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This is about establishing freedom for yourself. This is about being your own boss. This is about laziness and all the potential it has to be. When I say “this”, I mean everything we do here, everything we talk about. Fundamentally, the goal here is to escape the corporate work slave mind and enter one of freedom -- the lazy mindset. Now that said, we do cover the basis on what this “mindset” is. I mean, heck just last week we were talking about “the light side” of lazy, and how laziness can actually be a good thing. But every once in a while I like to dig back to the roots of what this blog/podcast was originally all about and that is of course online money-making. Making money from the couch is what we do here. We’re lazy procrastin8rs and it's within our mantra to find the easy way to do things, including but not limited to earning an income. Gone are the days where you gotta follow the typical corporate work structure. Gone are the days where you gotta grind your ass off 9 to 5. Gone are the days where you got a boss screaming down your neck.  Anyway, specifically what we’re going to get into here is Play-to-Earn games. That’s right, getting paid to play video games. Not write about them. Not stream content about them. Simply. Just. Play. That’s it! Now that may sound just too good enough to be true, but I assure you, it is quite the profit potential, coming from a lazy dude of course and not some financial advisor. But anyway, I do believe the Play-toEarn model is the direction that the gaming industry is headed in the future. Heck, just recently GameStop partnered with Immutable, and plans to launch their own NFT marketplace. Immutable is the team behind the NFT-based card game called Gods Unchained, which I’ll probably have a full review of…later…not now, but eventually. I’ll get it done damnit! That's HUGE news though. With a big company like GameStop jumping on board, it shows that NFTs, that is Non-Fungible Tokens, assets are slowly growing bigger and bigger, as in more and more accepted and mainstream. GameStop is really making a smart move here and diverting away from the traditional brick n’ mortar video game store we know them as and really embracing their presence in NFT technology and the metaverse. But it’s not just GameStop alone in the void. Other big grand names like Nike and Adidas have created their own fashion-based NFTs. And this is really just the beginning.  The NFT space is just in its infant stage right now and it’s only going to keep growing and maturing. It’s in your best interest to start doing your own research, to learn about these Play to Earn games and NFT marketplaces, because I’m telling you, that’s where the future is headed. Now I want to point out that I did write a whole blog article, as well as recorded an entire podcast episode dedicated to a play to earn platform called “Level-Up Gaming”, which was a website where you could earn “LVLUP” tokens, a real cryptocurrency built on the Binance Smart Chain by playing online games, like their Pac-Man clone called Pacotto. Unfortunately, the company recently announced on their Telegram that the website will be closing, due to lack of funds in the rewards pool. Makes sense. I mean, you can’t design your business around giving free tokens away. That’s just not a sustainable or even practical business plan. Why am I telling you this? Well, I just want to make it clear that a “play-to-earn” game is NO guarantee that you’ll make money. There’s ALWAYS a risk involved and you could quite possibly end up losing. Another reason I bring Level Up gaming up is because one of the reasons I don’t like to cover *specific* programs is due to the very nature of online money-making; programs tend to close their doors faster than you can say “but I didn’t even get to make a profit.” Seriously, it’s just the way this industry works. Even though this blockchain technology is new, the basic premise remains the same. Nothing guaranteed and there’s always a risk involved. I mean most start ups, online or not, wind up bankrupt and out of business within the first two years. But oftentimes because of this rather “ghosting” nature of online money-making programs, I end up putting in a lot of time creating content about it, only to watch it soon disappear shortly after. Another example is PerkTV, which was an app that paid you for watching videos. They had a whole “Perk” debit card and everything. It was totally legit! That company shut down though. See, you when I share with you an online money making website or app, you have to keep in mind that it’s nothing permanent. Ya, you can’t rely on that website or app always being around to provide you income.  You have to KNOW how to search for good profitable programs ON YOUR OWN. And that’s really what I want you to be able to do and take away from this. You know, I want you to be your own dude and abide, so to speak. But listen, it seems you guys like when I do reviews on specific programs, so I will continue to do so as we move forward Like I said though, I’ll cover Gods Unchained and maybe a few others in the future. I’m just letting you know up front that because of the nature of this industry (online money-making), some of my content becomes “stale” in a sense and sort of just…irrelevant. I promise you that as of writing or as of publishing, the programs I talk about *are* actually paying. That may not always be the case, but I’m not gonna write about something that’s NOT paying. So yeah, while some things I wrote about (in the past) are not paying any more, they were in fact paying at some point. Now I got you thinking. All these points I made about how programs of online money-making close all the time, so the question that may pop up in your head is Is NFT gaming something sustainable? Or is it just a waste of time? Well to that I say, the time you enjoy wasting is NOT wasted time! Haha But seriously. I do believe that NFT games do hold potential for a lot of profit. Is every single “play-to-earn” game going to make you bank? No…of course not! In fact, MOST games in the play-to-earn space are going to be utter shit. MOST of them are going to stop running within a few months. That’s just how it is. I mean it’s just like how most of the games on the Google Play store or Apple store absolutely suck. Anyway, that all said, I put together a short list of things to look out for that I personally think will allow a play-to-earn game to “make it”, that is remain profitable for players (and not just the developers) for a long sustainable amount of time. And without further ado, let’s dive…right into it!  1. A Fun/Addicting Game Loop First and foremost, is the game actually fun to play? Like is it something you’d be playing even IF there wasn’t any sort play-to-earn incentive? A P2E game that is gonna stick around must be, in my humble opinion, actually fucking fun to play. It’s gotta have that “one more” feeling to it. Just one more level, one more match, one more battle! Aaaand next thing you know it’s 3 in the goddamn morning. Something like that, ya know. It’s gotta have this sort of loop or cycle of gameplay that keeps you wanting MORE, that keeps you coming back. Maybe it's getting a higher score, maybe it’s finding more rare loot. Whatever it is, it’s gotta keep you hooked on playing the game just for the sake of playing it, rewards aside. The in-game achievements should be enough incentive alone to keep playing. It’s gotta be something that can steal away hours of your time, without you even thinking about it. Addictive elements is what you want, almost like you need your “fix” to play it. A lot of these P2E games aren’t really fun games. Like…at all! I mean, there’s so many of these “clicker” play to earn games that don’t really offer much gameplay beyond clicking a button once a day to earn your reward and c’mon what is THAT? That’s not a game people are going to want to play beyond the incentive of getting paid to play it. A successful P2E game is going to be, well a GAME, something that’s actually freaking entertaining to play. None of these boring clickity mclick games are going to last very long. Entertainment should be the top priority P2E developers should aim to create and you, as a potential P2E investor and player should should aim to find. One thing I see developers doing, like Azur Game, is taking an already proven good game loop formula and building in on the Metaverse. They took their game Axes, which already had thousands of players daily and are now building “Axes Metaverse”, which is essentially the exact same game but with NFTs. I’m all for developers taking games that are fun and throwing them on the blockchain. It may seem lazy. But I’m all about that. No sense in re-inventing the wheel. If a game is fun, it’ll be fun with NFTs and other P2E elements. I think we’re gonna see more and more developers taking already well-established games and putting them on the blockchain and it’ something to look out for. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was an Angry Birds metaverse/p2 game. God, that game is everywhere! There’s even Angry Birds bath bombs, toothpaste, and hand sanitizer. I kid you not  2. A Strong in-Game Economy While second on the list, this is probably equally as important as having fun gameplay. It doesn’t matter how fun the game is if the economy of the game is ripped to shreds. Developers are beginning to realize that they can’t just be “game-makers” and programmers, they have to be economists. One of Level-Ups downfalls for example, while the games they made definitely had a “fun factor” -- you really can’t say Pac Man is boring -- they were minting new coins, but not really offering a reason to spend or otherwise burn the token. There needs to be some sort of “burn mechanic” in a solid P2E game, where players are incentivized to spend their crypto token on in-game assets. I look at (non P2E) games like RuneScape and World of Warcraft. MMORPGs like these are notorious for having well running in-game economies. They have real supply and demand, like an actual real world economy. Releasing a new boss increases the price of potions and food so people could survive and take down the boss In fact, one of my first experiences “market trading” was flipping items on the Grand Exchange in RunesScape. I think once a P2E game comes that has such a well-built in-game economy like our old MMORPG ancestors, it’s really gonna fill the pockets of players. Illuvium is a project I’m looking at,and it’s a full 3D open world Pokemon inspired MMORG. An economy works extremely well with trading card games. I mean the whole nature of the game is buying, selling, and trading your way to the top and creating a powerful deck. That’s why I think we’re gonna see something like the aforementioned Gods Unchained really hit the top in these P2E games. Already, some of the rare cards are selling for thousands of dollars worth in their native token “GODS”. There has to be items or collectibles that players want to get. There has to be loot in some fashion that’s only obtainable by “burning” or spending your crypto in the game. That’s what’s really going to set a P2E game above the rest. Are players trading items in the game? And if so, are they incentivized to use the in-house currency/crypto to get it? BombCrypto is another P2E I talked about, where the only thing you can do with their in-house/native token is mint new heroes. That’s not enough to flesh out a full economy. Players only want to cash out their earnings as quickly as possible. The result? Well BCOIN (the native BombCrypto currency) plummeted from $7 to just about 50 cents as of writing. Now the developers (of BombCrypto) do plan on adding a new story mode, cosmetics, and skill resets as burn mechanics to encourage players to spend their token in the game instead of just sell what they earn on the crypto market. They also greatly reduced the rewards. Like I said, developers are coming to the hard realization that they have to be real economists and fight with supply and demand. Having players mint new tokens without incentive to spend them isn’t sustainable in the long-term. There has to be a reason to keep the token IN THE GAME. The key is to keep players trading the game currency within the game itself rather than on the market, kind of like how people trade gp for items on RuneScape. My tokens that I acquire should offer me benefits or resources or some sort of loot within the game itself and not just be an asset to immediately sell on the market. This does sort of tie in with the “fun factor” too because after all, if the game is fun enough, people are going to want to keep playing. And if they want to keep playing, well that means the community is likely to stick around and unlock game features or assets with their coin, instead of just cashing out and going.  3. A Compelling Competitive Scene Another P2E win element we’re going to look at today is competition. Head to Head! Competition is really the heart and blood of what determines the longevity of a game -- any game, and not just P2E. This is why games like Street Fighter, Star Craft, and Counter Strike can maintain a strong playerbase for so long - the competition is fierce! There should be a feeling of wanting to outsmart, outwit, and outplay your opponent. Players should be rewarded for being amongst the top of them all. A PVP match, or tournament should offer reward pools based on their performance. Obviously, the higher rankings would equate to higher rewards. Gods Unchained does this with their weekly weekend tournaments, giving cards and GODS as rewards based on your rank as well as amount of “wins” you achieve throughout the weekend (up to 25). Heroes & Empires also offers their native HE token based on your ranking in the PVP colosseum. Incentivizing players to compete is both a smart and efficient way to shell out rewards. It makes players want to climb their way to the top so they can earn the highest rewards, and that of course involves becoming skilled and knowledgeable about the game mechanics. Competition keeps players invested in the game, both with their time and money, in short  4. A Sense of Progression/Achievement
Finally, the last element to look for in a P2E project is good ole fashioned progression. Leveling up, unlocking new abilities, earning cool and powerful loot. There should be some feeling of “my character is getting better” or “my account is getting stronger.” I’d say that progression in the baseline for maintaining players long term. I mean this can even sort of tie in with competition, as maybe that sense of progression comes from earning a higher rank. Either way, there must be some form of forward motion within the game design. Games that are just sort of “one n’ done” aren’t going to last in my opinion. There has to be some sort of goal or ultimate achievement for players to achieve - max level, top rank, etc. in order for there to be long term sustainability of a given game. Without that, without levels or ranks or collectibles to gather, players will get bored of the game quite easily. We talked about game loop earlier. Well one of the driving factors *behind* a game loop is to motivate players to reach a certain point of achievement. Wrapping Up: Each of these factors alone aren’t enough to call a game a solid investment. It’s each of them, combined, that creates a synergy of “goodness”. At the end of the day, really the only question you need to ask yourself when choosing whether or not to invest in a P2E game is, would I play this? Because if you wouldn’t play it, without the incentive of payment that is, then who else is really gonna? Anyway, game on my friends and until next time… Stay classy, stay sexy, stay awesome and take it real easy, N8
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What does it mean to be lazy? A good question. Of course, if you ask that to nearly anyone, they’ll tell you it means being unmotivated and energetic; it means lacking any sort of ambition or will to do anything, yet alone something productive; it means wasting time….or something to that effect. There’s such a bad social stigma about being lazy, and people naturally are critical about any form of laziness. You can’t blame them, though. I mean, it’s just sort of the culture of this “work ‘til you die' ' structure we’re all raised in. Just like the world would have you believe that wolves are these cruel feral animals with pure evil intent, so too would the world have you believe that laziness is the absolute worst personality trait one could ever develop.  Wolves are actually more like dogs that just so happen to live out in the wild. There was a time where humans and wolves lived together; they were as much as “man’s best friend” as your little fluffy pomeranian. But because of all of these stories in fairytales of books and movies, where the wolf is typically the villain or bad guy, like the one that huffed and puffed and blew the house down in the THree Little Pigs, the general public’s view of wolves is that they are quite vindictive and flat out mean. Like, if you hear a pack of wolves howling it means they’re out to hunt their prey, which is you as a lonely hiking bystander. Fairytales will literally have you believe that wolves crave human flesh. And while wolves are carnivores, that just means they want to eat meat, not necessarily human meat, either. In fact, because of our ancestors and their bond with wolves, wolves typically respect humans, and aren’t very likely to eat them, contrary to popular belief. Unless of course he was a very, very hungry wolf. But honestly, you look at something like a German Shepard and tell me that he wouldn’t attack/eat you if *he* was hungry enough. C’mon man. Besides, there are literal Wolf Sanctuaries, where people, yes, people, live with and take care of wolves. Some would even call them “friends” Imagine that! And you thought every wolf was a “Big Bad” one.  The whole point I’m trying to make here with this little wolf anecdote is that “bad guys” aren’t always really that bad. That is to say, things that we’re told are bad It’s true wolves have sharp fangs, but that doesn’t necessarily make them inherently evil. Likewise, it’s true that being “lazy” involves acting rather passive, but that doesn’t necessarily means it's unproductive or wasteful of them to do so. The definition of the word “lazy” goes much deeper than what’s on the surface. Just like how wolves are actually friendly creatures, procrastin8rs are actually friendly creatures too. That’s what I want to talk about today. I want to introduce to you, or perhaps recap for you if you’ve been following my blog and are familiar with my content, what *exactly* It means to be lazy, because being lazy is so much more than sittin’ around being a lethargic piece of shit, waste of space, as the rest of society would have you believe.  Just like all things in life, especially when it comes to personal attributes, there’s a bit of a light side and dark side. I mean you take being hard-working, for example. Certainly there’s the light side of getting things done with punctuality, completing goals, and being active. But you never really heard the dark side of that. You never hear about the dark side of being such a hardworking go-getter. For example, spending all your time at work means you're always “too busy” to find time to spend quality time with family or friends, it means you’re constantly moving and never stop to smell the roses, so to speak. Look, you always hear about the light side of being hard-working and never really hear about the dark side of it, and in the same vain, you always hear about the “dark side” of laziness and never really hear the light side of it and that’s what we’re getting into today. Laziness is like the force and you can choose what to do with its power. Anyway, without further ado, let’s dive…right into it!  To be lazy is to be relaxed. A lazy person is laid back and calm. Nothing bothers him. He doesn’t give a fuck. He’s just his own dude abiding. Stress and worry doesn’t easily startle him or shake him up. If anything unexpected or emotional happens, well then he’s too LAZY to get all upset and make a big deal about it. He recognizes his emotion, without letting them spiral out of control. He reflects instead reacts. If someone insults or criticizes him, well shit man, again, he’s too LAZY to make a huge fuss over it, get into an argument, and/or stir up some drama. You see, despite all the bad connotations being lazy has, you can’t deny that typically a lazy person isn’t very much of an argumentative prick or drama queen. They kind of just go with the flow with “whatever man”. Now going with the flow doesn’t necessarily mean they like what happened or are “cool wit it” or whatever, it just means that they don’t let it bother them, they don’t let it get to them. Remaining in control, not letting shit get under your skin too easily, that’s the key part of what were talking about when we talk about being relaxed. And like I said, if you’re lazy, I mean TRULY lazy, then you are naturally quite relaxed about things. No matter how hectic, no matter how crazy, you remain level-headed and easy going. That’s what you want to ideally aim for anyway, assuming you want to begin to follow the “light side” of laziness.  To be lazy is to be unfazed. Unfazed. What a word. It doesn’t mean you don’t care. It doesn’t mean you’re unconcerned. It just means you aren’t alarmed or aggravated easily. You’re stoic, clam….unfazed. This sort of what we were talking about with staying “relaxed”. I mean, if you’re relaxed, you’re unfazed and vice versa. Again, let’s think about a lazy person. The building could be on literal fire with people screaming and he’d be thinking about how he doesn’t feel like getting off the couch or chair he’s sitting at, instead of running around in a panic-induced frenzy. Now I suppose the dark side of that is that being lazy can mean you put yourself (and perhaps others) in danger. But the light side is that you can use this “unfazed” mode to prevent yourself from feeling anxious, worried, or stressed. It’s not so much about not caring about *anything*, but caring only about things that are *actually* important. Now I know what you’re thinking. In the case of an emergency, you can’t just sit there. You gotta fucking move! Off your ass! You may be thinking remaining unfazed during a serious emergency isn’t something honorable. And well I’d reckon that sitting around doing nothing during a real emergency is not the best course of action (or inaction I suppose). But unfazed isn’t about just not caring, not doing anything. It’s not getting riled up or emotionally perturbed. In fact, remaining unfazed *during* an emergency is probably one of the best things you can do. Think about it, man. What’s gonna solve an emergency? Running around like a nut shouting gibberish of words because you lost your ability to coherently speak, or calmly approaching the situation and making logical decisions about the right steps to take? You see, being unfazed, and very well being LAZY, is about staying calm in the heart of the storm. It’s about being rational during an emergency or legitimate crisis. Besides, if you can be unfazed during real emergencies, then you can be unfazed during any situation life throws at you and that’s what allows you to solve issues using a rational approach, rather than a firestormed emotional one.  To be lazy is to be free. A person who is lazy does what he wants when he wants. It’s that simple. While he has the bad rep of not going to class, not showing up for work, not getting chores done. I mean, these are a list of things he DOESN’T do. But what about what he does do? And maybe that answer is actually nothing. In which case, good for him! Good for him for doing nothing. Look at it this way, he’s doing what he WANTS. How often do you do that? How often are you not running from one obligation to the next? How often are you not going through your to-do list and “have-tos”? How often…do you do what you want? Man, I’m telling you, being able to throw all that shit away and actually do what you want, that takes some balls. That takes some audacity. We all point and laugh at the bum, who sits at home all day. And sure, on the surface, maybe the Cheetos stained t-shirt and cum-stained cushions, littered with tissues ain’t the best look. But hey, I mean, guy does what he wants and doesn’t question what other people think about it. Dude is living the dream. I mean….his dream anyway. What’s your dream? Something you want right? All this talk about how being lazy means you don’t go for your dreams. But fuck man, lazy people are living their dreams. Every. Single. Day. Why? Because they have FREEDOM. They’ve freed themselves from the duties, obligations, or otherwise expected protocols and decided to quote on quote “was te their time” doing what they actually want. And let me tell you about this “waste of time”, by the way. I said it before and I’ll say it again, but Time you enjoy wasting is NOT wasted time! That’s right. So another aspect of the light side of lazy is to be able to live a life of desire rather than a life of obligation. Free yourself man, embrace your laziness. To be lazy is to be efficient.
There’s a quote that’s often credited to Bill Gates, but originally came from Frank B. Gilbreth Sr. and it goes: “I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it. See a lazy person doesn’t want to bother with overly complicated processes. You bet your cookie that if there’s an easier way Heck, another thing I know I’ve said before, but it really drives home what I’m trying to say, but every invention, ever, since the wheel was invented by a lazy person. Laziness is the fuel to innovation. The whole reason we drive cars instead of walk. The whole reason we have apps on our phone that can deliver ANYTHING in the fucking world = to our door Laziness is what allowed society to make things convenient, to make things easily accessible. I’m telling you straight, man. If it wasn’t for laziness, we’d still be hunting and gathering and living in caves. We evolved, as a species *because of* our laziness. We built the entire modern civilization, complete with cool tech *because of* laziness. Yet, here we are, in this modern lazy-built society, and the audacity, the absolute nerve to say that laziness is terrible, when laziness…is exactly what got us here. So say it loud. Say it proud, my fellow procrasitn8r: I’m LAZY! Take it easy and may the force be with you -N8 Ya know, I talk a lot about investing here on this blog. And although this isn’t some sort of financial website (or advice for that matter), and I’m certainly no expert in the field, it still manages to be one of my “go-to” topics to make content about. And you may ask “why?” Why even give a fuck about investing, Nate? What’s that even gotta do with sittin’ around on the couch, like the lazy bastard you are, Nate? Isn’t managing an investment portfolio a lot of work, Nate? Woah, slow down there. Easy, man. Let’s answer those questions one at a time. First of all, yes, it’s true. I preach this “lazy mantra” and am all about leaving behind the life of a desk job and instead living the life of a couch potato. And it may seem quite hypocritical for me to go about talking about investing. Pssh, investing, yeah, like isn’t that something specifically reserved for those hardworking chumps on wall street? Well yeah and uhh…no.  mean, investing is something typically associated with those wall street bastards,sure, but I wouldn’t define what they’re doing as “hard work”. They make some guesses and watch and see what the numbers do. It’s really not that hard. And doesn’t take much of a genius or diligent person to do. What I’m getting at here, man is investing is just about as “lazy money” as you can get. I mean it’s literally just making money from your money. Your money works to earn you an income, so you don't have to. So of course! Of course I’m going to talk about investing. It perfectly fits into the lazy mantra of minimizing effort and maximizing results. It’s all about passive income, baby! I mean, that’s what you want, right? The ability to make a living without working a job? You want early retirement? A permanent vacation? Look man, what I want to break through your head is that you don’t need a job for income. Yes, a job *can* be a stream of income, but it doesn’t need to be your sole stream of income. Ya dig? The average millionaire has about a half dozen streams of income. And you know what I guarantee at least one of them is? In-fucking-vesting. It’s all about passive goddamn income. The guys with all the money aren’t the ones schlepping 9 to 5. They aren’t the ones grinding their asses off. Oh no! They’re the ones sittin’ back on the beach chair in their fancy yacht sippin’ margaritas. They’re the ones making a passive income, while the rest of us put in all the work. Man, I’m telling ya hard work doesn’t make you rich. And if it did, well then you’d see the coal miners and railroad workers be the billionaires. But they’re not. The actually billionaires though would like you to believe that YOU TOO can be rich one day if you work just hard enough to earn it, if you try just diligently enough. These guys are clowns. Absolute fucking jokes.  They literally spend all day not doing shit, reaping in loads of cash, and sit there telling us “oh yeah work hard, you’ll get there.” Psh! As if! Dude, you gotta realize that anything you make at your job, I don’t care how prestigious it is, they’re only giving you scraps off the table. Believe me, if you’re making six figures, well then you bet your ass and a door knob that they’re making seven or eight figures to your name. The real profit comes from investing. Heck even money you “save” in the bank is being invested. I mean look here, do you know what those banks do to make money? It’s not like they just let your money sit in a vault and call it a day. C’mon now! They make money off YOUR money. They’re playing with your money in stock market bets and lending out loans to earn interest. Then what? Then they give you a little tiny kick back in APY interest, which is the equivalent of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction off what they’re making off your buck. “Work hard and save” is the mantra we’re all given from the early days of our childhood. The whole system is corrupt. [Education is deisgned to turn you into an obedient corporate little slave.] They’ll teach you all about how a plant makes its own food through the process of photosynthesis and how to measure the circumference of a circle and what the newspaper headline was back in the 1800s. But they won’t teach you in school is how to invest, how to actually *make* money…unless of course you go to college and take some courses, but guess what? Those are courses you’re paying for! It’s crazy. All a college degree is is a piece of paper that says “Congratulations! You showed up for class.” Yet they sell it as some sort of ticket to your dream job. It’s only once you’ve graduated that you realize that a college degree ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, and serves better as the most expensive sheet of toilet paper you’ll ever purchase. Colleges act like their a gateway to some secret tome of wisdom and charge you up the wazoo for this supposed “exclusive access” to it. But there’s no secret fountain of knowledge or tome of wisdom locked behind the university’s doors. Any information they could ever teach you in class is easily accessible from your pocket. Take out your phone. You have Google. You have the Internet. You have access to the entire library of human knowledge that ever existed right in the palm of your hands. But I’m getting off track here. I didn’t really want to get into a whole deep discussion on the corrupted education system, specifically. Not today anyway. Another time I suppose. It all ties together though: the corporate system, the education system, the political system. It’s all one big machine to produce clones of hard workers, that all think and act the same. Now the way to break out of it, the way to achieve true personal freedom, is to educate yourself. And I don’t mean go to school, clearly. There’s much you can learn outside of a classroom. Class is just a mindless structure. Here’s a secret: if you’re still in school and wanna know how to get straight As--- You don’t really have to know things. You just have to know how to pass a test. That’s it!  Show up for class and know how to pass tests. Easy! Congratulations! You’ll have your degree in no time. But seriously, there are plenty of “drop outs” that made it big. Plenty of lazy bastards that dropped out of school and became rich and successful. There’s Henry Ford, Mark Zuckerberg, Walt Disney, Bill gates, and Steve Jobs--- to name just a few. What did these guys do to make it there? Did they work hard? Did they strive beyond their means to reach success? No…and no. You see, the people we know as billionaires didn’t work hard. They didn’t strive for anything. What they did was embrace their laziness. What they did is learn how to minimize effort and maximize results. And that’s the opposite! That’s the opposite of what the whole system is designed to get you to do. You’re brainwashed to believe that you must MAXIMIZE effort and will in turn maximize results. But what happens? You come home after a full 40 hour plus work week, groggy-eyed, exhausted, look at your pay check and realize you have *barely* just enough to cover bills. Huh! Shouldn’t you be a millionaire with the amount of effort you’re working? I mean given if results are equal to effort then certainly by working your ass off all week, the results should be quite luxurious. But they’re not. And you’re left living paycheck to paycheck, barely scraping by. [You’re literally A SLAVE, whose entire existence is to exchange labor for survival]. And that’s exactly what you’re doing! You are giving it your best You are giving it your all. You are working painstakingly hard and for what? Just enough money to cover a roof and groceries? Man, I’ll tell ya. You gotta look at the people at the top. And the people at the top? Well, I’ll tell you what they AREN’T doing. And they AREN’T doing the typical earning of a college degree and working through the whole long ass 40 year plus corporate job grind that’s expected of us. What they are doing though is embracing their laziness. They learned how to minimize that effort and maximize their results. And a lot of it came through investing. And when I say investing. I don’t mean just what you put in your stock portfolio or crypto wallet. I mean, that certainly helps go a long way. But when I’m talking about investing I’m talking about investing in people. Investing in ideas. Steve Jobs, for example didn’t “invent” the iPad, although he’s credited for it. What he did was invest in the right engineers with the right ideas to create the right product.  You see, it’s about learning how to invest what resources of time, money, and effort, you have into places that bring you value, a worthwhile return on your investment, that is.
When you do this, you’ve got to look at what you’re investing in right now. That’s right! We’re ALL investors in some fashion. Maybe you’re not necessarily a connoisseur in the “market”, but no matter what you’re always “investing” something. It could be time at a job. You “invest” your time and effort into earning that measly little paycheck. And something like that, well I think if you’re being frank with yourself really ain’t worth the “investment” dude. The ROI is shit, perhaps even negative. Invest in yourself. Invest in things that matter, things that aren’t important. Stop investing all the time and effort you have into a job that barely afford you to put food on the table and a roof over your head. You’ve got to be willing to be lazy. Break out of your corporate slave mind and become a procrastinator, man. Let me ask you this: do you really, I mean *really* want to be working your whole life? No, of course not. And neither did these billionaires, these big and successful people that dropped out of school and dropped out of the corporate grind. Doing what is “expected” of you is not always the best path to take. It’s the people that decide NOT to follow the norm that ended up making bank. It’s the people that said “I’m not gonna work. I’m gonna get other people to do it. I’m gonna get my money to do it.” Anyone who si rich has learned this secret. And by all means, it doesn’t happen overnight. [This isn’t the lottery.] It’s a slow n’ steady process to get rich and achieve your life of freedom. Just be patient, invest in the right places. Find valuable people, valuable ideas. I mean ‘cause ultimately what makes a stock price grow? Valuable ideas that are executed well. And how are they executed well? By the company choosing to hire (and invest in) the right people to make it happen. Stop investing in places with shitty returns, like your boring desk job that offers a shitty paycheck and little to no benefits. Invest instead in places that offer value. It’s something you learn when you decide to skip class and educate yourself. Your investments will grow and you’ll get to where you want to be….eventually! We live in such a hard work culture, where any sort of leisure is seen as a disgrace to your character, where any sort of “waste of time” is viewed as a vice. And what is this “waste of time” we speak of? Well, that means enjoying yourself. God forbid you kick up your feet and watch TV or play video games. Heaven fucking banish the one who chooses to spend their time taking a nap instead of working their ass off. People will act all holier than thou and tell you to NEVER procrastinate, to never slack off, to never stall around, as if doing so is the absolute bane of society. They’ll tell you procrastination is a terrible habit and you dare not even think about it. You better keep busy, keep going to work. Yes, obey your corporate overlords, you worthless little office grunt. But I’m here to tell you, quite the contrary, as the procrastin8r himself: that procrastination ain’t such a bad thing. And hey, if you don’t want to take that from some random lazy dude on the Interwebs, take it from the Lord Almighty himself, who literally made one of the Ten Commandments, the top ten moral laws of the universe to follow, he made one of those divine orders to “take a day off”. The Supreme Being and Divine Ruler of the Universe himself said that refusing to take a rest was literally one of the top ten most immoral things a person could do.  And look I ain’t necessarily a religious man, I just find it rather amusing that people will stand n’ preach about what’s in the Bible in the same breath they tell you to “get back to work”, yet the Bible itself is full of verses Hebrews 4:9-10 says: “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his.” It’s literally sacrilegious to NOT rest. Heck, in the whole creation story, what did God do on the seventh day? He took the day to rest. He took the time to procrastinate. He allowed himself the ability to do…absolutely NOTHING. And he “created” us in his image. Admittedly, I’m not one to buy into the whole creation story and find it to be more keen to that of a fairytale than any legitimate doctrine of history. Look, I’m only using this point as a metaphor and perhaps illustrate what I’m trying to say more clearly to those of my readers who do hold faith. Anyway, this isn’t some sort of religious debate I’m trying to bring up here, but case and point here is that taking time to rest, taking time to procrastinate and do nothing, is not only acceptable, it’s a morally *good* thing to do. And you know what? All this stigma against procrastination leaves out the very candid fact that it’s impossible NOT to procrastinate. I mean, you don’t need to do nothing in order to procrastinate. You can be doing something while procrastinating another. Did you catch that?  Okay, I’m gonna paint this picture for you straight: You are always procrastinating. Always. You hear? You are always procrastinating something in order to do something else. That’s just the way it works. Speaking of laws of the universe, that’s one of them. You can’t avoid procrastination. Clean cut n’ dry. Now you may think to yourself, “Oh no! I never procrastinate. I never do that. I’m always diligent.” First of all, you shouldn’t lie to yourself. But alright, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. Let’s say you actually remain quite active; you’re a bit of an eager beaver, a real go-getter. You always get projects done as soon as they are assigned. You attend to chores right away and get done errands without hesitation. You’re always busy, always moving, always on the ball. You don’t sit still. And that’s what you’re procrastinating on! Did you catch that? One more time: YOU DON’T SIT STILL. Do you see what you’re doing here? Do you see what your procrastination is. See, it’s not a matter of IF you procrastinate (or not); it’s a matter of WHAT exactly you procrastinate eon.  ’ll break it down for you, real simple: By consistently keeping yourself busy with busywork, you’re putting off “break time”, you’re procrastinating keeping holy the Sabbath day, you’re postponing time to rest. And as we already covered, rest is a necessary and morally obligated thing you must do. You must take a rest. You must take it easy. You must put aside your chores, put away your work or school assignments and “have-tos”, then sit on back and…relax. Relax. It’s something you have to do. Like I said, the big magical sky daddy himself did it. You can too. You’ve been putting that off haven’t you? You’ve felt compelled to always get something done, never leaving yourself any time to just like…chill, once in a while. You’ve gotten so wrapped up in your to-do list that you haven’t even looked at your wish list of things you want to do, things you enjoy doing. Even when you’re quote on quote “multi-tasking, you’re procrastinating another task, even for a brief few seconds to do another. You stop typing a paper to check your e-mail. You stop reading your e-mail to answer a phone call. You put the person you’re talking to on hold to look up something in the database. These little “stops” you take while “multi-tasking” are little moments of procrastination. That doesn’t mean you aren’t doing *anything*. It just means you aren’t doing a specific something (while you go ahead and do a specific something else) I put “multi-tasking” in quotes by the way, because face it, there’s really no such thing as multi-tasking anyway, I mean, let’s be real here. There’s focusing on one task versus rapidly switching between a bunch of them, but doing more than one thing at a time, which is what is often associated with the phrase “multi-tasking”, is nearly humanly impossible, unless of course you happen to be a circus acrobat, in which case I suppose that point is moot.  But for the most part, when it comes to multi-tasking, what you’re really doing is alternating between a subset of tasks in quick succession. You’re not doing everything in synch, per se. I mean, I take it you’re not necessarily juggling knives and breathing fire simultaneously here, though I could be wrong. Maybe you are quite the performer who holds an arsenal of amazing feats to stun the audience But for the non-circus jugglers among us, when it comes to multi-tasking, fact of the matter is, we are putting off something (although quite briefly) in order to do another thing. Procrastination is not wrong at its core. It’s just the natural way things are, given how time works, last I checked, anyway. It’s just wrong to consistently procrastinate the same thing over and over again. And while you’ve already heard the tried and tired phrase not to procrastinate *too much* by doing things like sittin’ around nothin’, I’m here to tell you to also not to procrastinate *too much* on giving yourself the much needed and much deserved rest. Have a break. Transform into a couch. Don’t do shit! The key phrase here is “too much”. Balance is key. While you don’t want to procrastinate rest, you also don’t want to procrastinate productivity TOO MUCH. And that my friend leads us to choosing how to procrastinate decisively, or a phrase I like to use called “Procrastinate with Purpose”. Since we already covered that no matter what you do, you are always, always, always procrastinating *something*, you must realize that you have the power to deliberately decide what that thing you procrastinate on. None of this: “Oh I was supposed to finish writing my report, but I wound up binge watching Netflix instead” Wound up? Wound up? No, you shouldn’t have “wound up” doing anything. I don’t mean to tell you it’s wrong to binge watch Netflix. I don’t mean to say that taking a nap over washing the dishes is a bad choice. What’s wrong is the fact that you didn’t have control over your actions and “wound up” doing something completely different than you had planned or anticipated. You must procrastinate with purpose, never winding up doing anything. And again, I can’t stress enough: it’s okay to rest and lay on the couch while “procrastinating” on getting work done. It’s even okay to procrastinate laying on the couch so that you *can* get work done. What I really want you to understand is that procrastination is just sort of one of those inevitable things in life. It’s not good. It’s not bad. It just is.  Procrastination is the art of putting something off ‘til later. It’s really the heart of time management. Do what you want though. Procrastinate on the things you want to procrastinate on. Never “wind up” doing something you were going to procrastinate on. Procrastinate with purpose. I’ll say it again. Procrastinate with purpose. That said, don’t always put off rest, either. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t *always* have to be busy. God, I mean so many people are making themselves busy just for the mere dear sake of being busy. Be aware of what you are putting off. Awareness is the first step. Consciously choose to put off writing that important work e-mail, so you can go play some video games. Deliberately decide to eat nachos instead of going to the gym. Whatever path you choose, embrace it man. None of this complaining about how you “shoulda” got something done. Either do it or don’t, but don’t worry about it. Don’t fuss over it. If you decide not to complete your assignment, just remember you’re acting like quite the deity by taking time to rest. Be a procrastinator now, so you can live a happier life later. Take it easy, N8 |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
March 2022
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