You don't need to be more confident to achieve things.

You need to achieve things to get more confident.

If you fail, you get experience.

Experience allows you to know better next time.

That's confidence when it comes to what not to do.

Even the failure grows your confidence if you adopt a growth mindset.

Don't be a fucking loser that gets trashed when they fail.

Alright, it didn't work.

At least you know better now.

Confidence without achievements is straight out delusion.

That's what they wrongly call "inflated ego".

That's just being a loser before even losing.

Let every single experience grow you.

Nothing should destroy you.

As Nietzsche said:

What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger.

Live by those words.

Someone left?

I guess that was a loser lmao

Let's do something unusual.

Pick a tweet of mine comment under this post.

I'll chose one of them and explain it further tomorrow.

Been busy these past few days will be back tomorrow for this.

"It takes confidence to be assertive.

But

It builds confidence to be assertive.

Where you see a paradox, I see a virtuous cycle."

Let's explain.

For those of you who don't know what assertiveness mean:

It's the fact of confidently and explicitly asserting one's boundaries by expressing them clearly any without feeling ashamed of them.

My point from the above tweet is that people who lack confidence will more often than not hold back and not set clear boundaries by fear of being judged or due to their will to be accepted.

They will thus accept behavior that trespasses what their personal boundaries and will simply let people step on their toes while taking on themselves by fear of offending the people around them.

That's why it takes confidence to be assertive.

However, once you start learning and using assertiveness, you become more and more confident in yourself as you become able to stand up for yourself and enforce your boundaries.

You become expressive of your limits and explicitly put them out so that people cannot act like they simply didn't know.

Practicing assertiveness teaches you to be more straightforward and express what you have in mind without feeling shame it offending anyone. At the end of the day, your thoughts are yours and should always be respected. Except you'll have to enforce that respect.

So instead of seeing assertiveness as unachievable due to your low confidence, see it as your training ground to developing confidence.

Being assertive is a sign if self-respect, it helps you maintain your self-esteem while imposing yourself in a healthy way to avoid being taken advantage of.

Want to grow confidence?
Work on becoming more assertive.

Introversion & extraversion are social constructs and self-limiting beliefs.

One day I'll explain.

But not today, I don't feel like it.

Stop putting labels on yourself.

Stop categorizing yourself as this or that.

You're not just a social/ethnic/cultural category.

You're more than that.

You're a unique creature.

Act like it.

Yes, labeling people and understanding patterns will help you dissect human behavior and better fathom the underlying reasons behind it.

Yes, it's useful.

When analyzing OTHERS.

Because you can't get in their heads and can only analyze their external behavior and the limited amount of information you have.

When it comes to you, you have far more information and more relevant information may I add.

You know everything about yourself even though it might not always seem like it.

Don't put limits on yourself.

Don't let the interpretations of other people define your personality.

Don't spit on your uniqueness by trying to fit in social constructs.

For this:

Apply double standards.

Categorize others for mind mapping purposes.

Don't categorize yourself for self-control and development purposes.

Define yourself with your own words.

That's how you truly understand yourself.

Introvert, extrovert and other types of labeling are:

Absolutely useless and self-limiting.

You are more than that.

You are your own enemy if you don't keep yourself in check.

You will continue doing what harms you for as long as you won't be able to be brutally honest with yourself.

Here is the thing:

Being brutally honest with yourself doesn't mean beating yourself up over what you do wrong.

No.

That's mind torture.

THAT is overthinking.

Systemize how you keep yourself in check.

Be it meditation, journaling, both or whatever the fuck you feel is useful.

You need a daily routine, a ritual.

A moment where you look back on your actions and define what should be kept and what should be dealt with.

Meditation and journaling aren't some fucked up spiritual practices.

They're mind exercises.

Just like your body, your mind needs to exercise to keep in shape and enhance its performances.

You need to be able to track your progress and track your evolution.

That won't come if you don't regularly take a moment to reassess your behavior and thoughts.

Most people complain about their inability to change but do nothing about it.

The small moments are everything.

It's the seemingly meaningless moments that constitute your life.

It's the small decisions that lead you to the big wins.

So many are focused on the end result that they can't build from scratch.

You dont realize that it's ALWAYS the small decisions that have an impact on your life.

It's that fraction of a second where you decide to hit the gym that are gonna get you the results you wants.

It's that fraction of a second where you decide to stop allow disrespect that make you stronger.

Your ideas are meaningless if you don't pursue them relentlessly Every day, at every moment.

We get stuck in our routines and forget that if we don't enjoy every second, we won't enjoy any of it.

You don't build a house with one block of concrete.

You build it brick by brick.

One moment after the other.

If every moment is negative then the end result won't be any different.

Understand that it's about keeping the joy at all times.

Understand that happiness and satisfaction are end results.

They're part of the journey.

They're what makes everything so beautiful.

Open your eyes stop chasing the future and start enjoying your present.

I promise you that the future will automatically be brighter if you do this.

It's not about having a plan.

It's about following each step.

It's about not giving up.

You don't control the past nor the future but you control the small moment that is the present.

Basedonia Blog is almost ready.

It contains two articles so far, more to come in the coming days and weeks.

1- The comeback of "How to Bury Your Old Self"

Link: https://basedonia.com/how-to-bury-your-old-self/

2- Guest post from the man himself Atlas:

Link: https://basedonia.com/how-to-divide-conquer-us-vs-them-method/

Cheers 🥂

This might be a long post.

You've been warned.

Enjoy the read.

Collective identity and why it can't replace your ego

Before we get started:

Personal Identity - how you identify among others, how you stand out, your ego, your self-perception.

Collective identity - what makes you fit in society, the way you're categorized by the mass, your stereotype.

Good. That's out of the way.

Here is the issue we're dealing with; most have a tendency to neglect personal Identity and focus on their collective one.

How so? You'd ask.

Because let's face it, when you read that, you agreed but didn't feel concerned.

HAHA. I'll answer you.

The thing with collective identity is that, you as an individual don't really see it.

Which is normal.

You're self-absorbed (I hope you are), but maybe a little too self-absorbed to reflect on yourself.

Weird?

Not so much.

It's absolutely normal for us to think that we're special.

It's normal for us to think that we're different and doing things differently. Because we've been conditioned to by society.

Now, I don't think I should expand on that. (Comment expand if you think I should)

Anyway.

Here is the thing, we tend to subconsciously set standards that we think are our own but are largely shaped by what we see around us.

Most of the goals we set for ourselves are nothing but copies of the achievements we've seen someone else reach.

However, the problem begins when (willingly or not) many (similar) profiles start following the same path.

Stereotypes are created and we end up being one among others rather than THE one among others.

Rat race.

Why?

Because all of you will try to be THE one. Yet all of you will become the same.

Get it? Collective identity.

That's when even when one stands out, he's still just the best of many others doing the same.

Now here is the thing:

Why would people fall into this?

Why would someone so stupidly become like their peers in their quest to become unique.

Answer: Lack of self-awareness.

You wont find yourself by looking outwards and analyzing others.

You wont find yourself in the social conditioning.

You'll find yourself buried deep in your subconscious because society works in a way that kills the self; slowly but surely.

That's the system were fighting against.

Back to topic.

Where do you find yourself then?

In isolation.

Mindful isolation.

Goal driven isolation.

Self-discovery oriented isolation.

Replace isolation by reflection and it's still valid.

Is that too vague?

Two words:

Meditation.
Journaling.

"Oh but everyone says that"

Sure.

Nobody says why.

Here is why:

You wont find yourself on the surface.

You wont find yourself during your inspirational moments but rather when you're short of it.

That's when you get to know yourself the most because in the face of idleness, in the absence of conditioning, when everything external runs out:

You finally reach yourself and understand it better.

And it's not easy nor simple.

Because at first, it's overwhelming.

But it's by giving it time that you start understanding yourself better and grasping the full extent of your person.

The quest to fulfillment isn't external.

All of it is within you.

I won't say this enough:

You are the architect of everything around you.

Awareness exist on 3 levels

1) Actions - Be observant of everything you do (working, walking, talking, eating, bathing...)

2) Thoughts - Watch your inner commentary keenly (positive / negative, spiritual / worldly, past or future oriented)

3) Emotions - Notice how your moods & feelings change throughout the day. Observe the subtle causes, catalysts or inhibitors.

The list is in increasing order of difficulty.

Another way to look at it is body, mind & heart.
Stop doing things like a zombie - Be watchful; alert, aware & conscious - from the easiest to the subtlest.

To be continued...

Practicing Presence:

I lie in bed ready to fall asleep. The dim hum of the air conditioner vibrates my eardrums. The light glow from the kitchen ignites my rods and cones in my eye. I feel the soft bedsheets beneath me. Thoughts from the day race through my mind.

This is my new Now.

A nanosecond passes.

I notice a small tightness in my lower back, and close my eyes. The air conditioner still hums, the thoughts change to thinking about tomorrow, the sheets become ignored by my touch senses.

This is my new Now.

A nanosecond passes.

The tension dissolves and I feel my heartbeat. The air conditioner is background noise and I start paying attention to other sensations within my body. My thoughts start flowing, and questions pop into my mind wondering if this is what the Buddhists call bodyscan meditation.

This is my new Now.

A nanosecond passes.

I notice my breathing, and bright visions of a sunny day enter my mind. I hear the sound of crickets outside vibrating my eardrums, and my body shifts a bit, subtly changing the pressure on my legs. I feel sensations in my calves and my mouth tastes the aftereffects of the toothpaste.

This is my new Now.

A nanosecond passes.

I feel the pillow on my ear, and I start planning out how I will type up this very telegram post you're reading. I wonder if that'll break my presence, but realize there's always a new present moment to experience.

This is my new Now.

A nanosecond passes.

I feel a pain in my left temple from within, and drill down into that pain until it dissolves. I feel like a healer. My breathing slows and I hear the air conditioner click off, only leaving the slight buzzing sound from the blood flowing through my brain that you only hear when it's completely silent. My ear itches.

This is my new Now.

A nanosecond passes.

I try to make an unbroken, contiguous experience of nanoseconds, observing each sensation rise and fall.

This is my new Now.