Thanks so much for the thoughtful comment and compliment! I agree with a lot of what you’re saying and it seems like you understood what I was getting at with this article.

-Andrew

I’ve learned to think about “sacrifices” quite differently. If you are doing something because you want to achieve something you really want, something that is in your personal interest, then what people so often call “sacrifices” aren’t really sacrifices at all. In fact, even altruists aren’t self-sacrificing. The reason they work as hard as they do to help others is because they have the desire to do so and desire is obviously a selfish (in a positive way) emotion.

We are as humans naturally self-interested. The only things that could ever be called a real sacrifice is when we deliberately repress ourselves and try to work against our interests. It’s impossible to be happy that way.

Anyway, another thing about hard work. I personally have a bit of an aversion to that term. I guess it’s partly because of that rather poisonous meme that associates it mainly with physical work (and I’ve been working on the web for years.. which isn’t quite that physical). But another part is that I somehow associate it with authoritarian orders from on high pushing you to just work hard and never think… like what some parents tell people.

Same parents which have spend decades on the same kinds of jobs, never making any progress, always “sacrificing” (as in really sacrificing, repressing themselves because they think they have to) and then telling their kids that “life is hard” and “you need to sacrifice a lot in life” and of course “you need to work hard”.

Their advice isn’t the kind of advice you give here. It’s more cynical than that and instead of encouragement it provides discouragement. If life is really all about sacrifices and unthinking “hard work” for every next buck you can get, doing whatever you can do regardless of whether you love it or not.. then you know.. frak life.

Of course I completely rejected such notions myself and am on a personal journey of success. I just wanted to point out the darker variant of the “work hard” and “sacrifice” advice in case it helps anyone avoid confusing it with what you talk about here.

Cheers

-Andrew

Jamaal Sabree

Glad my article could help you so much.

-Andrew