've been journaling for the past 112 days, and I have 1,082 days to go.
Since this is a three-year challenge, I can't give up after 50 days when things aren't going my way. You have a bad week; you record it and go the next day. The good thing about this journaling system is that since everything is recorded, we can see what was horrible on Monday and how we fixed it by Thursday.
We're able to see how we grow from things.
And by this keen but stretched view of time, we see how negative things eventually time become positive. We're able to extract the blessings from those lessons.
What this taught me is that consistency is critical. You encounter one roadblock, but that shouldn't stop you. Keep on going.
In my upcoming book, An Unorthodox Truth to Reality, and my article on developing an unfair advantage, there’s a similar message: success is a numbers game.
And the more times you put it out there, the universe will respond.
Lesson Four: Faith is "just knowing."
Throughout these hundred days, I'm coming to a new understanding of reality, which builds upon the lessons I've learned, such as how our thoughts influence our bodies and how our ideas can drain energy from our bodies.
One important lesson I learned was that resistance, which stops us from living our best life, is entirely, more times than not, mental. More times than not, we have mental roadblocks than physical blocks. Our subjective, the mental story we tell ourselves prevents objective, physical, measurable actions.
“Resistance is our tendency . . .to yield to procrastination, self-doubt, fear, impatience, self-inflation, self-denigration, distraction, laziness, arrogance, complacency, and perfectionism.” - Stephen Pressfield.
This understanding of reality, how the mental, spiritual affect the material, physical, is a fascinating piece that I plan to discuss in-depth within my esoteric section.
But one of the key concepts I've learned throughout this challenge is the concept of faith. In The Book Of Alchemy, we read how the Christian alchemist Paracelsus described faith: “Faith, Paracelsus tells us, is not mere belief, but an “unwavering confidence” based upon [just] knowing.”
Through the lesson of resistance, you see that if you keep going, things will work out. In the previous article, how to live your best life, I called out that our generation has a proclivity to give up because we consistently encounter resistance.
Resistance is primarily mental; it's spiritual. And so, to overcome resistance, we need to develop a strong mental, spiritual repertoire to defeat resistance. That's where faith comes in. Just knowing that everything is going to work out for good. It always has, and it always will.
But faith, which is subjective, does require work, which is physical and objective. Without work, faith is non-existent.
Lesson Five: Extra Additional lessons learned
There are so many lessons that I've learned throughout this challenge so far, and I imagine the more insights I gain, I’ll place them on the Substack.
Some additional lessons I've learned are why due dates can be harmful, and the other one is the power of visualization. Another key lesson I’m starting to master is the power of Getting Things Done (GTD). Knowing what items you want to do tomorrow before bed helps prime you for the next day.
I'm also learning many spiritual lessons. Spirituality is a vital component of reality and strongly impacts reality. Spirituality can be seen as the foundation of reality - the subject before the objective.
This is the core message behind the esoteric section. However, this topic may not interest most - which is totally fine. But for those interested, please join me in the members-only area. This information is behind a paywall for those genuinely interested in the nature of our reality.
Conclusion
Life is the ultimate test; unfortunately, we weren't prepared for it. Life’s actually been turned against us all for economic gain, which I discuss in who are the bad guys and why we've been set up to fail.
However, we have the tools and resources to turn our lives around. We can start living our best life using tools, such as our unfair advantage, to get us there.
By identifying what we want to do in this life, recognizing our life purpose, and having a focus and perseverance to continue, we can continue navigating this labyrinth set up against us.
And ultimately, we can live a life worth living.
Thank you for the time, and I look forward to going on the journey with you.
Ashe.
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