A person who earned $20,000–$30,000 monthly tried optimizing their life to work less, following mentor advice. Instead they fell into depression during the reduced-work phase. They realized they need hard work itself to feel good, not the money or efficiency others told them to chase.
When I was way younger, I was making about $20,000 a month or $30,000 a month take-home. I remember, you know, optimizing everything so that I didn't have to go in. And I had mentors at the time that encouraged me to do that. And I'm not saying, again, there's no appraisal of good or bad. That was what they encouraged me to do. So I said, okay, I'll follow your direction. What I found was that there's two times in my life where I was incredibly depressed. That was one of them. And so if we think about things in terms of positive-negative reinforcement, it makes things a little bit simpler. It's like I get good stuff from this thing, which is why I keep doing it. I get good stuff from working in business, which is why I keep working and doing business. A lot of people had a lot of judgments about what I should or should not do and that I was working, quote, too hard. But the thing is, is that when I don't work hard, I'm sad because I like working hard. And it's not that like I have some inherent sadness or there's anything wrong with me. I just lose a thing that I love.
