your ambition is quietly hurting you

i spent the last 3 days living in the woods.

there was no cell service, no electricity, no running water, no washrooms, & no hospital within 100km.

i didn’t even bring a book.

all i had with me was a few buddies, a canoe, & whatever camping equipment i could fit in my backpack.

it was awesome.

but there was a moment on the trip that i’m still processing as i write this.

it was 6 in the morning.

the sunrise painted the sky with a purply-pink colour, the water was still, & there was a thick haze of fog rising up from it.

i couldn’t get a picture, but this one is pretty accurate:

it was one of those moments that stays with you long after it passes.

but as i looked out at the lake & sat there with complete silence around me, only 1 thought came to mind:

i want to feel like this more often.

if you’re anything like me, you probably have a million things that you ‘should’ be doing right now.

like there’s a level of output you need to hit each day in order to ‘break even.’

Oliver Burkeman coined the term productivity debt to describe this exact feeling:

‘many people seem to feel as if they start off each morning in a kind of productivity debt, which they must struggle to pay off through the day, in hopes of reaching a zero balance by the time evening comes.’

i wake up most days with this unshakeable feeling that i’m falling behind & need to work harder.

& in some ways, it’s a superpower — feeling behind is great fuel for progress.

but there’s a downside of ambition that nobody talks about:

when you focus on what you lack, you lose what you already have.

i’ve spent the last few years working towards building my dream life.

there have been plenty of late nights, ideas jotted on my bedside notepad at 2am, an endless to-do list, & this constant feeling that i haven’t ‘arrived’ yet.

the result?

i’ve made more progress than ever.

but i’ve also put more pressure on myself than ever before.

sometimes i get so caught up in the future that i forget to live right now.

it’s hard finding the balance between being & becoming.

which is why i’m still thinking about how i felt by the lake that morning.

for just a moment there, it felt like everything had fallen perfectly into place.

& that is what i want to feel more often.

so as a note to both myself & to you, remember:

you’ve already achieved things that you said would make you happy.

& if you ever forget,

just go live in the woods for a few days.

quick plug: i help people stop scrolling so they can use that time to build stuff.

work with me (:

some things i learned

1. you cannot stay away from yourself forever

   

2. you only need 3 knots to survive in the woods
   for tying 2 ropes together: square knot
   for tying a fixed loop around something: bowline
   for tying an adjustable loop around something: midshipman’s hitch

3. how to know if you’ve been brainwashed
   if your opinion on one thing can be predicted by your opinion on another unrelated thing, you’re probably not thinking critically enough.

cool stuff i found

1. 400 years of human progress in 1 photo

   

2. my new favourite way to drink tea
   loose leaf tea costs less, tastes better, & has no microplastics.
   i never bought it though, because my infuser was only for a full pot.
   then i realized i’m dumb & that i could just buy a single cup version.
   so i did, & now i drink tea every day again. W.

   

3. a new genre of music i’m loving
   some guys in the Sahara desert got a hold of electric guitars & created a whole new genre of music. people are calling it the ‘desert blues.’
   i’ve been bumping this on repeat:

that’s all for now!

i’m putting the finishing touches on my next youtube video, so keep an eye out for it in the coming days.

thank you so much for being here & supporting this dream of mine.

there’s no better corner of the internet than this one (:

go make yourself proud this week!

~ liam

PS - if you haven’t already done my anonymous secret survey [linked here], please take 1 minute to do it now! your feedback helps me a lot.