In this life, we choose our hard.

Whichever path we take, we will encounter difficulty and challenges. That is just the nature of life.

Without its peaks and troughs, we won’t experience the feeling of satisfaction nor would we gain the lessons from defeat and loss.

Someone that was born at the peak can never truly appreciate what they have been served in life because they never fought the fight themself.

To live only in the peaks, we lack purpose and fulfilment.

To live only in the troughs, we lose hope and optimism.

And it’s in the combination of these that we find our reason for existing.

For most of my life, I have carried the mindset that I must first hit rock bottom before I can truly change my ways.

I have thought about why and the answer was actually quite simple.

From the the depths of desperation, we gain purpose and muster optimism.

You see, I wanted to live for something that was worth betting my life on.

To pursue something not because it promised success, but because it held the chance to win at the fight that I truly wanted to fight for.

To do it even if I’d fail because the regret of not trying at all would haunt me for life.

I’ll tell you what - at rock bottom, if you don’t know where you want to be, at least you know where you don’t want to be.

I began by running away from something I didn’t want. And with the momentum gained, I have used it to propel myself towards my purpose and fulfilment.

What hindsight has provided me was that I had been chasing this “rock bottom” which was gonna be the final nail to the coffin to end my existing ways. But what I didn’t realise was that I had already hit it.

Living a life with no true purpose and passion. Crippled by debt, and running like a rat in the wheel of revolving credit.

If that wasn’t rock bottom, then hell - what was I looking for?

I just knew that I no longer wanted to be where I was at.

So what was my first step? Dig my way back out of the grave that I’ve put myself in.

From there, all I wanted was to just get out of debt so I can expand my horizons again. It’s crazy how easily you get conditioned to living pay check to pay check and only making ends meet.

My ticket out? The corporate ladder.

I climbed the fuck up that ladder to climb the fuck out of my grave. From Picker/Packer to Sales Manager.

In a span of 5 years, I tripled my income from when I started to where I am now. Finally able to make some serious progress on paying my debt off. Now that may not seem like much but when you have nothing, a little something can be everything.

Easier said than done I guess. What did it really take for me?

I got committed. I committed to getting out of debt. I committed to growing myself personally which consequently led to progression in my career. I committed my heart and soul to the job that was going to get me back up to ground level.

Was everyday easy? No.

Did I love it every day? No.

I had good days, I had bad days. Such is life.

But I knew I was sick of where I was and just ran from it. I had a reason to attempt my best every day. With this forward momentum, I am propelling myself forward to a future that I desire.

Whether this was the best way out or not, I don’t know, but I just played the cards that I was dealt the best that I could.

What I’m learning now is that what gets you here won’t always get you there.

The reason that got me playing my best game back then is no longer sufficing. And that’s natural - my horizons are expanding and new possibilities are unlocking.

Life is like a game. You need to gain experience and acquire new skills to overcome the current level that you’re at. As you progress, new levels unlock and more things become available to you but a new level of difficulty requires a new set of skills too.

The key is to maximise on what’s available to you now so that you can access the bigger and better things.

There is no point dwelling on what you don’t have and on things that you cannot control. That’s not going to get you anywhere.

There are only two things that we can control in this life - our actions and our attitude.

By changing our attitude about our current situation, we can change our actions.

To put it simply , you’re going to be in the mud anyways. You can either feel bad for yourself and not do anything about it, or you can choose to be optimistic and take some actions to change it.

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Live yours truly,

Clark