you are both the climber and the cliff

the first time i ever swore, i was 6 years old.

it happened during a universal experience that every kid must go through:

i was sitting at the kitchen table with tears in my eyes, struggling with my grade 1 math homework while my mum was doing her best to help.

but after hours of me sitting there, eventually refusing to lift my pencil because ‘it’s stupid,’ my mum finally had enough.

‘well, at school tomorrow when the principal asks why you didn’t do your homework, you’re gonna have to tell her that yourself.’

that’s my mum — she always knows the right thing to say at the right time.

but i wasn’t having it.

‘i’m not going to my fuckin school tomorrow.’

she froze.

i remember looking up at her & just feeling the silence sit between us for what felt like a million years.

then she did something i never saw her do.

she turned away calmly, & ran out the front door.

years later, i learned that she only went outside so i wouldn’t see her laugh.

but in that moment, i thought i was a deadman.

so i was left with only 2 options:

1. run away with my favourite teddy bear & start a new life

2. shut up & finish the homework

i chose the second option, & within 5 minutes, the math homework was done.

later that evening, i learned what lavender soap tastes like.

but i also learned a more valuable lesson that has stayed with me to this day.

the math homework that was taking me hours to do got finished in 1% of the time — with no tears.

but nothing about the math or my ability to do it had changed.

the only thing that changed was my perspective.

instead of math being ‘stupid,’ it suddenly became non-negotiable, & that was all it took for me to get out of my own way & do it.

do you see what i’m getting at here?

in life, most of the work you have to do is never that hard.

the story you tell yourself about it is what makes it hard.

i know that sounds like some motivational bullshit, but there are countless examples of what this looks like in the real world.

a math student at Berkeley solved 2 ‘unsolvable’ equations by accident, because he got to class late & assumed they were written on the board as homework.

an Australian potato farmer won a 1000km marathon in work boots, because he had no idea you were supposed to sleep during the 5-day race. he just kept running & won by 10 hours.

the list goes on & on.

& every single one of those stories tells the same truth:

humans are good at doing things, but bad at believing we can.

which brings me to my last point here.

solving problems is like standing at the bottom of a cliff.

if you had a gun to your head & you knew you had to climb it within 6 months from now, what would you do?

you’d probably get some equipment, take some climbing lessons, & maybe even map out the best route to go up.

that would be the wise thing to do.

but what if the cliff was never the obstacle?

if this was a real scenario, you would’ve just fallen for the same trap as everybody else — you were probably imagining something like this:

but this is the actual cliff i was talking about:

your mind will make problems bigger than they really are,

& you’ll believe it every time.

so sure, learn new skills & become the type of person who can do hard things.

but don’t forget that the hardest thing to do is to get out of your own way.

you are both the climber & the cliff.

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some things i learned

1. there are no rules*

   

2. i found the origin of 2 old expressions
   in medieval England, they used urine to tan animal skins, so families would all pee in a pot & sell it to the tannery each day.
   if you had to do this to survive, you were ‘piss poor.’
   but there were people who couldn’t even afford to buy a pot.
   they ‘didn’t have a pot to piss in.’

3. the best argument for cold showers
   a month-long trial of 3000+ Dutch adults showed that ending a shower with 30s of cold water cut sick days by 29%. [source]
   
   it’s probably not a coincidence — brief cold exposure is actually great for the immune system, spiking white blood cell count & increasing metabolic rate.
   
   also, 91% of participants who did the cold showers said they would keep doing it after the trial ended, since the energy boost was worth the discomfort.
   
   idk though. i might still have to pass lol.

cool stuff i found

1. a wholesome moment
   ‘don’t get so caught up trying to give your kid a good life that you forget to give them a good day.’

   

2. reminder: we’re still so early with AI
   71% of the world has never used generative AI
   28% have only used free chats
   1% pay for an AI subscription
   0.14% use AI to write code

   

3. a fun way to see how lucky you are
   there’s a website called Any Human Ever that uses historical statistics to let you draw a random life from all ~100B humans to ever live.
   i’ll shout it from the rooftops — you were born in the best time to ever be born so far! go try the odds out for yourself.

   

that’s all for now!

i caught a flu last week & was feeling pretty down on myself for not being where i want to be in life yet. then i remembered that i literally do have the life i dreamed about for years, & i just forgot that i moved the goalposts.

so a friendly note to self: keep aiming higher, but don’t forget to appreciate what you’ve got. you already achieved things you said would make you happy.

go make yourself proud this week.

~ liam (:

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