Yesterday, my father came into my room after he got home from work.

“Have you started sorting your life out yet?” he asked,

“Yep” I said, and laughed it off like it was nothing.

It wasn’t nothing.

That question burned a hole in my head.

From my point of view, my life has been sorted for the past 5 years since I got away from drugs and a group of people who ended up going down some dark paths in their lives. (Story for a different day)

He seems to think that I haven’t done much in the last couple of years, and I’m right on track to wasting the rest of my life.

At the age of 16 I quit weed and I spent my final years of school training for the Irish junior rowing team (big pivot in my life).

In 2020 I finished school at the age of 18.

Straight away I began to travel around Ireland in my little 2009 Citroen C1 named “salmon”

I surfed the entirety of the Irish west coast and played music on the street with my mate Tom to pay for food and petrol, we mostly slept in the car.

Those three months of road-tripping around Ireland were probably the most transformative months of my life.

I learned more about myself and the world during that summer than in any other period of my life.

That never would’ve happened had I listened to everyone’s advice and stayed at home, hiding away from the pandemic like the rest of the world.

Thankfully, I saw things differently.

I then spent a few months travelling around Europe and almost a year backpacking and volunteering through Central America.

I did some more road-tripping around Ireland and then moved to Spain where I started multiple businesses.

I’m now 21 years old and I have:

• travelled through multiple continents

• trained as a high-performance athlete

• become fluent in Spanish (self-thought)

• learnt bass, percussion, guitar and piano

• started and shut down multiple businesses

• made more money than most people my age

• made more big mistakes than anyone else I know

I truly feel like the life I’m living, is very much in line with the life I want to live.

I’m not trying to brag here, I’m trying to make a point.

To my father, this isn’t a life well lived.

In the eyes of my father, a life well lived includes:

• a university degree

• a respectable job

• a stable income

None of which I currently have…

Oh no!

Here’s the thing, neither of us are correct.

There is no universal truth, there’s no such thing as a “life well lived”.

Everything is in the eye of the beholder.

Why?

Because we, as humans, do not see reality for what it is.

We see it for who we are.

Two people can look at the same situation, be presented with the same information, yet have completely different points of view on the subject matter.

We humans do not have an objective view on reality, everything we experience (both sensory and hallucinatory) is subject to our own, personal interpretation of it.

This is why arguments form, not because either person is necessarily right or wrong, but because those two people have opposing views on reality. They are both looking at the same object with different lenses, and therefore see different things.

They are living in two different realities.

This distorted lens, through which we all view the world, is called our Paradigm.

Our paradigm is what forms the reality that we live in.

If you believe that being a Christian is the only way to live, that is part of your paradigm.

In your reality, that is the truth.

If your friend believes that being a devout atheist is the way to go, that is the reality that they live in and that is their truth.

Neither of you are right or wrong, you’re just living in different realities.

One can only be “right” in their own reality.

Our paradigm has been in construction since birth (or according to Jung, since the very dawn of humanity).

It is the sum of everything we believe to be true about ourselves and the world around us.

Everything we’ve ever seen, smelled, touched, heard, tasted and thought has stacked up to give us certain convictions about this world.

It’s impossible for us to have an experience without forming some sort of belief around it.

Here’s an exercise:

I want you to think of a particular type of food.

Think of how that food makes you feel, do you like it? Do you not? Does it bring back certain feelings of nostalgia? Disgust?

I think we can all agree that this particular food makes you feel a certain way, but it wouldn’t make everyone feel the same way.

Some people might really enjoy whatever food you’re thinking of, others might be terrified of it.

This is because the food itself does not spark emotion, it is whatever experiences we associate with said food that actually sparks up these emotions.

This is why two people can taste the same meal and have two completely different opinions on it.

If you don’t like a certain food, it’s because you’ve had negative experiences with that food, or similar foods.

If there’s a certain food that you do like, it’s purely because you’ve had more positive experiences than negative ones with this food throughout your life.

This is a very simple (and obvious) example, but what most people don’t realize is that food isn’t the only area of life that we experience subjectively.

Every single experience in life is not experienced by us for what it truly is, it is experienced by what we believe to be true about the thing in question.

Music, politics, sexual preference, books, diets, movies, sports, decorations, drugs, hobbies, interests, careers, university degrees, travels, hairstyles, coffee brands.

None of these things are experienced objectively by us, they are all experienced through our distorted lens on reality, our paradigm.

Picture your paradigm as a mental filter that all of your experiences go through as you’re experiencing them.

If we hear a certain song, our ears pick it up. They send signals to our brain which then cross-references these signals with all of the previous experiences we’ve ever had to decide how we should feel about these particular signals and this particular song.

Our brain does the same thing with signals about food, politics, clothes, sex, people and anything else you can think of.

We take information in through our sensory organs, but that information is meaningless until our brain decides how we should feel about it, based on our paradigm.

Absolutely everything we ever think, see, touch, feel, hear and taste passes through through this heavily biased filter.

“Okay Louis, I get it. Everything we experience is subjective and biased, based on all of our previous life experiences. What’s the point here?”

I’m glad you asked.

Most people do not realize they have a paradigm, they truly believe that they see reality objectively.

This is why people are so set in stone with their beliefs, they cannot fathom a world where their opinion on something is not the objective truth.

Think of a friend who has a dietary opinion that’s different to yours. You both are 100% convinced in your own beliefs and you probably think that the other person is crazy for not seeing your point of view.

They’re not crazy, they’re just living in a different reality to you.

You’re both right in the sense that, in your respective realities, your opinion is the correct one.

However you’re both wrong because you’re both biased.

There is no universal “right answer”.

Therefore, it doesn’t matter what you think. (sorry)

Here’s the thing…

Your paradigm has been carefully designed to justify itself.

Your paradigm controls your actions and therefore opposes any action that is not in line with your beliefs.

Think of your paradigm as a living being, it has a natural instinct to survive. If you come across information that is contradictory to your beliefs, your paradigm’s natural survival instinct will be to disregard that information and label it negatively.

Your paradigm will do anything to strengthen itself.

It will lead you to only consume information that is in line with your beliefs. This is dangerous.

If you change your beliefs, your current paradigm dies and a new one takes its place.

Your current paradigm doesn’t want this to happen.

If you believe that all masculinity is toxic, you will be very opposed to consuming information that is contradictory to your belief.

Your paradigm leads you to seek more information that will confirm your belief that all men are terrible, in order to reinforce itself.

Social media algorithms amplify this, you only watch content that is in line with your beliefs and therefore you will only be shown more content that reinforces these beliefs, creating an endless cycle of polarity towards one side of the coin.

It becomes impossible for you to be on both sides of any debate because all of the information you consume only supports one side of it.

The reality is, neither side can be “right”.

Both sides of any debate are “wrong” because as soon as someone is fixated on one belief, they close themselves off to the potential positives of the opposing beliefs.

The only “right” is somewhere in the middle, where both sides of the coin are truly taken into account.

Unfortunately, us humans are terrible at seeing things this way.

Go read a book that opposes what you believe to be true about the world, see how difficult it is for you to accept this as fact.

Go read this

(I don’t believe the earth is flat, this is just a thought experiment)

Watch your brain disregard this information and come up with any reason to believe that it’s all bullshit.

Some of you reading this essay may even be disregarding the information I’m presenting to you.

If this is something you haven’t considered before, or if what I’m saying is not in line with your beliefs about yourself, you might think that I’m full of shit.

If part of your paradigm is that paradigms don’t exist, your brain will do anything to hold you back from accepting the fact that they do.

This is the power of our paradigm.

I want to bring your attention to your paradigm

It is the most important thing that you have.

I want you to have a perception, of your perception…

Your paradigm is what controls your life.

Unless you are in control of your paradigm, you have no control over your life.

Let me explain:

Where you are now in life, is the direct result of every action you’ve ever taken.

Which is the result of all the (subconscious) decisions you’ve ever made.

Which is the result of all the options you’ve ever perceived to have

Which is the result of all the thoughts you’ve ever had.

Which is the result of how you perceive everything.

Which is the result of your paradigm.

Therefore,

Your life is the result of your paradigm.

Yet, most people don’t even know it exists.

They live their entire lives assuming that their view on reality is the only correct one.

This leads to a lot of unhappy people, people who never truly question the cause of their misery.

Some truly believe that the world is exactly how they see it and instead of questioning their view on reality, questioning why they’re unhappy, they wallow in self pity and blame their surroundings.

What the fuck.

Let’s take a person who dislikes school, for example.

“I hate school” they think.

These thoughts lead to actions that are in line with that belief.

Every day when they go to school, they’ll think and talk about how much they hate it. They’ll do anything to get out of school, they’ll skip out on homework and refuse to have a good time with their classmates.

They take the action of being miserable in school.

Because they skip school and homework, this leads to them getting in trouble. Obviously, they don’t like that, so every time they get given out to by their parents or teachers, their negative beliefs about school become reinforced and they become even less inclined to go to school.

This leads to more trouble, which leads to more hatred of school, which leads to more trouble etc…

The stronger a belief is, the more actions will be taken in line with that belief and therefore the more the belief will be reinforced over time.

In this case, It’s a never-ending, self-fulfilling cycle of imminent destruction.

Why would they like a place that causes them misery every day?

To this school-hater, the idea that someone enjoys school is completely alien to them.

They can’t understand how someone could possibly enjoy school because to them, in their reality, school is the worst thing humanity has ever created.

Yet, there are people in the same school who enjoy going in every day. They don’t mind doing the homework and they get on really well with their teachers and classmates.

They do their work, they get praise from their parents and teachers, leading them to do better work and get better grades, leading to more praise, better grades, more praise, better grades etc…

In this case, it’s a never-ending, self-fulfilling cycle of imminent improvement.

Hmm…

By now, I hope you understand what I’m getting at. The school itself cannot be objectively “good” or “bad”. It is the perception that the student has of the school that makes it that way.

Your beliefs control your reality.

If you believe that talking to girls is the scariest thing in the world, when you do, you’ll be stressed, reinforcing the belief that girls are scary. This leads to more stress, less female interaction, more stress, etc…

If you believe that earning a lot of money is is an impossible task, you’ll never become rich.

If you believe that exercise is not something you want to do, you’ll become unfit.

If you believe that your life is shit and you can’t improve it, you won’t change.

Your paradigm controls your thoughts,

Your thoughts control your words,

Your words control your actions,

Your actions control your life,

Your life controls your reality,

Your reality controls your beliefs.

Your beliefs control your paradigm.

If you want to change your life, you need to change your paradigm, your beliefs.

If part of your paradigm that girls are easy to talk to, that will be your reality.

That will lead to you taking actions in line with that belief, talking to more girls and reinforcing the idea that you can talk to girls.

If you believe that starting a business is completely achievable, you’ll be able to do it.

If you believe that exercise is the most rewarding thing you can do, you’ll get fit.

If you believe that you can do whatever you want in life, you fucking will.

Here’s a hard pill to swallow:

Your paradigm is the only cause of your suffering.

It’s not your school, your job, your spouse, your friend group, your broken leg, your lack of clients, your landlord or your sex life that makes you unhappy.

None of these things can cause suffering because they are not objectively good or bad, it is the label that your paradigm puts on these things that makes them good or bad.

This is a quote from Viktor E. Frankl.

He’s a holocaust survivor.

Notice how I said survivor, not victim.

He controlled his paradigm and transcended the “victim mindset”.

I visited Auschwitz in person.

It’s the place where Viktor spent three years and the place where he lost his mother and wife.

(If you want to learn about his story, I highly recommend his book “Mans Search for Meaning”. He has a deep understanding of paradigms)

I can confirm that if somebody can find meaning and happiness in a living hell like Auschwitz, there is hope for us all to live a life that we enjoy.

If you can get a good understanding of your paradigm, you can learn to control it.

If you can control your paradigm, you can control your reality.

If you can control your reality, you can control your life.

This is the most valuable lesson anyone can learn in life.

In the coming essays I’m going to share how one can get a good understanding of their paradigm, mould it and therefore create a reality that is better suited to living a live well-lived.

Whatever they believe that to be.

- Louis

PS If you want to book a free call and have a chat with me about whatever, you can do that here