He smoked. He was visibly overweight. His shoes were untied. He had dozens of plans that never came to fruition. If ever there was a poster boy for “proud lack of discipline”, he was it. And William drew more motivation to be his best self from watching this other man fail than any other source.
He knew it was wrong to use hatred in the way that he did. The few times he had publicly stated his philosophy he had always come away from those moments with a sick feeling in his guts. Like when you perceive that someone has slighted you, and it escalates into near violence. That stomach-churning vortex of impotent anxiety and total lack of validation for your actions. But Will genuinely believed in himself because he had seen years of growth from exercising his beliefs.
If your rivals are too strong to overcome, choose weaker enemies. It’s an inverse formula for self-development, but it’s one that works. It never made much sense to Will to continue to bang his head against concrete walls, hoping that someday he would toughen his skull up enough to break through. The chances were much higher that he would bash his brains out first.
Every day, Will thanked God for social media, where there was a cornucopia of losers out there who posted their sad, failure-ridden lives to the world. They provided a valuable service for people like Will. They would never know the depths of satisfaction that he derived from seeing a sloppy, obese man his age give life advice in the form of a YouTube Short, where he knew that could have been him if he had just let himself go a little.
In Will’s world, there were constant reminders of the need for self-discipline everywhere.
First draft: 230808
Published: 231223