“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek”- Joseph Campbell

WARNING: The following article is designed to remove your illusions & self-deceptions – proceed with caution.

Let’s be real for a second.

As humans, we’ve been gifted with a brain that has the capacity to rationalize pretty much anything in order to maintain its current level of comfort and avoid pain. 

If you are out shopping and racking up credit card bills, the last thing you want to do is to check how much in debt you really have.

If you’re trying to lose weight, this ONE BURGER won’t make that much difference – besides you can always start the diet tomorrow. 

If you’re trying to quit smoking, this one toke won’t kill you… and on and on it goes.

It never feels like this one little thing you are doing right now is that bad. But it’s not about this one thing, but about the compounding effect of those small things over time.

#1 – Hard-Hitting Truth: Path of Least Resistance is a Treacherous Road

As people, we are hardwired to always conserve time and energy.

We only have a limited amount at our disposal so we are naturally finding ways to save it as much as possible.

Nowadays saving time and energy when you have a need to socialize and connect means going on social media.

Today when you want to gratify your sexual needs, the quickest and surest way to get to the finish line is to open your incognito browser and do it yourself.

Those sorts of needs are ingrained into us and guarantee our survival.

There is one wrinkle though…

Virtually every one of our primal needs has been hijacked. Every need has its synthetic equivalent that packs 10X more potency and pleasure than its original counterpart all the while completely removing any downsides.

What’s the problem with that you ask?

The problem is that you no longer have to fight, struggle, and challenge yourself.

Nothing bad will happen if you simply coast – other than utter mediocrity and lack of fulfillment.

If you have your superficial needs met at a click of a button, why would you exert any time and energy to get anything done right?

On paper, it sounds like heaven, but in reality, it’s the exact opposite of that.

Not having to exert yourself, means you’re not engaged with life. Your mind will default to autopilot mode that slowly but surely drains you.

It produces weak men with the attention span of a goldfish. Men who are always looking for shortcuts, instant gratification.

Men who are addicted to fast food, hooked on porn, and confused about why they are depressed.

Men who are in a perpetual state of discontent as their natural ability to show up in the world is getting eroded day by day by the ever-escalating distilled pleasure dispensers.

Men who lost touch with their manhood and the depth of their being as they walk on the hedonic treadmill always feeling like real satisfaction is just around the corner.

Sorry, I went on a bit of a rant here, but I hope you can understand that things got out of control.

#2 – Little-Known Truth: The Super-Stimulus Apocalypse Is Upon Us

It’s human nature to gravitate towards solutions that require as little time, effort, and pain while maximizing your results.

It’s an inbuilt survival instinct that served us well, but if left unchecked and made conscious in today’s society it will wreak havoc.

For every biological desire, you will have its artificial, synthetic substitute that will completely destroy your brain by overstimulating it.

It’s called a super-stimulus.

A stimulus that mimics its natural counterpart but is artificially enhanced to stimulate your brain’s response beyond what any natural stimulus could do.

It is also completely devoid of its original evolutionary purpose.

It’s a pure distilled pleasure.

Sounds familiar?

1. Sex and companionship -> never-ending novelty of porn
2. Socializing with friends -> social media
3. Making sure you’re safe within a tribe -> 24/7 negative news
4. Natural Food -> fast food
5. Natural sugars -> refined sugars

But maybe there is nothing wrong with that? Well for every ounce of pleasure from each of those artificial substitutes, you get a pound of pain.

The juice is not worth the squeeze, most often than not.

Not only that but since you’re satisfying your desires artificially, you kill all of your motivation to go and get the real thing.

It is all pleasure and no fulfillment. If you were to stop the super stimulus you would have no choice but to go to the real world and get the real thing.

It’s more painful but the greater the difficulty, the greater the glory of success.

The cheap thrills of super-stimuli leave you in a perpetually depressed and unfulfilled state of mind.

Trying to fulfill your desires through super-stimuli is like trying to stuff the black hole – you will never be able to fulfill it have enough.

The more you eat the hungrier you will get.

#3 – The Unspeakable Truth: The Paradox of Self-Deception – Exposed

Have you ever had this little nagging feeling in your stomach, when you refuse to look at your bank statement because you don’t want to nd out how broke you are?

Or maybe you purposefully avoided answering a phone call from someone because you owed them something.

The discomfort of confronting that person was so big that you would rather push it away, pretend like the situation doesn’t exist.

Have you ever been avoiding looking at scales because you didn’t want to nd out that you are actually overweight?

I had plenty of situations like that in the past, where I refused to face the truth head-on and deal with it.

I thought I was being smart but the truth was, I was just lying to myself because I didn’t want to deal with the consequences.

Whenever you are faced with any sort of discomfort or little insecurity, you have three choices:

1. Ignore it and hope it goes away on its own
2. Drown the negative emotion with a distraction
3. Investigate the cause and try to address it

The paradox is that the longer I had to maintain that facade the worse the consequences will get.

I was living in denial, refusing to face the truth, hoping that the consequences won’t get me.

If you get drunk, the next day you will have a hangover.

If you spend time binging to porn, the next couple of days you may be feeling depleted.

If you eat fast food every day – you will feel sluggish and eventually get fat. No matter what you do, you will not find a way around this.

If you keep putting it off the worse it gets which makes you even more unwilling to look at the problem.

IF you let it, the monster under the carpet will not only groan and growl but eventually, it will eat you alive.

Face the truth, take full responsibility for your actions and remember that what you get in life is a mirror reflection of what you put in.

#4 – Short Term Pleasure vs Long Term Satisfaction

One of the deciding factors contributing to success in your life is your ability to delay gratification.

Think about it, if you always go for a quick win, you can’t get things that take months or years to achieve.

Your thinking will be too short-sighted.

It’s those big things that take patience, determination, and sacrifice that make a dent in your life and create success long term.

People tend to avoid pain and discomfort by doing things that bring about short-term pleasure… followed by a massive amount of pain and discomfort in the long term.

I hope that you can see the vicious circularity of the situation. The easiest example to illustrate this phenomenon is taking drugs to escape reality.

Let me give you an example of Fred.

1. Fred takes drugs to sedate the emotional & mental pain.
2. The pleasure Fred experiences during high let him forget about the problems in his life – creating an illusion that the problems are gone.
3. Problems are back the moment Fred gets sober.
4. In order to escape the emotional pain, Fred uses the drug, again and again, creating an addictive pattern that adds to the pile of problems he had previously.
5. Fred gets to a point where their baseline of wellbeing is completely dependent on using the drug.
6. Fred is completely drained from any ability to cope with life’s challenges as the majority of his time and energy are taken up by him getting his x.

Drugs are just one example, but feel free to replace this word with any addiction that pertains to you specifically (food, masturbation, phone, social media, etc.)

The moment you start using any substance in a compulsive manner you create an entity that now has control over you. Part of your mental, physical, spiritual, and intellectual energy is now chained to this entity.

“I’m feeling lonely today…well, at least I can make myself feel good by masturbating to internet porn!”

“I have a terrible self-image and I’m fat… one more greasy double cheeseburger with bacon won’t hurt!”

“I think I may have a drinking problem… may as well grab a beer to forget about it!”

The pain is there, to show you that something is off, but if all you’re doing is masking the symptoms you are going to experience consequences sooner or later.

#5 – The Uncomfortable Solution: Let The Journey Shape You

I believe there is one more reason that makes quick fixes so seductive.

Short-term solutions temporarily scratch the itch caused by the absence of real, long-term solutions. They also make the long-term solutions look quite unattractive.

If you’re a heroin addict, the last thing you want to do is get on rehab and start drinking green juice for health.

You may not want it, yet this is exactly what you need.

Quick-fix solutions are that they relieve the tension in a seemingly painless fashion.

They don’t require you to think through the problem, come up with a plan, focus on the day-to-day execution. On top of it, you risk even more mental and emotional turmoil that comes along with potential failure.

For example, if you are a dude who wants to get laid, yet is painfully shy around girls, your need to get intimate with an attractive lady doesn’t magically disappear.

There is a lot of complexity that you have to navigate through when meeting women. A lot of rejection to endure, feelings of inadequacy, and “not being enough” to conquer.

Worse yet, you may think you are just inherently unattractive and no woman you are attracted to would ever want you for you.

After all, that girl you mustered all of your courage to divulge your feelings to, just wanted to be friends.

Who needs women anyway. You need to take the Red Pill man. All women are just soul-sucking succubus.

All they want is a strong man to protect them. A man they can eventually suck dry from his manhood and get his divorce money before moving on to the next sucker.

It’s better to just stick with porn.

I’m just kidding!

But the truth is, that nowadays this is a bitter reality for a lot of guys. No exaggeration.

What you don’t realize is that the pain associated with embarking on a journey will transform you and your worldview.

It will allow you to derive the truth from your own direct experience (instead of relying on pill colors in the example of dating).

#6 – Commit to The Journey

Commit to the journey, it will break you down and build you back up, it will transform you into a person who is capable of reaching that goal. The person you become in the way is the ultimate lasting reward.

By avoiding the pain of self-transformation and skipping to the finish line you miss out on the most important part – you never let the journey shape you.

And your quick fix medicine … becomes your long-term poison.

PS. Hey man, thanks for reading – I hope you found this information valuable.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

Also,  share it with a friend that may find that life-changing information to be of value.

Speak soon, man!

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