It has been about 5 months since I left my comfortable job. During this time I have learned a lot by building products. However, the two most important things I have learnt for leading a better life are, escaping the 9-5 job mentality and a monthly salary mindset.
Learning these things was not easy and came with its own pain. Almost everyday starts with the same thoughts about survival, security and earning money. Even early-men or cavemen used to experience this everyday. Back then it was primarily about survival. With no house, no tech, no money the questions which would have circulated in the minds of those primates would have been :
- How will I gather food today ?
- Will I get enough food to feed my family ?
- Will I be able to hunt that pack of animals which I missed yesterday ?
- Shit, I shouldn't have shown greed while hunting and should have been content with at-least what I was getting yesterday.
Some other related thoughts would have been :
- Hope that our tribe can continue to live in this place for some more time.
- Hope that we won't be attacked today by wild animals.
- Hope that we won't be attacked today by the members of other tribes.
Without a fixed montly secure salary, a similar level of thoughts resonate in my mind about modern life since I have left my job. These thoughts are a direct result of our evolution from primates. Duration of modern life is orders of magnitude less than our total time on Earth. As a result these thoughts have since been engraved into our psychology and even into our culture.
The thoughts get triggered and peak every time we feel that we are deprived of something. However I have observed that its possible to gradually decrease the intensity of these 'survival' thoughts. The trick to subside the thoughts is to just think about the positive things which have happened since, which wouldnt have been possbile otherwise.
We can never get rid of these demons inside us completely. We just need to live above them. Once you think about that, you realize that its okay if a particular outcome didn't occur as expected. One should always think about the big hunt which is possible the next day.
As Jack Ma says,
"Today is difficult, tomorrow is much more difficult, but the day after tomorrow is beautiful. However, most of people will die tomorrow evening."