notoverquiteyet
Iron
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*credit to OP obviously.
Old but Gold thread from org i completely edited to my own liking and added some segments I felt were important
I edited a lot of this and changed parts that I felt were more applicable to myself and anyone who may read this thread. Shout out OP, changed my life.
The first rule of self improvement is the most important.
You must internalize it, and truly believe it before you can begin your “improvement” journey, while simultaneously making the most of your results. This applies to any and all forms of self-improvement that you will do throughout your life.
The first rule of self improvement is: You do not talk about it.
“Why is that?” you might ask. The answer is clear (or at least to me lol).
People, whether they admit it or not, have certain ideas, thoughts, and preferences in their heads that they can’t control. This is human nature.
An “implicit bias” if you will.
Why do you think there is an infatuation with so-called “prodigies” in our society?
Do people revere the person who works hard all their life, learning and studying to improve themselves, or do they admire the one mysterious somebody who makes it all look easy and natural, as if they were born to do it? Think of the movie, the Prestige (goated movie btw) and the quote "The secret impresses no one. The trick you use it for is everything."
In the movie, the wife of the magician Borden, pesters her husband for the secret behind his magic trick. It is a very simple scene where Borden reveals his trick to his wife/girlfriend in a moment of weakness, forgoing his commitment to keeping his trick to himself. His wife ends up laughing him off saying the trick was actually easy and not understanding the danger and dedication it took to create such an illusion in the first place. I think there Borden truly realized he was alone in the sense of the appreciation of “supernatural-like” feats, and that the “magic” had truly disappeared the second he explained the trick to who was supposed to be the woman he most trusted and loved.
Do people want to hear about the guy who gave it his all in college and spent endless nights studying to get the A, spent days wondering if his future would be screwed if he failed, taking nootropics just to get through the day, or do they only want to hear about the kid who does it all without even needing to try?
Do people want to date the guy who grew up super skinny and did anything in his means to get his goal, taking every supplement under the sun for mediocre change, night in the kitchen tears in his eyes getting ready to inject research chems in his abdomen, or do they want to hear about the guy who has been able to put on more lean mass than him in a year of training, and gained an FFMI of 22+ in a couple years of work?
Do people admire the guy who desperately wanted to learn about different cultures and languages, and spent all of his life learning about them, painstakingly repeating phrases all night, or do they only want to hear about the guy who has been able to speak to almost anyone since he was 13?
Perhaps they would admire the first, but our implicit bias tends to fall more towards the latter.
If you’re wondering why we (me and OP lol) are asking all of the rhetorical questions, it’s because we are trying to prove a point, a point that you probably already know if told to your face, but fail to enact and incorporate it into your daily life.
People want successful people who make it look easy. They want people who make it look easy and effortless. They want naturals. That is human, but this is also an issue for “us”.
Unfortunately for many people, they don’t fall into any of these categories. Most people are painfully average, living monotonous lives (no hate to them genuinely), giving it their all to be just another cog in the machine, making it obvious to others just how hard they’re trying in order to even just stay afloat.
Others manage to make a splash, a splash large enough to offset them from the rest of the flock, but still manage to make the fatal mistake of telling people about how hard it was to get there.In an even smaller group, you have people who have a natural aptitude to certain activities, and excel at them with ease. The first two groups love these people, they are infatuated with them. They’re the naturals, the prodigies.
And finally, we have the last group, the group who has no choice but to work just as hard as the first two, gets the results of the second but gets all of the same admiration as the third.
How?
By shutting the fuck up about how much effort they’re putting in or how hard they worked.
Both the third and fourth group of people have the exact same social value in the eyes of the flock, because the fourth group has learned the art of shutting the fuck up. By not telling others about what they’re working on, or have worked on, people admire them in the same way that they do the naturals, because in the eyes of the flock, they’re no different.
The average normie doesn’t just want people who look good or do things well, they want people who look good and do things well without even needing to try. THAT is the big appeal, why all of these genetic outliers are more favored in society.
Have you ever enthusiastically told others about starting a new diet, fitness goal, or elaborating to others about some newfound, grand plan about how you are going to improve your life, and all of a sudden they start to tear you down in subtle ways, or start to treat you differently?
It’s almost 100% because of that implicit bias. They don't like tryhards, they don’t like frauds, and they don’t like people who aren’t natural at something. They don’t like people who weren’t born with it.
You should avoid this by not talking about your efforts, by not showing to others, either explicitly or implicitly, all the work you put into taking care of and improving yourself. It is definitely hard, but worth it in the long run.
The Italians have a word for this idea. In fact they have had a word for it for almost 500 years. They call it sprezzatura. Sprezzatura is basically described as a ‘studied carelessness’, which most of these genetically blessed people can apply through their positive lived experience(which imo often results in things like “higher confidence” due to a positive feedback loop). Most people apply it towards fashion, but the first time it was described by Baldassare Castiglione, it applied to all aspects of a person’s life, desires, feelings, thoughts, and more importantly, actions. It’s an effort to make every aspect of your life, including the parts worthy of admiration that, while in reality took large amounts of effort and time, look easy and natural.
See, when you employ sprezzatura during your “improvement” journey, and more importantly throughout your entire life, even after you’re ‘done’ looksmaxxing(im not sure its possible to scend and forget yet lol), you reap its benefits in the form of admiration and praise for just simply being, living, and acting in a way that others want you to be, and wish they were. You truly do have to “fake it till you make it”, but make no one aware of your efforts.
A bit of hopefuel honestly, it’s the one way of ascending when you aren’t already ascended. It allows you to burn away the dead underbrush, and allow for new branches and leaves to grow. It allows you to shed all of your baggage and become something new, like a phoenix from the ashes. You begin to truly believe that you had it in you all along, and your actions and characteristics soon follow suit.
As Castiglione talks about in his book, one of sprezzatura’s greatest virtues is that it allows you to get lost in, and eventually become, one with your nonchalance and charisma; a true natural.
It’s a difficult road, trust me. People are fundamentally social animals. We all want to talk with others about how we’re going to improve, how hard we’ve worked for what we have, and how much better off we are for it. I fell into this trap when I informed friends of my first and only SARM cycle, or posted my gym transformation on social media. Or talked about my transformation with a date or girlfriend or friends. It truly removed the magic, just like Borden’s situation and I do wish that I never explained anything and it just happened. I do think that appreciating the journey is possibly a more male trait but the same ideology should apply to both sexes. People, both male and female are also hilariously judgmental, in the ways I’ve sort of dipped into previously. They don’t like to see the plateaus, or the inevitable stagnation that you have to break through when improving yourself, all they want to see are results. It really is the duality of man(and women hehe).
It is truly a game of validation, and no shame to people who seek validation as that is what makes the world go round and if you deny this, you are morally grandstanding imo. The difference from the 3rd and 4th group is whether you can suppress this natural urge to be seen, and validated in exchange for more respect among your peers, relationships, etc. While I would like to believe that there are some “good” people out there who can see past all of this and appreciate your journey more than the genetically gifted, such as a wife, girlfriend, best friend. I find that it is often best to keep to yourself and let your results speak for themselves.
But doing so is the most important part of really beginning your self improvement journey.
I've made a lot of progress recently and hopefully will find true love with the girl I'm with now and forget about all of this crazy stuff someday. I hope me and OP have shed some insight on the type of mentality you need to put yourself in, in order to truly maximize and reap the rewards of your self improvement journey and I truly wish the best for everyone who reads this thread.
Thanks
notquiteoveryet
Old but Gold thread from org i completely edited to my own liking and added some segments I felt were important
I edited a lot of this and changed parts that I felt were more applicable to myself and anyone who may read this thread. Shout out OP, changed my life.
The first rule of self improvement is the most important.
You must internalize it, and truly believe it before you can begin your “improvement” journey, while simultaneously making the most of your results. This applies to any and all forms of self-improvement that you will do throughout your life.
The first rule of self improvement is: You do not talk about it.
“Why is that?” you might ask. The answer is clear (or at least to me lol).
People, whether they admit it or not, have certain ideas, thoughts, and preferences in their heads that they can’t control. This is human nature.
An “implicit bias” if you will.
Why do you think there is an infatuation with so-called “prodigies” in our society?
Do people revere the person who works hard all their life, learning and studying to improve themselves, or do they admire the one mysterious somebody who makes it all look easy and natural, as if they were born to do it? Think of the movie, the Prestige (goated movie btw) and the quote "The secret impresses no one. The trick you use it for is everything."
In the movie, the wife of the magician Borden, pesters her husband for the secret behind his magic trick. It is a very simple scene where Borden reveals his trick to his wife/girlfriend in a moment of weakness, forgoing his commitment to keeping his trick to himself. His wife ends up laughing him off saying the trick was actually easy and not understanding the danger and dedication it took to create such an illusion in the first place. I think there Borden truly realized he was alone in the sense of the appreciation of “supernatural-like” feats, and that the “magic” had truly disappeared the second he explained the trick to who was supposed to be the woman he most trusted and loved.
Do people want to hear about the guy who gave it his all in college and spent endless nights studying to get the A, spent days wondering if his future would be screwed if he failed, taking nootropics just to get through the day, or do they only want to hear about the kid who does it all without even needing to try?
Do people want to date the guy who grew up super skinny and did anything in his means to get his goal, taking every supplement under the sun for mediocre change, night in the kitchen tears in his eyes getting ready to inject research chems in his abdomen, or do they want to hear about the guy who has been able to put on more lean mass than him in a year of training, and gained an FFMI of 22+ in a couple years of work?
Do people admire the guy who desperately wanted to learn about different cultures and languages, and spent all of his life learning about them, painstakingly repeating phrases all night, or do they only want to hear about the guy who has been able to speak to almost anyone since he was 13?
Perhaps they would admire the first, but our implicit bias tends to fall more towards the latter.
If you’re wondering why we (me and OP lol) are asking all of the rhetorical questions, it’s because we are trying to prove a point, a point that you probably already know if told to your face, but fail to enact and incorporate it into your daily life.
People want successful people who make it look easy. They want people who make it look easy and effortless. They want naturals. That is human, but this is also an issue for “us”.
Unfortunately for many people, they don’t fall into any of these categories. Most people are painfully average, living monotonous lives (no hate to them genuinely), giving it their all to be just another cog in the machine, making it obvious to others just how hard they’re trying in order to even just stay afloat.
Others manage to make a splash, a splash large enough to offset them from the rest of the flock, but still manage to make the fatal mistake of telling people about how hard it was to get there.In an even smaller group, you have people who have a natural aptitude to certain activities, and excel at them with ease. The first two groups love these people, they are infatuated with them. They’re the naturals, the prodigies.
And finally, we have the last group, the group who has no choice but to work just as hard as the first two, gets the results of the second but gets all of the same admiration as the third.
How?
By shutting the fuck up about how much effort they’re putting in or how hard they worked.
Both the third and fourth group of people have the exact same social value in the eyes of the flock, because the fourth group has learned the art of shutting the fuck up. By not telling others about what they’re working on, or have worked on, people admire them in the same way that they do the naturals, because in the eyes of the flock, they’re no different.
The average normie doesn’t just want people who look good or do things well, they want people who look good and do things well without even needing to try. THAT is the big appeal, why all of these genetic outliers are more favored in society.
Have you ever enthusiastically told others about starting a new diet, fitness goal, or elaborating to others about some newfound, grand plan about how you are going to improve your life, and all of a sudden they start to tear you down in subtle ways, or start to treat you differently?
It’s almost 100% because of that implicit bias. They don't like tryhards, they don’t like frauds, and they don’t like people who aren’t natural at something. They don’t like people who weren’t born with it.
You should avoid this by not talking about your efforts, by not showing to others, either explicitly or implicitly, all the work you put into taking care of and improving yourself. It is definitely hard, but worth it in the long run.
The Italians have a word for this idea. In fact they have had a word for it for almost 500 years. They call it sprezzatura. Sprezzatura is basically described as a ‘studied carelessness’, which most of these genetically blessed people can apply through their positive lived experience(which imo often results in things like “higher confidence” due to a positive feedback loop). Most people apply it towards fashion, but the first time it was described by Baldassare Castiglione, it applied to all aspects of a person’s life, desires, feelings, thoughts, and more importantly, actions. It’s an effort to make every aspect of your life, including the parts worthy of admiration that, while in reality took large amounts of effort and time, look easy and natural.
See, when you employ sprezzatura during your “improvement” journey, and more importantly throughout your entire life, even after you’re ‘done’ looksmaxxing(im not sure its possible to scend and forget yet lol), you reap its benefits in the form of admiration and praise for just simply being, living, and acting in a way that others want you to be, and wish they were. You truly do have to “fake it till you make it”, but make no one aware of your efforts.
A bit of hopefuel honestly, it’s the one way of ascending when you aren’t already ascended. It allows you to burn away the dead underbrush, and allow for new branches and leaves to grow. It allows you to shed all of your baggage and become something new, like a phoenix from the ashes. You begin to truly believe that you had it in you all along, and your actions and characteristics soon follow suit.
As Castiglione talks about in his book, one of sprezzatura’s greatest virtues is that it allows you to get lost in, and eventually become, one with your nonchalance and charisma; a true natural.
It’s a difficult road, trust me. People are fundamentally social animals. We all want to talk with others about how we’re going to improve, how hard we’ve worked for what we have, and how much better off we are for it. I fell into this trap when I informed friends of my first and only SARM cycle, or posted my gym transformation on social media. Or talked about my transformation with a date or girlfriend or friends. It truly removed the magic, just like Borden’s situation and I do wish that I never explained anything and it just happened. I do think that appreciating the journey is possibly a more male trait but the same ideology should apply to both sexes. People, both male and female are also hilariously judgmental, in the ways I’ve sort of dipped into previously. They don’t like to see the plateaus, or the inevitable stagnation that you have to break through when improving yourself, all they want to see are results. It really is the duality of man(and women hehe).
It is truly a game of validation, and no shame to people who seek validation as that is what makes the world go round and if you deny this, you are morally grandstanding imo. The difference from the 3rd and 4th group is whether you can suppress this natural urge to be seen, and validated in exchange for more respect among your peers, relationships, etc. While I would like to believe that there are some “good” people out there who can see past all of this and appreciate your journey more than the genetically gifted, such as a wife, girlfriend, best friend. I find that it is often best to keep to yourself and let your results speak for themselves.
But doing so is the most important part of really beginning your self improvement journey.
I've made a lot of progress recently and hopefully will find true love with the girl I'm with now and forget about all of this crazy stuff someday. I hope me and OP have shed some insight on the type of mentality you need to put yourself in, in order to truly maximize and reap the rewards of your self improvement journey and I truly wish the best for everyone who reads this thread.
Thanks
notquiteoveryet
