one idea.
If you’ve ever taken a basic physics class, you probably remember how to draw force diagrams. A simple block sits in the middle of the page representing an object falling down to the ground.
You have one arrow pointing to the ground - that’s gravity. And you have another arrow pointing upwards, that’s drag.
Drag is what stops the block from falling at its full might, it’s fullest gravitational potential.
I love this diagram because it reminds me that drag exists in my life as well.
You push forward with a certain energy, a certain desire… but the world never gets to feel the full force of your might because you have so many things holding you back. Anxiety. Negativity. Fear of failure.
What if you could go about the world without all that drag? Like a character in a video game, you see an objective you want to do and you simply go forth to make it happen.
You like a girl? You go up to her and without a second thought, you press A to interact. No drag at all. It didn’t work out? No problem. Think about what you learned from that interaction and then you go try something else next time.
But what actually happens? It’s a story as old as time. You start clamming up, getting weird, doing stuff that self-sabotages. Adrenaline is pumping... your palms are sweaty, mom’s spaghetti. Knees shaking like an old grandma without her walker. It’s a hot mess.
But in a video game, this problem never exists. You always dive into the action; in fact, you head towards the firefight. Talking to a person is literally as simple as pressing a button. But in our own lives, we make things much more complicated.
Every time we do something, there's always friction pushing back. When it's small, it's just an annoyance. An inefficiency. But when the friction gets too much, it overwhelms the forward driving force entirely. What then happens? The block comes to a complete standstill.
This happens in almost every domain of our lives. Take procrastination. It’s a simple force diagram too.
There’s a forward arrow driving you to get it done. The desire of completion, the feeling of accomplishment... some sort of intrinsic or extrinsic reward. But then there’s a million force arrows pushing against it in the opposite direction right?
- The negative emotion of starting the task because it feels hard.
- The pain of having to get off the couch.
- The withdrawal of putting down your phone and unplugging from that continuous dopamine source of never-ending meme videos.
- The anxiety of having to come to terms that you have no idea how to start this project.
List goes on and on.
And so, you avoid it and you don’t do it until the innate pressure on the other side forces your hand to make it happen. That’s a new arrow coming into the equation.
The guilt of not getting it done.
The pressure of a deadline coming to ram its fist up your asshole.
The consequences of not getting it done now. (You're boss is going to fire you).
Notice something? It’s negativity all around. You're surrounded by it. It’s negativity that stops you in your tracks and it’s negativity that pushes you forward again. I don’t know about you but living a life like this is absolutely dreadful.
Imagine a life where negative force arrows are non-existent. Really sit down and think about what that would feel like. No negativity, no anxiety, no second-guessing. You do things because you want to do them and feel no friction whatsoever. You’re flowing from thing to thing, playing your life as the video game it was always meant to be played. You’re just objectively analyzing your day (or whatever situation is in front of you) and not only picking the optimal best solution, but doing so without any friction whatsoever.
What does throwing the full might of your person behind something feel like? Have you ever experienced that before? What could you accomplish if absolutely no drag was holding you back whatsoever? In that parallel universe, what kind of person could you become?
This is the concept of a frictionless existence.
This is the art of doing. Just like the art of seduction, the art of doing requires practice but it is possible. You just suck at it because you haven’t thought about this concept even as a thing to get better at.
one action.
And so, today that changes. Today, you become more aware. Draw out the force diagrams in your life. What things are driving you forward in each endeavor and what things are holding you back? Once you see it, figure out how to reduce that drag. You may not be able to get it down to zero, but even cutting something by 10% can significantly make the entire journey a lot easier.
one update.
I am excited about an upcoming video that was just finished today.
Tentative title is called “8 rules that make life effortless”
I’ve been experimenting with the style of my videos and this recent one incorporates a more fun quirky vibe that I really enjoyed. I usually just let my editing team take the lead but for this one, I couldn’t resist and edited it myself.
Because I invested in some new equipment (gimbal, shotgun mic, etc), I now have the ability to do a variety of shots that I could not do before… and my mind is exploding with newfound creativity. Stay tuned!
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