Making $1,000,000 Didn't Achieve Any Of My Goals

I’m the type of person that finds no drive in comfort. When I’m comfortable, I have no reason to push beyond the bare minimum.

Since I was in elementary school, I’d envisioned doing big things with my life.

But I had no idea where to start. I didn’t bother to look.

I convinced myself that all I needed was to make a shit ton of money. And I’d be able to hire people to figure it out for me

This is a dangerous mindset.

It kept me stagnant for 2 decades.

I continued to inflate the value of money like a balloon that holds all the secrets in life

• health

• passion

• purpose

• fulfillment

• The solution to ALL life’s problems

Then one day, it pops and you realize there is nothing but air inside.

Because you cannot shift the personal responsibility of cultivating a meaningful life onto anything else, no matter how hard you try.

When you assign money to fix all your problems, you submit yourself into a powerless role over your life.

You stop seeing yourself as the person capable of:

• planning your life

• following through with your goals

• taking initiative to solve your problems

You become the person only capable of making money.

This is a dangerously narrow skillset.

If not, every millionaire would be happy.

Rich people would be the gurus of happiness and the epitome of health.

But look around you.

The only thing rich people teach you is how to get rich.

It’s the only thing they know.

When I was in 5th grade, I found this place that served the best crab udon. It was nothing but a little cart and a few tables and chairs on a street near my school. 

It was my favorite place on earth. 

My friends and I loved hanging out there after school. I would save up a week’s worth of allowance just so I could order extra crab legs and feel bougie as hell.

Imagine being 10 years old with the freedom to buy your own dinner ,

the autonomy to add as much fried shallots and chili as you wish and enjoying it with a group of friends.

It was pure joy. I don’t know many things in life that can replace it.

So after living in the states for 5 years, I couldn’t wait to come back and revisit the place. 

To relive those memories. 

To spend all my US dollars eating crab legs until I pass out.

Since you’re smarter than young Ava, you know where this is headed.

It was a huge disappointment

The broth tasted too salty

The crabs weren’t fresh

The whole experience felt… unhygienic and anti-climatic

That’s what it feels like when you place the source of meaning in life on a destination or achievement

I thought that if I could just get this one piece — the most important piece of the puzzle, everything would fall into place.

But… it didn’t…

Because it was never that one piece that brought me happiness. It was the entire experience.

I received the same piping hot bowl of disappointment when I made a million dollars.

I’m not ignorant to the fact that lack of money is the source of a lot unhappiness in life.

You can’t meditate your way out of getting evicted from your apartment, not having food to eat or getting the electricity shut off.

Those are survival problems and you need money to solve them.

What I’m talking about are post-survival problems

• liking yourself

• experiencing joy

• having confidence

• finding your passion

• adding value to the world.

These are problems that money will not solve.

These are problems that YOU need to solve as soon as you meet your survival needs.

The more money you accumulate, the bigger these problems become.

Because you start getting comfortable. You start to get the cheap pleasures that money buys and lull yourself into complacency.

Deep rooted problems get deeper until they become too consuming to face.

Most people get sucked in this trap.

They keep assigning more and more value to money hoping eventually, there will be enough to solve them all. 

It’s hard to look within yourself. 

That takes a lot of work. The kind of work people aren’t used to doing

The default mode is to continue doing what you know. To hope that the thing you’ve finally gotten good at will be the solution.

That’s how you delay living your life indefinitely. And the pain that comes with that is something money can never heal

Before I made any money, I’ve always wanted to make an impact

Somehow

I wanted to build a joint where people eat the foods they grow, share ideas and build cool shit.

I had no idea how to do it though.

So I thought, when I make tens of millions — the answer will come (or I would hire someone to find them)

Then, I made ONE million.

It wasn’t enough to start a project so grand.

So I kept chasing.

I assigned too many problems for money to solve. There would never be enough money.

I’d still be in the same race if I never lost the money.

But I did. And it was a blessing.

This extreme turn of event forced me to learn new skills.

It forced me to come face to face with the monster under my bed:

Making money is not how you build a meaningful life. It simply buys you the freedom to construct life however you want.

It’s you —  the creator of your world, that must get your hands dirty and lay the foundation brick by brick.

So I asked myself:

If I had all the money in the world, what would my life look like?

Then I designed that exact life as much as I could. And I replaced all the expensive solutions with what I can afford

If I had money, I would hire a content creator to create the things I wanted to share.

Since I don’t have money, I have to learn how to do it myself

If I had money, I would travel a lot and see amazing things.

Since I don’t have money, I make an effort to explore one local place every week

If I had money, I would buy a lot of land to grow a lot of things. 

Since I don’t have money, I learn how to grow food out of buckets.

By doing all these things WITHOUT money, I am stacking countless valuable skills.

So much so that people start paying me for them.

In this way, I am living in alignment with exactly how I envision my life would be.

That’s all life is

It’s not about getting to a desired destination

It’s not even about escaping your current situation.

It’s about taking one step every day to get closer to the life you envision for yourself.

That one step is what gives you hope, meaning, and make every hardship along the way tolerable.

That one step makes it hard not to enjoy the journey.

Because each step confirms you’re headed somewhere amazing.

What is one thing you could do to move closer to your dream without money today?

If you’ve made it this far, you obviously enjoy my rambling so please go here to give me 50 claps.

It feeds into my ever-growing big head

See you next week.

Ciao ❤️