Hopefully you love surprises as well, because here is the first one:

I decided not to reach my goal of posting at least 50 times. The goal just doesn’t matter to me anymore. It did fulfill its purpose (my English really improved) but I’ll probably reduce my internet activities anyway.

Oh yeah, and that comes hand in hand with the second surprise:

I might stop posting on MuscularBrain.com. I might even sell it, depending on the offers I’ll get. So, if you’re interested in buying this website, you may contact me by writing a comment or by using the contact form.

Feels like some new kind of freedom cowboy! Anything’s possible now! Self development did a good job in creating a basis. Now I’m ready to go. Wherever my feet may take me.

The world’s waiting. Hello world! Show me what you got!

Is it because people are different? Does self development only work for a special kind of people? I don’t think so. But there’s one essential part that is rarely mentioned:

Successful self development needs a solid basis. It has to come from within.

Sadly, a lot of people seem to ignore that fact completely. They try to rush into self development, using any promising sounding scheme that they found anywhere on the internet. But do they ever ask themselves whether they are ready to use the scheme? Probably not. Unfortunately, even the most sophisticated scheme only works if you comply with its requirements.

An Example of a Failed Attempt

Take the following common approach for example: Mr. X is completely dissatisfied with his own life. He’s one step away from depression and thinks of himself as crap. Not worthy to lead a happy life.

Now X decides to finally do something to improve these conditions, so he informs himself about self improvement. What he finds on one of the websites he browsed is the following method:

“Say out loud that you love yourself and your life. Do this every morning just after getting out of bed. This will result in higher self-esteem and a more positive attitude.”

Alright, X applies the method. He does exactly what was said on the website. But he gets strange results, because this is what happens: He slips right into depression. His self-esteem is as low as it can be. How could something like this happen to him?

It happened because he lied to himself. He might said that he loves his life but in reality he hated it. And that’s what he thought while he recited the words that should improve his life. So basically, he just increased the frequency of negative thoughts instead of creating a positive attitude.

The simple truth is: You can’t lie to yourself. That’s what X didn’t know. You can surely do better than him!

How I Created My Basis

Well, at first I should tell you that my starting point didn’t look all too bad. It all started about one year ago. I liked my life but I just wasn’t completely satisfied with all aspects.

That’s why I began to read a lot about self development and psychology. (Some of the books I found to be especially useful are listed on the page Resources.)

Some months ago I began to think a lot about my own life. About the goals I want to reach and about who I am. I’m not talking about this kind of daydreaming here. I sat down in front of my computer and concentrated on some basic questions while I wrote down every thought I considered to be important. This thinking process lead to some nice insights.

Now I’m still developing. Still thinking and gathering new information. The next step I need to take is going from theory to practice.

I can’t tell you how my life goes on but the quality of my life already improved and I feel that it’s still improving. So my approach worked for me. Still, I don’t want you to just copy what I did. Because my approach will not work for anyone.

Maybe you got a slight idea on how a successful self development attempt can look like. An attempt that came from within. Now it’s up to you whether you make use of this information or not. Just remember to go your own way.

He was handsome. No sports fanatic but sometimes he put his ass to the gym and worked out to stay in shape.

He was no stupid guy. No Einstein, but smarter than the average person.

And he was living with a lovely family. A little sister, a caring mother, an intelligent father and likeable grandparents. He loved them all.

But there were other persons he liked as well. He had about half a dozen close friends. He loved them all.

But he was not free. And he felt it. He hated it. His feelings limited him.

He felt that all those persons he loved seemed to need him. He felt that they would miss him if he went away. So he couldn’t go away. Imprisoned by his own emotions. He wanted to break out.

But he didn’t want to hurt the feelings of the persons he loved. So how could he ever get rid of his feelings? How can one get rid of limiting feelings towards relatives and friends? …

He shot his sister. She was dead in the blink of an eye. Headshot! Her brain blown out with the first shot.

His parents got killed by one of his two car bombs, his grandparents got killed by the other. They didn’t even notice the death bringing explosion. Like actors who don’t notice if you turn off your television. Making them disappear.

He poisoned all of his close friends. It was that strong kind of poison. They died fast. It happened as abruptly as a car crash. You’re sitting in your car, unhurriedly driving, and a split second later you see the face of death. Jumping right at you. Boom! Then silence.

Nobody suffered. They just died. Disappeared. Fast and certain. Their lifes did just end. And he stopped having limiting emotions.

Finally, he was free! So he went away, searching for a sense.

He visited all different countries, talked to all different kinds of people, observed animals and landscapes, buildings made by humans, bird’s nests, different shapes of clouds, sand and water.

He saw all the beauty of the world, but without love, there was no sense.

“Life without love is no life at all.” That’s what he mumbled with the cold barrel of his loaded gun pressing against the back of his throat, tears running down his cheeks.

Noone can die.

But people can still get hurt. And they never recover from some diseases. So they collect all possible diseases and injuries during their eternal lifes. Sooner or later they all loose their senses and just live because there’s no way to die. Totally malformed beings as the result of car crashes, brawls, bacteria etc. Unable to walk, speak or see. Human trash labeled as living.

Only young, careful or lucky people look like normal human beings. Sounds horrible, right?

Alright, let’s make some additional assumptions:

Noone can get hurt. And your body doesn’t get older. I mean, you grow until you are an adult but from that point on your body doesn’t change. So you can’t become sick and your senses remain intact forever. (We’ll ignore the fact that the body has to change to form memories and interact with the world…)

There are some funny results of those assumptions. People have no need to eat or drink. They don’t have to use stairs if they don’t mind the pain. There’s no need to breathe. You can finally get real drunk without having to fear the negative consequences alcohol usually has on your body. You can do pretty much anything without having to fear any negative consequences, right?

False. You can still get imprisoned, tortured or buried. You don’t die, but you know what pain is. If you don’t care for your future your life can be like hell. Eternal pain.

But maybe you’re lucky and don’t need to suffer a lot. There’s still one major problem:

Earth happens to be pretty crowded if noone wants to make room for future generations. People are not smart enough to reduce the birth rates to 0. So population is growing. And growing. And growing. You can shoot some people into space but there’s not enough fuel for it to be effective.

Sooner or later some people need to be placed on top of others because of the limited space. You can’t move no more. If you’re unlucky you’re not on top and have to carry other people 24/7.

If you’re not mad already, you’re probably sick of this eternal life. Maybe you even contemplate suicide. No, I was just kidding around, you don’t know what suicide is.

After a while, there are so many people that you could try to jump out of earth’s gravitation field from the top of them. But be careful not to land on a sun.

Somebody watched TV. That’s how he got to know the rich and beautiful, a perfect but unreal world. He didn’t really think about the things he watched so eventually he got the feeling that he was a part of that perfect world too, the feeling that he too had to be rich and beautiful.

Unfortunately, Somebody looked like an average person. A real average person, not average in terms of what you see on television. And he wasn’t rich. He just didn’t fit in this artificial world. And he didn’t like that. Actually, he didn’t like himself anymore. So he tried to adapt himself. At first, he tried to become rich.

Somebody loved money. He didn’t know how to become rich, so he just looked for any job. And he even landed a job. He had to do real stupid tasks but he was OK with it. The only thing that really mattered was the green matter. He wasn’t aware of it, but that’s how he lived.

Somebody had friends. But he didn’t really like them. They were just average persons he knew better than he knew other people. Nothing else. Nothing special. It was a dissatisfying relationship.

But that wasn’t the only thing that failed to satisfy Somebody. The little numbers on his paycheck also didn’t satisfy him. So he tried out other ways to get more money. But he was earning nothing but extra frustration. Spending more and more time just to earn few extra dollars. Spending so much time that there was no possibility to learn something new, to read a book, to think or to live.

Somebody noticed that something was wrong. He realized that he couldn’t reach his goal of being rich and beautiful. But he didn’t know why, so he guessed that he himself was a failure. From now on, he hated himself for being imperfect. He hated his own life. But he continued working. Without real purpose. Without hope. Without love. Without any emotions.

Somebody died.