I Read This Letter Every Morning: My Life is 1000% Better.

Dear Mathew,

I humbly request you do the following things today starting at 5:30 AM. I know you are disagreeable and stubborn. But think of it this way: if you do this, you get to set a list of priorities for the next day. In a sense, you get to have a say in the world and earn your place, so to speak.

What is required of you is not perfect. It might even bore you to death (literally), as some previous versions of you will attest. But these previous versions did deliver on their mandate. Surely, such bastards can’t outdo you now, can they?

And think of your current state for a moment. Are you not here because someone probably did something boring, hard, and demanding? Like your mum preparing you for school every day? Before you object to such blackmail, keep in mind that there are more tasks in the world than you have time for. This realization is not trivial; it requires you to think critically about what you can do with your limited time. Lists like the one that now sits before you exist for this reason. Yesterday, before going to sleep, you decided on the following:

• Run for 30 minutes
• Write 350 words for your upcoming book
• Write 2000 words for an article (job)
• Study programming for 2 hours
• Continue working on your portfolio (2 hours)
• Write 700 words for your water filtration blog

This morning, you might feel otherwise. That’s okay. As I hope, you probably think yourself reasonable. You are not the kind of man to tick a wrong answer in an exam to appear stupid for an audience, even if the audience is you.

Therefore, you understand why focus is necessary in the face of your finite nature. Why if you are going to do something at all, you must do it right and as a matter of priority. From my previous experience with versions of myself — of yourself — you might be tempted by nihilism and hopelessness. This will pull you toward wastage of time and energy because we shall all die, the universe will end in a big rip, and we are at the mercy of asteroids and pandemics. In other words, why care?

I call BULLSHIT! Where do your nihilistic thoughts go when eating chicken or ice cream? Even in your most depressed state, you still expect something from the world: your sleep, your peace, and the comfort of your bed, just to name a few.

Why not sleep on the floor and give up entirely on feeling good after rebelling against the world? Why cushion your head against the hard surfaces of your bed? Why seek a warm blanket and the safety of your house?

The expectation of feeling good even in the worst state of your mind never leaves you does it? Therefore, the question is, are there better ways of feeling positive than turning your back on the world?

Dah!

I’ve seen you overjoyed after an exercise. A deserved compliment does you wonders. You also have a proud history of accomplished tasks, which brings you endless joy in your sleep, drive, cooking, and countless other places. The bottom line is there are other ways of feeling good, but they require focus, the kind that requires completing tasks like the one in the list below:

• Run for 30 minutes
• Write 350 words for your upcoming book
• Write 2000 words for an article (job)
• Study programming for 2 hours
• Continue working on your portfolio (2 hours)
• Write 700 words for your water filtration blog

Completing some of the tasks here will be difficult, but you have done more difficult things for worse outcomes. Like drinking hard liquor, an unbearable foul taste for a subsequent bad day. Quite the mathematician! So, stop the hypocrisy. Completing these tasks will bring you long-term happiness which is something I hope you desire.

If you don’t feel such desire — feelings are fleeting anyway — I want to draw your attention to something. Rules.

As a man of reason, you expect rules. When you walk towards the market, you expect to get there. When you throw things up, you expect them to fall back down. And when you close your eyes, it doesn’t surprise you that you can no longer see.

Knowing this, you must admire a life with rules. Order over chaos. Such reality must bring you comfort. Who doesn’t want to find his house in the same place? Meditate on this if you must, but such is the man you are — a lover of expectations.

Rules automatically imply deserving. Only the man who walks towards the market will get there. Only the stone that gets thrown will come down. A world of rules — which you so admire — requires action, not slumber. It so happens that action can be ordered into lists like the one you see below:

• Run for 30 minutes
• Write 350 words for your upcoming book
• Write 2000 words for an article (job)
• Study programming for 2 hours
• Continue working on your portfolio (2 hours)
• Write 700 words for your water filtration blog

Suppose you are a creator — what happenstance that you are the creator in your own life — would you not have people deserve the things in their life, including happiness? Or do you harbor the unnatural desire to award goals where no effort was spent?

I still feel some resistance in you to the idea of predefined tasks. Like an animal in the wild, you still want to ride your emotions wherever they take you. Don’t emotions matter? Is this your question?

Suppose you lived in a world where doctors walked away from surgeries, teachers from classrooms, and drivers from their cars just because they didn’t feel like it.

• Jenny died on the operating table; the doctor felt an intense urge to do TikTok
• The house burnt down; the firefighters didn’t want to miss the game
• The family starved to death; the farmer decided he was no longer a morning person
• Emily was abandoned at the mall; the mother couldn’t stand the crying child anymore

Do you see where this is going? To demand a world in which others complete their tasks and responsibilities but you get to walk is cruel and hypocritical. The hell would you be creating by walking away! Imagine thousands of kids abandoned at the mall!

Many months ago, you decided that intelligence is the ability to resolve your emotions positively. Resolving your emotions positively is not always going to be easy, but I do have a few tips that might help you today.

First, you need to practice radical acceptance. There is nothing wrong with feeling lazy, hopeless, tired, and pitiful. Surf these emotions; let them be without being judgemental. Secondly, if it helps to know, it gets easier with time. By doing something often, it will become a habit. In short, maintaining a routine will become second nature. This is what you should strive for.

What are some of the benefits of sticking to your goals? For one, you become more confident. In a sense, you become a man who can expect and receive from a doctor good service, from a firefighter fortitude, and from a soldier the courage to defend you. From society, you will receive honor and respect. After all, a man of his word is more admirable than a sluggard, no matter his word.

Even after all this rumbling, I still feel you might succumb to distractions and not complete your assigned tasks. It is understandable. You might feel the worst of all feelings and certainly the most damaging — underserving.

The tasks ahead of you will take you to new places and better fortunes, but you strongly feel you deserve your low rank. Your current status. You might feel you are unworthy of self-sacrifice and that your improvement would unsettle some spirits. Disturb the hierarchy.

That your safe place is not to challenge the world too much. In that case, in the face of improvement, self-deprecation or self-sabotage will become your please stop buttons. You will feel an intense and inexplicable urge to press them. You must not.

Here’s why.

The world of rules is made for exactly the opposite — challenging of hierarchy. You already know that in such a world, you reap what you sow. One can even say that the fruit of your labor is the only thing you can hope for and never get disappointed.

Try it. Go and wash a cup and see if you will not deserve a clean utensil. In the face of doubt, affirm your belief in this simple way. Remind your rank how arbitrary it is. Tell it that you can challenge it this and that way. Show it you can make changes here and there, even if it means cleaning a single cup.

You reap what you sow is a ladder to a higher rank, and if such a ladder exists, why not use it? Why be your own gatekeeper when no one else is standing guard? Who can stand guard against the foundations of reality? You?

Clean your act. You are like the evil queen, except that Snow White is growing in you, but you still want to poison her.

Finally, never compromise on the following:

• Smelling good
• Standing straight
• Keeping clean
• Looking up
• Fulfilling your duties
• Believing that any state of being is deserved. A bacteria will kill a man with its poisonous secretions just as you, with the movement of your hands, can clean a cup.

Compromising on these things is probably why you think you don’t deserve a higher status.

And should your actions bear no fruit — the water filtration blog might never earn a dime — take no fault in the world. We can just as easily establish that your task is to give your best because if there really is no place for you in the universe, you can do nothing about it. You already have whatever you think you are owed — life. To live, that’s up to you.

Living requires walking up to the ladder and choosing to climb it. Your rank, your final status, the one you truly deserve, lies at the other end of your actions. YOUR ORGANIZED ACTIONS!

This last part is between me and you, my morning version. You must want something. At the end of what will be a busy day, write it down and send this letter along as an email newsletter. It will be accomplished tomorrow because of what you choose to do today. Your sacrifice will be honored. Our bond is the respect we carry forward.

Just in case you do not want to go back a few pages back, here is the list of the tasks for the day:

• Run for 30 minutes
• Write 350 words for your upcoming book
• Write 2000 words for an article (job)
• Study programming for 2 hours
• Continue working on your portfolio (2 hours)
• Write 700 words for your water filtration blog

Love you, and have a good day.