We all hate Mondays, especially after a holiday weekend, like Thanksgiving.
Your alarm goes off in the morning. You wake up, groggily, look at your phone as it screams at you and the birds are singing an overzealous annoying tune. You wish the world would shut up and let you continue to sleep. Sleep, it feels so good. The blinding bright light of the sunrise burns your retina. With blurry vision, you manage to swipe the screen to hit snooze hit snooze, wishing it were a button for a time machine that’ll bring you back to a couple days ago while you were off -- a happier time and place. Alas, this is no longer your dream where you have magical time-traveling super powers or a TARDIS in your pocket, this is corporate reality. You roll over, pulling the blanket over your head, trying to hide from the Monday, trying to dodge the inevitable doom. You start mumbling for it to go away in a raspy dried out breath, lingering a scent of liquor, pizza, and wings you splurged on the previous few nights. You catch a few more minutes of 40 winks, milking the last bit of the weekend for what it’s worth, but the snooze is over in what feels like seconds. Time flies when you’re being lazy. And your alarm rings again. After *at least* three more times of hitting the snooze again, and cursing at it louder each time, you finally FUCKING face the fact that the weekend is over and it’s time to get up. It’s Monday. What is it that we hate so much about Mondays? I mean it’s really just another day in the week in the grand scheme of things. It’s no better or worse than any other day out of the seven. If we have Labor Day or Memorial Day (or any other holiday) off on a Monday, or we go on vacation, for example, then Monday isn’t all that bad. As a matter of fact, a day off during a Monday is actually-- well, quite enjoyable. That’s quite bizarre considering throughout most of the year, Monday is a deep source of loathing.Unless Monday is a day for our own leisure, unless we can decide what to do on Monday for ourselves, it is the worst day of the week. You soon realize the Antagonist of the Tale of Your Work Week is not Monday itself; the evil source comes from something bigger. Monday is just the scapegoat, not the GIANT demonic entity itself. If we have off on Monday, Tuesday easily becomes the day we hate (or Wednesday or Thursday, you get the gist); it becomes our enemy instead. So why is it that, other than the few exceptions throughout the year, we hate Mondays so much? What attributes does it have that makes it seem so...dare I say: MON-sterous? We have to look at the makeup of Monday, really dissect it and understand its anatomy to be able to see what we’re really showing distaste toward and not just kick an innocent bystander just because he looked at us the wrong way and happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. We hate the redundancy - the boring flat routine. We want variety in our life. We want control over our time and work flow. We want leisure. During the weekend, we have all those luxuries of laziness and “Mondays” (the day we get back into the ordinary structure of our lives) take that away from us and remind us that we’re someone else’s “task monkey”, as Robin Singh describes it. (Go ahead and listen to that interview with him, if you haven't already) We’re given a schedule to follow and a list of goals to complete and a way to go about doing them. We’re told how much value each of our hours are worth and how to spend each second of it. We're programmed like a machine, given step-by-step instructions like a task monkey. It’s a limiting situation and not laziness; laziness is freedom. That’s why we enjoy our lazy weekend. It allows us to be in our true form -- a procrastinator and do whatever it is that makes us feel at ease in our own time and preference of location, when and where we choose to. Brandon Selby of PassiveTools and Better Bits Club says this about Mondays: I like the laid back good vibe attitude. People are depressed and miserable on Monday. Usually because most people are forced to start their work on Monday. It's the pressure and obligation that people despise, not the day itself. I mean that's all it is: a day. It’s what we associate with that day that brings about resentment. Saying fuck Mondays is saying "fuck what I have to do. I want to do what I want" and I think that's a beautiful (lazy) mindset to have. In other words, if your brain is telling you how much Mondays suck, what it's really telling you is "Hey! Quit trying to meet these arbitrary deadlines. Slow down, dude. You're panicking and stressing out for no good damn reason." Once you see Monday as just a day, you're free to do what you want with it. You don't gotta do a goddamn thing just cause it's Monday and your boss says it's time to work. Time to work is whenever you want. Recognizing that you don't like "Mondays" is a step toward valuing your own time, a step toward procrastinating with purpose. Don’t make Monday a scapegoat for your resentment of lack of control and tireless hard work. Nip it in the butt and target the real enemy: corporate slavery. If they own your time, they own you. Don't let anyone own your time. Be lazy and make Monday what you want it to be, even if that’s snoozing all day then waking up mid afternoon to binge a bit of Netflix. It may not be productive, but you can learn productivity and implement it later. Eventually, when you feel like it. For now, take back your Monday. Don’t worry about losing your job or paying you bills; the chains aren’t worth it. You are a procrastinator and you are free to do with your time as you will. If you do decide to get up and go to work on Monday to your day job, it’s because you want to and not because you feel indebted to do so. You are not enslaved by anyone and no one can force you to work. Fuck Mondays and Fuck not doing what you want with your own time. -N8
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First of all, let's procrastinate Christmas, slow it down. I like my holidays one at at a time. Let's relax and enjoy Thanksgiving before getting there. We've got a whole month of Christmas with the jingle jangles and decorations. No need to rush. Anywho, now that that's out of the way: gathering the ingredients, preparing the meal, serving it at the table, then cleaning up. Man, hosting Thanksgiving dinner is a lot of work. It’s also quite expensive. I mean, damn, it’s a lot of food and food does not come cheap nowadays. Today we’ll dive into some ways you can host a frugal Thanksgiving Dinner in the laziest and cheapest way possible. 1. Make it a Potluck Follow the lazy principle of getting other people to do the work for you. Easy. Have each guest bring their own dish. It saves you time. It saves you money. You no longer have to prepare the meal or go out grocery shopping. You can delegate and get your guests to do all the dirty work for you. As a procrastinator, I like to put off as much work as I can and hosting a pot luck is one of the laziest ways you can get away with hosting dinner. You’re basically just providing the venue, the location for the dinner and everyone else brings the food. You can even offer to provide the drinks, which is the easiest thing to bring When in doubt, be the drink guy (or gal) or make a homemade pie with a dash of “ShopRite” stickers or your local bakery. Your goal is to not actually have to cook or prepare anything ‘cause fuck that. Best part is, you won’t have to worry about cleaning huge fancy dishes (or lifting it up or placing it in your dish washer for that matter) because 2. Take advantage of coupons Clipping coupons used to be a pain in the butt, but nowadays it’s easy. You don’t have to rummage through pages and pages of newspaper ads, find one, then cut it out. No “clipping” involved. You can now literally go online and search for the store you’re going to shop for and find what coupons are available within seconds. Heck, you can even search for specific ITEMS, then compare the discounts and prices across multiple stores. Here is a list of some coupon sites: Krazy Coupon Lady Very organized. You can filter by store,brand category, smartphone app only, online only, and print only PromotionCode.org Simple layout, not as many categories or filter options as Krazy Coupon Lady Coupon Birds You can only really filter things by store, but you cna click a link and it'll auto c&p it to your clipboard then bring you to the website to use. Dealspotr A social media type site where people share promo codes. If you have a large enough following , you can even get paid to promote certain discounts. You have to verify you're the owner of the account(s) by connecting them They measure your influence on comments, reactions, and shares, not just follows. RetailMeNot Automatically copies a code and redirects you to a website. Coupon codes are user submitted and sometimes don't work. Also features CashBack Swagbucks Local Coupons One of my favorites sites. You not only get coupons, but can earn reward points (SBs or "Swagbucks") for printing them out. The SBs can be used to get free giftcards. You can also save 15% using Amazon Subscribe & Save, then just cancel your subscription after delivery. 3. Use cashback apps There are apps that want to pay you for your receipts. You’d be dumb not to take advantage of this. What are you going to do with your receipt? Probably throw it away. MAYBE get a tax return. But even if you are getting a tax return on your receipt, you might as well get a “cash back” return as well. It’s free money, basically, for something that is likely otherwise just trash. Receipt Hog - earn coins for uploading receipts - win streak bonuses for each week you upload - enter sweepstakes for big prizes or redeem for Visa, Amazon, or PayPal. Must fill out survey, verify device -connect amazon adn e-mail to earn a one time bonus - Level up by uploading receipts each week. Earn slot spins - Slot spins to win a “daily trip” vacation or extra coins for rewards or sweepstakes entries -no longer has referral system Fetch Rewards (Ref Code: M7VEE) - grocery receipts with certain brands (AI, Aunt Jemima, Aquafina, Brisk, Amp, Breyers, Bagel bites, Blue Moon, Boca, SPIKED Arnold Palmer) - Redeen points for gift cards (Groupon, Guitar Center, Best Buy, Dell, Panera bread, Applebee’s, Xbox, AMC, Facebook Visa or Charity) - “Plan” tab lets you make a shopping list. You can manually add items or look at recipe “inspiration” to add items to your list - $2 sign up bonus plus $2 for each ref Coin Out - upload receipts -coins are rewarded on RNG, not on amount spent - ANY receipt works, even a cafeteria at a hotel or the strip club SavingStar -activate rebates -add stores - use loyalty number at check out or upload receipt - you can add automatic saving stores by linking loyalty cards - stacks Ibotta (Ref Code: tblnauo) - sometimes certain stores sometimes certain products, sometimes certain products in certain stores - must earn $10 within a month to qualify for $10 welcome bonus - refer 5 friends and get a $25 bonus plus a $50 “mystery bonus” (not sure if it’s a gift card, discount or what) 4. Maximize savings with card rewards Use a debit or credit card with cash back. There are cards that give cash back on groceries, specifically. Be sure to pay off the balance IN FULL, though, otherwise you’ll accrue interest and the amount of interest these credit card companies hit you with completely negates any sort of savings you would have earned through your rewards. If you don’t want to be bothered with paying money at a certain deadline, you can either set up an auto payment or just forget about using credit card rewards altogether. The flip option is to use Debit card rewards, while not as lucrative as credit cards, they do have the advantage of using money you already have rather than creating a balance of money you will owe in the future. Debit Reward card are good because you get all the benefits of using a credit card (ie. cash back) , butwith a slightly less numbers and a LOT less hassle. It’s probably important to note that *technically* any cash back you earn is supposed to be taxed, whether from receipt apps or cards. 5. Buy gift cards at a discount You can buy gift cards at a discount price and use them at the store you buy groceries at (Wal-Mart, ShopRite, Giant, etc) It’ll normally save you about 1% for grocery stores or more for other stores. Every little bit of savings counts. The downside is some of the cards are only available as a physical card (not an online code) and sometimes it has a weird amount, like $26.49, because it's a marketplace where people list their unwanted or partially used gift cards to sell. You cna sell your own gift cards too. This is also a good way to get gifts for the holiday as well. Here are some gift card exchange sites: Raise Card Pool Gift Card Granny There's also a subreddit for exchanging gift cards Be careful with who you decide to trade or buy from though. There's a whole trust score system you should pay attention to. 6. Don’t Travel or Travel Cheap Elect to host it at your place or convince a close (proximity wise) relative, so you don’t have to pay any travel expenses If you do decide to travel though, here are some tips... If you’re traveling via car, carpool to save on gas. If it’ll take a few days on a road trip, bring a cooler with lunch meat, some bread, and peanutbutter & jelly, it’s cheaper than a restaurant, convenience store, or fast food. If you insist on flying, search for cheap flights. Sky Scanner Kayak Prices of flights tend to go up the closer to the last minute of departure you are, so as much as I encourage procrastination this is probably one of the few things I would encourage you to NOT wait for the last minute for. Buy flight tickets early and not have to deal with surge prices. Or pay the “procrastination fee” so you don’t have to deal with early booking. In this case, you have to choose what’s more important to you: not having to deal with hassle or saving money. When you get to the airport, see if you can arrange with a family member or friend to get drop you off and picked up at the airport or use public transportation It’ll be much cheaper than renting your own car or paying for parking. Pack light and don’t bring extra carry ons. Only bring essentials. You don’t need 3 outfits a day or 13 pairs of shoes. Just bring what you need. If you need a place to stay, first see if you can crash on the couch or in a guest room. If not, book an Airbnb. Locals rent out their houses or rooms on the cheap. Hotwire, Priceline, Expedia also have last minute deals, where you can find hotels at a deep discount if you book the day of the trip. I once got a hotel in Pittsburgh for $50. I stayed downtown in major metropolitan city for fifty bucks. Can’t beat that! This could be a whole article in itself about cheap traveling to be honest, so we’ll do that later and move on for now. 7. Have a list and stick to it. Ignore distractions. Make it easy for yourself and come up with a shopping list that way your not wandering around aimlessly and wasting time that you could be lying on the couch playing video games. You could also just shop online, though a bit more pricey, you save yourself the hassle of running out to the store and even leaving the house in the first place. Also, eat before you go grocery shopping, so you don’t end up making your eyes bigger than your stomach. 8. Don’t go out and buy what you don’t need Do a bit of inventory check before you go out shopping (or order online). You’re the quarter master of your humble bode. Check your cabinets, drawers, spice rack, and fridge, and see what you can use. No sense going out of your way to purchase something that's already in your kitchen. You can also use Halloween candy to bake a dessert or hell, just serve the candy raw. Candy is a dessert for Thanksgiving! Fight me. 9. Buy generic You’re honestly paying for nothing other than a name. Name’s are worthless, just buy generic. “Quality”is what they tell you they have. With the Food & Drug Administration, it’s not like they can legally sell you poor quality food. Look at the ingredients of generic brands versus name brands. They’re the exact same thing. And in terms of fruits and veggies, what do you think their growing from the Garden of Eden or something? You think they have 120 farming? Don’t be sold on a name just ‘cause they have a catchy jingle. Make your own jingle for a generic brand if you need to, if it makes you happy. 10. Make spices and ingredients from scratch Buying a bunch of spices in bulk is a lot cheaper than buying the premade spices. You’re basically paying for the jar (and not to mention brand name/label). You’ll get the spices in these large bags and can mix them to suit your tastes. A lot of pre-blends are also like 90% salt anyway and the others are just a mix of raw spices. Cinnamon and Nutmeg makes Pumpkin Spice, for example. You can look up how to make specific spices for your dinner.. This isn’t a recipe or food blog though, and I’m to lazy to look that up for you, but you can do that if that’s your thing. 11. Compare prices Check your local stores online to compare There are websites that makes this easy and let you look at a price comparison. Type in your location and what is on your list then see what’s cheapest where. You can then map out your whole trip. My Grocery Deals There’s an app for that too: Basket 12. Buy boxed wine & mull your own Carboard is less expensive. Boxed wine is a lot cheaper than by the bottle. You don’t need to look all fancy with a bottle. It all ends up in the same wine glass anyway. Also mull your own wine. Just heat it up w/cinnamon, cloves, allspice, and nutmeg in a pot. No need to pay a premium for something so easy to make. 13. Use homemade decorations, dollar store ones, or none at all There are plenty of How Tos and craft projects on Pinterest for using stuff around your house to build nice little decorations. Some of the dollar store decorations are actually quite decent too. Of course, I’m not a fashion & design expert by any stretch of the imagination, but neither is the average person, so most people aren’t going to be overly critical about your decor. And if one of your guests happens to be a fashion expert that gives you an unsolicited critique, you can thank them for their advice and suggest they buy you decor and decorate themselves for next year, which is a polite way of saying “shove it!” It’s not your problem. And boom! You just delegated the decorating to someone else and don’t ahve to do it. You can also do that beforehand too and don’t have to wait for the inevitable design slam. You don’t really need decorations though. If someone is so upset about decorations being missing, again, it’s not your problem. You’re a lazy procrastinator, too lazy to care and cater to every single whim and want of everybody else. You’re no people pleaser. You’re a you pleaser. Only decorate if it’s something YOU find enjoyable, if you’re a crafty type person. Don’t do it to try and make a good impression on anyone else. 14. Get paid to host dinner You’re spending all this time making a meal, so you might as well make some cash off of it. There are websites that are basically the Uber or AirBnb version of restaurants. You post what you’re serving and when and set a price. People sign up to join your dinner and boom! Profit. It’s an easy way to turn your Thanksgiving into a profitable day. Plus, you’ll have more potential guests you could subtly reccomend a product once you find out their interest and give them an affiliate link (We’ll get to that later) Eat With Me One Table 15. Buy just enough, no left overs Try not to overestimate how much you and your guests will eat. Buy a moderate amount of food and don’t splurge. Of course, to be fair, Thursday is just the beginning of Thanksgiving, it’s the tip of the iceberg. The real body of Thanksgiving comes form the left overs - the turkey sandwich lunches, the late night pie snack, so this point may be null and void. 16. Get take out or delivery With services like GrubHub and UberEats you have food deloivery from your local restaurants from your pocket. No need to do any of the cooking or the shopping or the cleaning (because they usually provide paper plates, styrofoam trays or boxes and disposable utensils) Use my ref link on Grub Hub to save $10 off your first order. Use code: eats-p11cl on Uber Eats to save $5 off your first order. Not a bad deal. A lot of times there’s a local dinner delivering and you can even order a turkey meal complete with mashed potatoes and stuffing, since dinners literally serve EVERYTHING, if you insist on a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, but who says you have to? A procrastinator does what s/he wants and eats what s/he wants (even on Thanksgiving), so order pizza if you want. You can get pizza pretty cheap too. Like Pizza Hut & Domino’s has $6 medium pies which is awesome. Order Buffalo chicken pizza. It’s still a bird. It’s still poultry. 17. Go out to eat (buffet) Maybe you want the experience of eating endless amounts of Thanksgiving food but don’t want to go through the hassle of buying the food, preparing it, setting the table, cleaning the dishes, sweeping, etc. Well, why not go out to eat. This will usually cost you around $15 a head, but you can request that everyone pays for their own entry to the buffet. You can also eat at a diner or Chinese restaurant. The best part of eating out during Thanksgiving is you don't have to tidy up or clean your house; you can live as a complete slob and no one will know! 18. Buy fruit and veggies that are in season
Pumpkin, cranberries, a few others. Look what is in season locally. Fruits and veggies that are out of season are more costly because of the shipping and storage costs are much higher and are passed on down to you, the customer. If you stick to the traditional Thanksgiving meal, this shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Unless you like something like asparagus, which is out of season. But no one likes asparagus anyway, unless their old or their taste buds are broken. 19. Do some subtle affiliate marketing. Bring up products you recommend during dinner conversation, which will be a natural thing to do, because people *always* recommend product and services in their every day conversations. I recommend Wildlink to get started with affiliate marketing. Tell them you’ll send text a link later, and then shoot them over an affiliate link after you eat. Don’t be the person that texts at the table. Have some human interaction. And if you’re more introverted, that’s okay: quality over quantity. Talk less and listen more. Good conversations happen when you listen rather than try to shoot your point across. Be bold but be tactful. Relax and take it easy. 20. Don’t make a big deal about it Just make it simple and not an elaborate feast. Don’t go all out. Focus the night on a simple get together and have an activity like board games or video games to keep people entertained. Don’t put stress on making the perfect meal with elaborate side dishes and lavish desserts. Just make a meal you would make for a typical lazy night. Heck, heat up some Hot Pockets or Ramen Noodles. The point is to get together and have a good time, so make it a day you enjoy, not stress out about. Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy it. Eat lots of food and take a long nap afterwards. -N8 Every superpower is a weakness if you can’t control it properly. If you have superpowers yourself, you have to use them properly, otherwise you end up destroying others and maybe even yourself. Superpowers can save the world (or rule it), but uncontrolled superpowers are nothing but chaotic and destructive. You have the potential to make it constructive, however. With super strength, you could lift a boulder to save victims from an earthquake or carry all your grocery bags all in one go ...but you could also you can kill your best friend by giving them a high five if you don’t control your power. With super speed, you could get to an emergency scene faster than any police, ambulance, or firefighter or wait until the last minute to get to places like work or school but still make it on time. ...but you could also run past your destination over and over again if you don’t control it. With time travel, you could stop historic villains or catastrophic events from happening or pause time while you sleep. ...but you could also wind up stuck in an endless time loop or stepping on a butterfly (and causing unforseen consequences) You get the gist. Similarly, with super laziness, you could work less than half a dozen hours a week and earn a six figure salary ...but you could also become a human blob from lack of physical and mental activity. The benefit or success as a Lazy Mutant you receive does not come from avoiding using your superpower all together, but rather learning to control it in moderation and balance. Spidey's Superpower Incontinence You do not reach success as a Lazy Mutant by avoiding using your superpower all together, but rather learning to control it in moderation and balance. So how do you control laziness and avoid becoming the big green SlotHulk? The secret? I’m always lazy. If you’re in a constant state of laziness, then it cannot overcome you. You are in control of it, not it in control of you. It doesn’t catch you by a surprise. It doesn’t sneak up on you or randomly thrash at you in waves. You are ever present in laziness and therefore remain in control of it. Be in control of your SlotHulk. SlotHulk wants to CRASH! We know this. But WHY does it want to CRASH? We have to look at this and understand its nature. The SlotHulk wants to CRASH and relax. It wants to relax and not worry about obligated duties. It’ll spit obligation right on the floor and just lie down. BLAH! SCREW IT! This is a good attitude to have, but you want to CRASH the bad guys (the negative things in your life) and not everything in your path (of success). You want to use laziness but you don’t want laziness to use you. So don’t feed your SlotHulk obligation and duty; instead, feed it want and desire. Feed it what it WANTS. It needs what it *wants*, if you follow. This “want” is different for everybody. Each SlothHulk has a different appetite, a different type of leaf that makes them happy and satisfied. You can find out what this is by looking at what makes you feel relaxed. Ask yourself: When you procrastinate...what do you do? That’s what your SlotHulk is hungry for, so give it a good ole homemade serving of Do-Whatever-the-Fuck-You-Want-ghetti, topped with parmasen cheese. Whatever that “want" is: it may not be the most productive thing to do, or the healthiest meal (at least on the surface) but that’s okay, YOU decide to do it. Your SlotHulk doesn’t just CRASH when it feels like it; YOU choose when and where it does. You must Procrastinate with Purpose. Bruce Banner, instead of living in a state of calmness. interrupted by anger, he chooses to live in a state of fury, interrupted by calmness This gives him control over the Hulk. You too must choose to neglect the state of hustle interrupted by laziness and enter one of laziness, interrupted by hustle. Your default is sloth mode, not work mode. This gives you control over the SlotHulk. Fun fact: This photo is NOT photoshopped and green SlotHulks actually exist in the wild because of their fur's reaction to their diet. It’s a paradigm shift of the mind. You have a Diligent Mindset, because you were born and raised in a society that trains humans and Lazy Mutants alike to be hardworking corporate slaves. You were trained to collect materials and tangible goods to create happiness, and to chase after goals quickly, instead of actually taking the time to realize what these goals even are and moving slowly towards them while finding leisure and relaxation along the way to create happiness. Hardworking. This is not your natural state of being; this is something indoctrinated in you. You were brainwashed into a different mode of thinking in order to try and suppress your Lazy superpowers. You’ve been medicated with false, yet rather convincing, mental stimuli.Time to flush that toxic out (or drool it out in your sleep). Stop taking your daily dose of Tylyn-all-in and start taking a bit of Tylyn-“as much as I want to”. Suppress your powers no longer; use them to their full potential. The evil villains in this world want to keep all the resources and power for themselves, so of course all the propaganda and education given to and promoted to the public is going to encourage you to “work hard”. If you embrace your Lazy superpower, you will read the subtext: they want you to “work hard” for *their own* agenda. You need to wake up and realize what’s going on. Ironic how the best way to wake up...is to go to sleep and embrace your laziness. You are special-- you have the super power of laziness. You create *your own* agenda. You have the “Slothey Senses” to know when you are not satisfying your ambition. You also have the ability to remain at ease and laid back in any situation because you have a super “don’t care” instinct. This power can become reckless and you can start not to care about your own hygiene, emotional wellbeing, and personal accountability if you let the SlotHulk out like a wildbeast. While you embrace laziness, you must avoid recklessness. The Lazy Mindset gives you control over your power. The Lazy Mindset puts you back in control of your life and gives you freedom to do what you want, when you want to. We live in a world that doesn’t like us Lazy Mutants though. They try to make us look bad, like we’re subhuman--monsters. It does NOT make us monsters just because we are *different*. We are evolved with a special gift and just because we are not the typical unintelligent serf or grunt, who fails to question their labor conditions and how their free time and resources are rationed by authority, does not mean we are monstrous in any fashion. We have our own wants and desires; we do not accept other people’s wants and desires as our own. It’s in our special genetic code to procrastinate and put off something we despise in order to do what we want. We also have the uncanny ability to relax and remain calm in any given situation. This gives us clear focus and decision-making abilities that our frantic, over-emotional enemies typically won’t have. Plot Twist: the people that own and run this giant corporate slave plantation and shame the Lazy Mutants that near their escape to freedom by slacking off are Lazy Mutants with inner SlotHulks themselves. Of course, they are the villains --evil, corrupt, Lazy Villains, who have chosen to use their superpower to create a system that serves them and only them, the top 1%. As the late great Stan Lee once said: Rest in Peace, Stan Lee, sir, your superpower was creativity We can be the heroes and save ourselves as well as the blind hardworking civilians trapped in slavery. We can create a society of luxury and leisure for everyone....eventually. Until next time, Take it easy. Take it reeeeaaal easy. - N8 P.S. This article was, of course, inspired by the man pictured above and comic book writing genius, Stan Lee. Rest easy, sir. Not even a superpowered mutant is invincible to feeling sadness over such a loss this past Monday. His legacy will continue to live on in many worlds. He was truly an AMAZING man who taught me that it’s okay to be a little DAREDEVIL who is a little STRANGE, as long as you do INCREDIBLE things. Because of him, I learned to find the true superpower within myself and embrace my geekiness (and laziness) once I found out those quirks of mine are actually quite a Marvel in their own right. From the time I was a kid and until this day, Spiderman has, is, and will continue to be my favorite hero, I cannot thank the man behind the creative comic enough (as well as the countless other tales of his that I’ve enjoyed.) His imagination has inspired me to embrace even the weirdest ideas I may have, like the ProcrastiN8r podcast about living on Lazy Island. There’s nothing out of the ordinary, as long as there’s an interesting story behind it, is what he taught me. Stan Lee, you will be missed and even an adamantium chest cannot recover quickly from this heartbreak. However, his stories have the superpower of immortality and will continue to live on for centuries to come. Who's your favorite superhero? What other super power (besides laziness) do you wish you had? How do you use your Super Laziness to save the day? Have you gained control of your SlotHulk? Leave a comment below! :D The easiest way to build wealth is...to just not spend it, to save it, store it away -- to just not care about consuming, to be too lazy to buy. You may have already heard me talk about this if you've been following my tweets lately. The more things you have, the more complex your life becomes. The more complex your life becomes, the more you have to deal with. You don’t want to have to deal with shit. You’re a procrastinator. So act like it. Be lazy. Don’t buy anything. Lay back down and relax, dude (or dudette). That’s how you get rich. That’s how you reach success. You do a whole lotta nothing. You’ve been programmed to be a work droid, schlepping endless hours each day, overclocking your mental, emotional, and physical resources, just to earn measly wages . Then, as if busting your ass for dozens upon dozens of hours a week wasn’t enough to earn a few scraps off the table, they want to make you believe that leisure and pleasure comes from consumption and chasing after the latest and greatest. Unreal. Even in your leisure, they want you working hard; they never want you to truly relax and take it easy. It’s hard work to keep up with the latest fashions and trends. It’s quite a burden to stay on top of the most modern technology. You’re not being lazy if you jump up immediately as soon as you see something new and shiny, you’re being a go-getter, a hardworking mindless consumption slave. You’ve been trained to hop on “opportunity” immediately. Our brain gets the same high on the “opportunity” to buy something brand spanking new as it does (or even more than)when there’s an opportunity in your career. Of course, opportunity is something you personally notice and take advantage of. It is something you observe and “see” as a chance to make things happen, to bring you closer to your goal. It is not an obligation but a choice. You can do it, if you feel like it, man, whatever. An opportunity is more like an “excuse” to do or not do something. When you make an excuse to play video games instead of going to work, you’re taking the “opportunity” to level up your character or increase your rank. If someone tells you “This is a great opportunity”, chances are they are trying to sell you something, whether it’s a product, service, belief, or philosophy. Don’t believe them on face value and jump in on the opportunity blindly. Take the time to examine it for yourself and see if it really is a great opportunity or just a sales pitch. Anyway, getting back to avoiding fashion and trends, I’m not saying that some of these new gadgets, movies, light-up t-shirts, and games aren’t cool. I’m saying it takes extra effort to find out what they are and go shopping for them. Even if you do enjoy the hunting for the product you’re purchasing and find satisfaction in researching information about it, and it doesn’t feel like much effort, you’re still better off procrastinating the purchase a bit. Not to mention nowadays, often the product isn’t fully functional or ready for launch, but it’s rushed out to the shelves as quickly as possible with the whole attitude of “oh, we’ll just patch it later”, especially when it comes to software and video games. But we’re getting off topic here and that’s a whole other blog post in and of itself. Anywho, the price of “new”is way overpriced. Just look at the price tag on a new car compared (in the graph above) to even just what it is a year later. The depreciation rate drops dramatically from the initial launch price after the first year and continues to plummet. While the drop rates are not as extreme, this new/old price mechanic applies to pretty much every product out there from video games to clothes and smartphones. You’re basically paying the impatient fee, the “I have no control over my impulsive self” fee. Procrastiantors are laid back and in control, aware of what they are spending and the decisions they make. Procrastinators are also, of course, very, very patient. We wait. When a product from a major brand (like Apple, Sony, Nintendo, etc) first launches,i n the supply/demand see saw of economics, the supply is low because the product just launched and the demand is high because people want it NOW. That type of mindset is going to lead to overconsumption. People in society are trained to be much like Veruca Salt (the girl from Willy Wonka who was trashed"bad egg" because she couldn't wait and needed it NOW) So even if you don’t go “too lazy to leave the couch and buy anything” 100% anti-consumption route, it’s still better to at least wait, procrastinate, on your purchases to save a lot of money. You have to understand, though, that the people with money, the people with power, they sell you the idea that happiness and success comes from what you own and who you are, your identity, is wrapped up in the materials you surround yourself in. This is not true at all. Happiness comes from within. Success comes from self fulfillment and satisfaction. If you’re not happy, you don’t have to tire yourself out chasing dreams and collecting things. You just have to sit back, relax, and enjoy leisure. You’re not trying to “do”or “get” anything. You’re just-- “being” (a lazy procrastinator). You are simply existing and enjoying your own comfort in your own existence. There’s no “thing” that can improve upon that enjoyment or make it any better or even help you find it in the first place. Happiness and leisure are not “things” you chase after; they are not something you “work hard” to earn. They just simply are. Embrace your laziness and you will feel the leisure. You will feel the happiness. Stop striving for success. Let the success come to you. There’s no measure of success other than what you make of it. I can’t tell you what that is, because it’s different for everybody. I can tell you though, that’; it’s certainly not something advertised or sold to you. The deeper you dive into your laziness, the clearer the picture of that success will become. Remember, the richest people do nothing with their money. They don’t touch it They put it away in the right places (invest it, save it) and sit back, relax, and let it grow. They don’t rush to spend it and get the latest and greatest. In fact, most millionaires live in average size houses and drive okay-ish cars like Toyotas. They’re putting their money into stocks, bonds, and crypto, not meals five-star restaurants, a fleet of Firraris, and fancy cocktail yacht parties. The idea that being rich means owning fancy sports cars , yachts, mansions and spending free time is spent fine-dining and traveling to the most expensive hotels is just propaganda to have you as a frantic anxious consumer needing and wanting to buy, buy, buuyyyyyy. They get you thinking: well, if I can own at least *part of* wardrobe or I can experience *part of* that luxury lifestyle, if I can own that watch or that bag or if I can go to that concert or eat at that restaurant, then I’m on my way to success. Spoiler alert: you’re not. As a matter of fact, you’re just building thicker walls for your own prison. Stop consuming. Start procrastinating. Maybe you have a hard time “controlling” your bad spending habits. What that really means is you’re not being lazy enough. Lack of control means lack of laziness. It means you don’t lounge around enough in leisure. It means you care too much and have too much of an emotional bond to what’s on the shelves then what’s on your mind. Honey badger don’t care. Honey badger don’t buy shit. You already work your ass off in earning your money. Think about, why would you also want to work your ass off in what you do with that money? The laziest way to make progress in your finances is to have your money act like a procrastinator. Just let it sit there. You can actually "buy" more laziness and leisure time by letting you're money follow your lead and...just sit there and do nothing. If you want to make passive income, you can’t do that by actively buying things. Be a true procrastinator and save it for LATER. Until next time, Take it Easy. Take it reeeaaal easy. N8 |
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March 2022
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