Tag advice

Once you got it don’t look back

Adam 1 Comment

When I was young, about 20 years old, I wanted to try something different. Although I was raised Roman Catholic, I went to see a psychic. I was scared, but I said, “Maybe he can help me.” Really, I wanted to see if it was true—to see if they could predict the future or tell me information that I didn’t know.

Although it was vague and didn’t really impress me, there was something that I remember to this day. He said, “I’m going to give you something so you can have anything you want in life. But once you get it, don’t look back.”

I really didn’t understand what that meant and didn’t really think about it until today. While browsing through the bookstore, I saw a book that said, “Don’t look back; you’ll trip over.”

How many times do we look back in life and think about what could have been and how our life could have turned out differently? Had we made this one decision differently or realized something sooner?

But what if we accept things as they are—the good, the bad, and the ugly? We truly would realize we are already rich and successful. We might not have as much money as Elon Musk or be as successful as Hulk Hogan, but that’s comparing, and comparison is the thief of joy.

So stop regretting, accept that what you have is already enough, and once you’ve got it, don’t look back.

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Be careful about sharing your intentions with people

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I wanted to start a blog like this in 2008, when I was about 22 years old. I remember telling my martial arts teacher about it, and he asked why. I told him I wanted to share the lessons I learned. Instead of telling me, “That’s a good idea, go ahead,” he said, “Help me set up a blog. I’ve been wanting to start one for a while.”

Being young and inexperienced, and not knowing what I had, I agreed. I went on and set up the blog for him, which he only wrote in once. I figured I didn’t have much to write about and kind of put the idea aside.

Until 15 years later.

Looking back at it, he took advantage of me or he really wanted to set up a blog I’ll never know for sure ,  I was too naive to know.

This is why you never tell people why you are doing the things you are doing. You can tell them what you are doing, but never why. Because if you tell them why, you set yourself up for manipulation, jealousy, discouragement, or worse, in my case.

The best thing to do is tell people when you succeed, but even then, don’t tell them why. You ever heard that if you tell people your dreams, they never come true? This is why.

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Guy staring at computer screen while his martial arts instructor is in the background

What to do if you feel like a loser at 40

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Man staring on a road with a plan In his hand.

So you are forty years old with a list of boring, entry-level jobs. No girlfriend and no kids, no formal education, and you feel like life passed you by. You will never be a success story. Here is the truth: you can still turn your life around. Here are some ideas.

1. Stop doing what you are doing
If you are dwelling on the past or what could have or should have happened, STOP. That is not going to change anything. In fact, it will make it worse, because you are not making any progress forward.

2. Accept where you are
Take full responsibility for where you are in life. Not because of your friends or your parents. Not because of your environment, but because of the choices you made and the route you chose to take.

3. Make a plan
Decide what you are going to do from this point forward. If it’s going to be going back to get a degree or starting that business, make a detailed, step-by-step plan of what you are going to do every minute of every day for the next five years.

4. Go for it
Give it everything you’ve got. It’s live or die—give it every single piece of energy you have. Think that every day for the next five years is going to be hard and almost impossible if you don’t give it every single piece of willpower to change.

5. Once you achieve your goals
Once you achieve your goals in five years, be grateful and appreciative, because you could lose it fairly easily by falling back into your bad habits and thinking patterns.

Make the best of every situation

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I came to realize that being positive is not just when your life is going well. You could be living on the street and be homeless. In that horrible, hopeless situation, you could still be positive and make the best of it.


You could be a millionaire, living on a yacht, and still be miserable and negative. It is not the outside conditions that shape you; it is how you view the conditions you are in.


We spend about 47% of our time inside our head, thinking, according to research where people were asked randomly throughout the day what they were doing.

So how do you make the best of every situation?
I was sitting next to an old lady when I noticed something different about her. I don’t know why, but I asked her, “How do you view the world?” She said she was an artist. She said there is an old lady walking down the street in the biggest ghetto, trying to make ends meet. There is something beautiful about that. There is something beautiful in every situation, she said. I asked, “When did you realize that?” She said she was always like that; that’s why she chose to be an artist.

That is how we should make the best of every situation. We should see the good in the worst situations—even homelessness, addiction, and even prison.


Because if we don’t, it will only get worse. That is the cure to a horrible life.

My greatest life lesson is to pick the right friends

Adam 3 Comments

I am now 38 years old, and I have been recently asking myself why I ended up in life where I ended up: living in my parents’ basement and working as a clerk at a gas station.

It is because I picked friends not because we had things in common, or because they showed me they could be trusted or had my best interest at heart.

I picked friends because I thought they were cool. I thought if I hung around cool people, I would become cool.

That was the beginning of my demise, because my former best friend turned out to be the biggest liar and manipulator.

When picking your friends, make sure they are good people, because if you show me your friends, I will show you your future.

Dwelling on dwelling on dwelling

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I spent at least twenty years dwelling on dwelling—without even realizing that I was doing it. A large part of my days went into trying to figure out the one thing that stopped me from being successful. In talking with a friend, I finally realized that there is no single cause.

You have to understand: there is no trigger or source behind all of your problems. In fact, the search for that “one cause” only wastes time—and becomes another form of dwelling. What matters is focusing on the present moment and moving forward from there.

Buddhists, for example, use mantras such as “Om Mani Padme Hum”—repeating them to quiet the mind and avoid getting lost in useless thoughts. I’ve decided to try this myself, and I’ll let you know how it goes. One thing is certain: dwelling gets you nowhere.

The healing journey is over

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I’ve spent the last twenty years trying to heal from trauma and unhelpful thought patterns—struggling to see things as they truly are. I questioned everything about my reality: Why do I see things the way I do? How can I reframe them to see things differently?

For example, I asked myself: Why do I think money is evil? Is this something I truly believe, or is it a belief unconsciously passed down from my parents—something I accepted because I was too young to know any better? Is it really true that money is evil? How can I view it in a different light?

I spent weeks attending meditation retreats and participated in a wide range of spiritual gatherings and events—from Native American traditions to Wicca, from witchcraft to Christianity and Judaism.

Today, I realized something important: you can spend your whole life focused on self-improvement, always thinking there’s something wrong with you. But that’s life—perfection is impossible. Every time you overcome one challenge, another eventually appears. You can end up dwelling on everything and never truly living.

There is such a thing as over-healing—getting so caught up in fixing yourself that you forget to live. From now on, I’m going to focus on living and having fun—enjoying life and accepting that I am good enough and healed enough.

How people view time is how people live their life

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For the past 15 years, I spent much of my life trapped in the past. I replayed moments where people took advantage of me—business partners who used me, friends who were jealous, and those I trusted who gave me poor advice. It felt like every step I took, especially when it came to money or relationships, was guided by someone else’s hidden motives rather than my own best interest. I wasted so much energy dwelling on their actions, their betrayal, and their influence over my decisions.

Somewhere along the way, all that bitterness became a lens through which I viewed life. I used to see time as something beautiful—something to enjoy. Life was about fun, excitement, and experiences. But after being diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, my perception began to change drastically. Life no longer felt light or playful. Time became heavy. It started to feel like pain. A constant weight. It wasn’t just the mental illness—it was everything I had gone through that seemed to confirm my suffering.

Schizoaffective disorder brought challenges I never expected. It blurred the lines between what was real and what was distorted by emotion or perception. I found myself questioning everything—my thoughts, my choices, even my memories. Add to that the feeling of being wronged by people I once trusted, and I spiraled into a space where time itself felt like punishment. I was no longer living—I was just surviving.

But today, something clicked. I realized that the way we view time is the way we view life. If I think of time as pain, then every day is going to hurt. If I see time as a burden, then life becomes one long burden. But what if I flip that idea? What if I start seeing time not as pain, not as something to get through, but as an opportunity? A space where I can grow, learn, and even have fun?

From this day forward, I’m choosing to see time as a combination of discipline and joy. I’m going to use it to build structure in my life—structure that helps me heal, become stronger, and stay focused. At the same time, I’m not going to forget that life is meant to be enjoyed. I don’t have to choose between discipline and happiness—they can coexist. In fact, when balanced, they bring out the best in each other.

No longer will I let the past define me. The people who misled me, used me, or tried to break me—they don’t own my time anymore. I do. I am the one who gets to decide how I spend each day. And I choose to spend it becoming better, becoming more whole, and finding new ways to enjoy life again, even with the challenges I face.

This realization is my turning point. It won’t be easy—some days will still be hard. But the difference now is that I finally understand that time isn’t my enemy. Time is my teacher. And I’m ready to learn, grow, and live again.

Why Failure Was the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me

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Growing up during the internet boom, I thought making money online was easy. I worked at a startup that made a lot of money selling on eBay, and I believed that this level of success would always come easily. I was generous to a fault, constantly giving money, time, and help to people I thought were my friends. But I learned the hard way that many of them were just using me. When I finally tried to make money on my own, I hit a wall—and that’s when the truth hit me even harder.

That experience woke me up. I realized that I had been naïve, and that I needed to start building something real for myself. That’s what led me to go back to school and get an education. It’s never too late. I also became more cautious with my generosity. I now focus on balanced relationships where time, advice, and support are given and received fairly.

The hardest part about this change was realizing that personal growth doesn’t happen overnight. Change takes time, and it takes an incredible amount of willpower to resist old habits. I had to be patient with myself, and I had to learn to stay consistent even when I didn’t see instant results.

But through all of this, I discovered something powerful about myself—I’m incredibly creative. I realized there are opportunities everywhere; you just have to take the time to learn your craft and recognize them. That kind of vision and resourcefulness was something I never appreciated in myself before failure forced me to dig deeper.

Before, I thought success meant freedom—having the ability to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. Now, I define success differently. It means being happy, healthy, and financially stable. Freedom is still important, but it isn’t the end goal. It’s just one part of a much bigger, more meaningful picture.

This experience also shifted how I view people. I used to believe everyone was as well-intentioned as I was. But I’ve learned that not everyone is good-hearted, and not everyone who stays close is truly in your corner. That said, I’ve also come to admire people who start over—because starting over takes guts, and if they don’t give up, they’ll eventually succeed.

I had a major moment of clarity when I realized that not having money was actually a blessing. If I had stayed wealthy and naïve, I would have continued to give away everything to people who didn’t truly care about me. Losing it all showed me who was real and who wasn’t—and that’s a gift in disguise.

Now my goals are different. I no longer chase riches or status. I want good friends, peace of mind, and enough money to live a happy, comfortable life. I don’t need to be the richest man on earth—I just want a meaningful life with real people in it.

To anyone going through failure right now: there is always a way out. It might not feel like it, but there’s always something you can change, something you can learn, and something you can improve. What looks like a dead end might just be a sign to shift your direction, not stop your journey.

If I had to sum up the biggest lesson I’ve learned, it would be this: Don’t ever give up. If you keep trying different things, eventually one of them will work—and that could change your life.

My story about being backstabbed

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Growing up, I didn’t have very supportive parents, so I depended on my friends for support. I had friends who came and went, but there was one friend who stuck around—or so I thought.

He was the kind of guy I loved being around. We did everything together, from hiking to going on trips. I guess it was somewhat my fault because I depended on him too much. I truly thought we were like brothers.

Still, there was always something off that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. For example, why would he come to me for advice, but when I went to him, he’d always say, “It’s your life. It’s up to you how you live it.”

When I was younger, I didn’t think much of it, but as I got older, I realized I hadn’t made all the right choices. That’s when it hit me—not only did he never give me advice, but he actively sabotaged my life to make himself feel better about his. For instance, he’d tell me that girls didn’t like me, only for me to realize later that they did. Or he’d say, “I heard that’s not a good job,” when in reality, it was.

Looking back, I realized it wasn’t even a friendship. It was someone tearing down my life to boost their own, all while using me to help with theirs.

Be careful who you surround yourself with because you never truly know someone’s true intentions.