remedy for lazy ambition / レイジー大志の薬
action removes the mysterious distance between our fantasy and reality
Steve Jobs. Bill Gates. Paul Graham. Elon Musk. Peter Thiel. Kanye West.
The list of entrepreneurial role models is endless. We read Zero to One1, watch their interviews, enable post notifications for their Tweets and Instagram posts—everything to grab a sliver of their intellect. We covet their creations, network, wealth, and influence. “How can I become like them?” We may ask ourselves. We dream of creating the next industry-breaking startup that will disrupt the world. We buy “.com” domains for ideas that will never come to fruition. We fantasize about marketing schemes using as many tech buzzwords—like AI, Web3, Quantum “x”—to foster future hype over our ideas. “Oh, how people would love to use ‘x,’ and I’ll become the next Uber for ‘x,’ Microsoft for ‘x,’ etc.!” We dream and imagine without putting in the work. Until we act and progress towards a vision, our ideas and immaterial dreams are just silly fantasies.
Daily, we use empty language, telling our friends and family that we will go to the gym, eat healthier, drink less, sleep earlier, and not procrastinate—the New Years’ resolutions lies are endless. Humans are masters of making excuses and self-delusion. We convince ourselves that we will “do it tomorrow” and continuously put off the tasks we know are beneficial [and necessary] for us. We understand that the post-exercise endorphins make us feel good, yet we resist the first step. We know we can’t procrastinate on that essay or project, yet we do it anyways. Do we create preventable scenarios to suffer for the sake of suffering?
What is something you said you would do but haven’t done yet? It’s [mentally] challenging to get out of such ruts, but the first step is showing up. Action removes the mysterious distance between our fantasy and reality. Keep it simple and remove the barriers. By making it more accessible, we avoid thinking and can act quicker. A lot of inaction is due to contemplating decisions before the fact; it provides comfort and temporarily allows us to feel “safe” and secure. For real growth, you need to feel uneasy to push yourself out of your comfort zone. Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It's not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it's a day you've had everything to do and you've done it.2 Hope is not a strategy; you must do the work and grind. And be careful of your language, too; our words and actions dictate and lead us. What we think, we become.
Every morning is a new start. Every breath a second chance. Keep showing up. Things will happen.3
Our work doesn’t have to be perfect, but it needs to be consistent. I am guilty of this. I said I would post weekly essays in Japanese too, but I haven’t put in the effort; my doubts about translating have held me back from writing in Japanese. As a remedy, I’ve begun to remind myself that continuous improvement > delayed perfection. I’m bound to translate incorrectly, misinterpret my thoughts, and maybe fail altogether, but that’s okay. Who wants to be perfect? Sounds boring.
It’s better to make mistakes. A Japanese proverb states, “failure is the seed of success.” You’ll lose and fail countless times; it’s just a part of life. No one wants to fail, but remember, risk-averse behavior will only yield negligible returns in the long run.
As a company grows, everything needs to scale including the size of your failed experiments. If the size of your failure isn’t growing, you’re not going to be inventing at a size that can actually move the needle.4
Like companies, we must constantly scale up our experiments—especially when we’re young. We have nothing to lose; there’s no reason not to be bolder. We may feel pressured not to stand out or go against the status quo, but why should we dull our brilliant colors? Who cares about others’ sly comments and doubts; their projected insecurities will only get under your skin if you let them.
Below is a beautiful excerpt from Nietzsche’s Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks; read it once, then twice, to digest his words.
On the contrary, they [Greeks] invariably absorbed other living cultures. The very reason they got so far is that they knew how to pick up the spear and throw it onward from the point where others had left it. Their skill in the art of fruitful learning was admirable. We ought to be learning from our neighbors precisely as the Greeks learned from theirs, not for the sake of learned pedantry but rather using everything we learn as a foothold which will take us up as high, and higher than our neighbor. The quest for philosophy’s beginnings is idle, for everywhere in all beginnings, we find only the crude, the unforced, the empty, and the ugly. What matters in all things is the higher levels.
The beginning is always unfinished and flawed, but that’s the nadir. From the bottom, so the top’s the only place to go now. 5
There are no excuses for pursuing your goals and projects. Take responsibility for your [in]actions. We may convince ourselves and others that we are “busy” and “didn’t have time,” but these are fallacies. Time is a creature — a created thing — and a gift. We cannot make any more of it. We can only receive it and be faithful stewards in the use of it. "I don't have time" is probably a lie more often than not, covering "I don't want to." We have time — twenty-four hours in a day, seven days in a week.6
Create a vision—a future you want—and follow it. You have to be genuinely curious about this vision, though. Curiosity leads to questions, which leads to some answers but even more questions—an infinite rabbit hole of knowledge yet to be explored. The more you see, the less you know. The less you find out as you go. I knew much more then, than I do now.7
In addition to curiosity, you need to have fun and genuinely like the work. Do you think Shakespeare was gritting his teeth and diligently trying to write Great Literature? Of course not. He was having fun. That’s why he’s so good.8 People rarely succeed in anything unless they have fun while doing it; if you’re not receiving some enjoyment from it, then try to make it enjoyable. It’s all up to your perception.
Create work you can be proud of. Do not accept mediocrity from yourself. None of this, "ehh, good enough" bullshit. If you half-ass things, you're going to get half-assed results. And who wants half of something? I want the whole pie! (IRS, please don't shoot me, I'll share a slice with you too) And trust your instincts; our "gut feelings" are more than just a mere feeling; it's our subconscious at work—our intuition, experiences, knowledge, all at once—so trust it.
We can fully actualize our life’s potential by removing the mysterious distance between our fantasy and reality with our actions—just do the work.
This essay was inspired by a tweet about “extremely ambitious lazy people,” which hit too close to home. Many of the anecdotes, like buying domains and creating [but not executing] wild business plans, are all things I’m guilty of; I’m sure a few of you out there are guilty of it too. There is additional text beneath the Japanese writing, so please scroll down.
申し訳ないけど、簡単に翻訳します。レイジー大志は何か?こう言う人は、色んな夢や願いを持っているけど、アクションを取らない人です。石みたいに動かない、頭の中だけに考えて、行動無し。こう言う人にはなりたくないわ。
正直に、ニーチェの言葉の翻訳は、ちょっと無理だけど、英語でぜひ読んで下さい。夏休みの間、目の不自由な人と8キロ代々木公園で走りました。この方は、Achilles International: Japanの社長で、「しげた・まさとし」と申します。しげたさんが言った一つ印象的な言葉が、「間違える方が良い」です。昔から、「失敗は成功のもと」の言葉を聞いていました。
段々、漢字や日本語の本を勉強して、読まないといけないと思っています。「日本人」と言う部分を一緒大切にして、日本の歴史や文化を深く調べて勉強するのが一つの目的です。最近は、一週間に一回、日本の映画を見ています。九月の間、「歩いても、歩いても」、「東京物語」、と「アキラ」を見ました。見ながらも、面白い言葉や、画面を登録して、ノートに書いています。残念だけど、もしかして、今の日本人は、日本の凄さを忘れているかも。でも、僕は忘れたくない。最後は、家族と自分だから、大切に日本の事を守って、毎日を謙虚に過ごさないといけないと思います。読む人はあまりいないと思うけど、読んでありがとうございます。また来週も、よろしくお願いします。
Thank you for reading. I believe the beauty of writing is its clarity; it allows you to figure things out. Our brains are a stream of twisting, fluid ideas, and writing allows our thoughts to take shape.
Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself9
I have begun my third month on Substack, and I’m grateful to say our subscriber count has more than doubled every month since I started posting in August. At this rate, at the beginning of 2024, there will be over 1.7 million unique subscribers to this newsletter; this sounds outlandish, but I have an equally “outlandish” project to keep this rate up—stay tuned! If you learned something by reading this, please subscribe and share this with one other person, just one. Click here to read my past essays. Thank you for everything; as always, I’m lost in the right direction.
Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel
quote by Margaret Thatcher
Seton Hall University Office of Mission and Ministry
Amazon’s “2018 Annual Letter to Shareholders” by Jeff Bezos
“Two Words” by Ye
Discipline: The Glad Surrender by Betty Elliot
“City of Blinding Lights” by U2
“What You'll Wish You'd Known” by Paul Graham
quote by George Bernard Shaw
I love this!
This was the motivation I needed today