There he goes again, weaving through the crowd with a mix of physical haste but emotional calm in his steps. He can effortlessly stick out of a crowd and yet your memories remind you that he hasn’t been on your social radar since forever. So you whip out your social feeds to try and gather an impression of him, less than a hundred followers, and six photos later, you are still left clueless.
Who is this person…?
Both of you take opposing seats in the boardroom and you decide to watch him closely. As usual, the room erupts into a flurry of intense discussions, and amongst the chaos and buried behind his laptop, he fades fast into the background. Taking a pause here, it’s really easy to assume that this person is just a recluse or an uncommunicative co-worker because it has been months since the project’s inception that he has spoken up.
Wait, what?
A fresh assertive voice cuts through the vocal mayhem, it’s him. He requests for projection control and the following hour becomes a masterclass of pure insight, wisdom, and sheer brilliance. A detailed business strategy that redefines our entire organization’s workflow but yet so realistic and achievable! The entire audience, gobsmacked. Weeks of madness resolved in a single hour. What in the world just happened?
A Phoenix’s Birth
60 years ago, an average day consisted of a pot of brewed coffee, a white-collared job, and the threat of global nuclear annihilation. The United States and the Soviet Union were holding the fate of the world on a knife’s edge and knowledge of your enemies’ capabilities became the pillar in this new arms race.
For a period of 4 years, the United States flew a constant stream of reconnaissance flights into the heart of the USSR until the first U-2 spy plane was downed in May of 1960. This entire time, the US falsely believed that their plane flew high enough to be invulnerable from Soviet radar and missile systems when in actuality the enemy was just waiting for the right moment to strike.
Complacency kills, when we stop short of challenging our upper limits, growing our capabilities, and improving our character, we allow our guard to be lowered that we fly so low to the ground and allow circumstances in life to easily target us like heat-seeking missiles.
Mach Power
Years before the crash, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) fully understood the slow speed of their U-2s made the plane vulnerable. Hence concluding to replace a two-year-old plane with a whole new craft that would out-run and out-climb any intercepting aircraft and their weapons.
Space is your edge over adversities
The enemy our society faces today is both quantitative and qualitative; the sheer amount of distractions, all ingrained with the grasp of addictive design to strike the parts of our brain that manages our addictions. As a result, entertainment like Facebook or Netflix is now easier to pick up over a storybook.
This social circumstance stems from a longing for temporal comfort from a hierarchy of KPIs and ladders. Although rest is essential to maintain a healthy psychological state of mind, this rest turns destructive when our Netflix binge session goes from being a nice reward for weeks of hard work to an entire lifestyle.
Similar to money, wealthy people aren’t defined just by their raw earning power but more importantly, it’s how they spend or sow it. Since time is an irreplaceable commodity, we’ll have to stop and ask ourselves, how have we been spending ours?
Perhaps we had always wanted to pick up the guitar or an online course to design illustrations. Just by spending a couple of hours a day, these “side-projects” can add up to a week’s worth of working days, a week’s of improvement that you wouldn’t have had if you hadn’t started, gaining a new talent and building power.
Already have a lead above the peers around you? Expand it, because it is very straightforward to glide through a day job, but when the storms of life hit, it is only with velocity and agility that we retain the ability to outrun and steer past the clouds of an uncontrollable outcome.
Lone Wolf
Being unconventional is the Blackbird’s nature, flying at 80,000 ft (24,000m) and at more than three times the speed of sound, the plane’s surface temperature would rise beyond 500°F (260 °C). To top it all off, the pilots had specialized pressurized protective suits for any emergency ejections at this unsurvivable altitude.
It feels lonely up here
Are we being bound by social pressures? How long have we been enduring an unspoken pain in an endless shallow race to one-up the Joneses? When in reality, we have been settling by splurging beyond our means to feel a moment of empowerment from wealth or living with toxicity that everyone looks up to but will always pull us down for a sense of belonging.
We do not need to be industry disruptors like; Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, and Jeff Bezos to challenge the status quo of our reality. A snowball rolling down a mountain can become an avalanche and it begins from a simple “No”; no more gossiping, no more partying, or no more accumulation of debt. Yes, we may risk losing our short-term coping mechanisms and gain judgment from failing the established community around us.
But it takes a life-changing understanding of sacrifice and an expansion of bravery that we are able to blast past our fear of failure. A glimpse of success is the ability to survive independently against the grain and what society views as mere loneliness, it’s our fort of solitude, a shelter of strength.
Manufactured by Opposition
Titanium was the material of choice for 92% of the Blackbird’s body. With a network of Third-World countries and bogus operations, the United States was able to attain the ore needed to build the Blackbird, ironically from the major supplier, the Soviet Union.
Your steel will be forged by enemies
Society constantly plays a cruel irony by neglecting the process associated with the successful end-result. Hence, there will be pivotal moments of our climb that we risk; discouragement, condemnation, and rejection when we try to externally source crucial empowerment and affirmation.
A tree is most vulnerable as a sapling, a storm could uproot it, a passing animal can crush it and a surrounding forest would leave it eternally in darkness. Have we aligned more towards the unbelief of others instead of our own goals and dreams?
If you currently feel like a sapling trying to grow in a hostile environment, have hope! The forest floor will eventually be moist with life-giving rain, your ground will be nutritious from animal droppings and the moving sun will always find a way to shine for you.
Be proud shining amongst your opponents! Like the survival of the fittest, this ongoing fight will test our perseverance against conforming to a standard mould. The beauty in the struggle will be rediscovering that your north star, the reasons for getting up in the morning has always been inside you all along.
Know your Battles
When SR-71 Blackbird took flight, it did at more than three times the speed of sound for more than an hour while its closest threat, the Soviet Mig-25 risked destroying its engines to match the Blackbird’s speed. Due to this, the SR-71 went on to be virtually unchallenged in the skies capturing valuable intelligence of Soviet territory, at the great ire of the Soviet Union.
Stay in your lane
With a barrage of voices constantly racing through our minds, ears, and social feeds, this convenient access to the global human consciousness has ironically built up barricades of self-doubt, worry, and condemnation.
The killing blow comes when we feel the need to tear down those mental barricades, defending our point of view through all the shouting and getting ourselves stuck in endless waves of screaming hordes, that dries up our bones.
We have limited time on this planet and every decision has a cost. Immaturity impulsively acts on every immediate situation but it takes maturity to access a need to act and if so, prioritize according to the bigger picture.
The ability to measure and deal with external challenges only comes from someone who is already internally established. Perhaps some questions to stop and ask ourselves; Who am I as a person? What is my schedule like? How often do I challenge myself to improve, from craft to my character? Am I just settling to reach perfection in another video game over refining my hobbies with regular practice?
When we reach a level of high self-worth, the importance of regularly measuring it fades away. What we will feel is our focus would just be solely on our list of goals and priorities. Any future situations and circumstances that do not align with the list would be thrown away.
Calmness in the middle of a storm takes maturity, maturity is only established with a list of priorities and this list originates from a single focal point. Be encouraged if you currently feel that there a sense of nothingness in your life! You aren’t bound by a multitude of options and choosing to go up will be the only decision that you will have to make!
Now Boarding
This article can only present us with a perspective of the final impact of our lives from a single decision. We may be residents of this world but we are not of it, a job can replace our position, friends can move on and opinions will fade over time but you are created uniquely, so its time to live life like it.
Change our reality but not our dreams
This flight comes with a fight, choose wisely, your choice to sacrifice the next year to buckle down may just set you on the path towards greatness for the following decade. It’s alright to start from small improvements but its more important to maintain that focus. With time, when we get to the edges of our dreams, remember to stay high above and leave the unbelievers in the dust.
Ultimately, you are beyond priceless to just be a mere stunt plane.
—
Previously published on medium
***
If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project and want a deeper connection with our community, please join us as a Premium Member today.
Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS. Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
—
Photo credit: by Chintan Jani on Unsplash
The post Why You Should Live Life Like a $1.2 Billion Spy Plane appeared first on The Good Men Project.
There he goes again, weaving through the crowd with a mix of physical haste but emotional calm in his steps. He can effortlessly stick out of a crowd and yet your memories remind you that he hasn’t been on your social radar since forever. So you whip out your social feeds to try and gather an impression of him, less than a hundred followers, and six photos later, you are still left clueless.
Who is this person…?
Both of you take opposing seats in the boardroom and you decide to watch him closely. As usual, the room erupts into a flurry of intense discussions, and amongst the chaos and buried behind his laptop, he fades fast into the background. Taking a pause here, it’s really easy to assume that this person is just a recluse or an uncommunicative co-worker because it has been months since the project’s inception that he has spoken up.
Wait, what?
A fresh assertive voice cuts through the vocal mayhem, it’s him. He requests for projection control and the following hour becomes a masterclass of pure insight, wisdom, and sheer brilliance. A detailed business strategy that redefines our entire organization’s workflow but yet so realistic and achievable! The entire audience, gobsmacked. Weeks of madness resolved in a single hour. What in the world just happened?
A Phoenix’s Birth
60 years ago, an average day consisted of a pot of brewed coffee, a white-collared job, and the threat of global nuclear annihilation. The United States and the Soviet Union were holding the fate of the world on a knife’s edge and knowledge of your enemies’ capabilities became the pillar in this new arms race.
For a period of 4 years, the United States flew a constant stream of reconnaissance flights into the heart of the USSR until the first U-2 spy plane was downed in May of 1960. This entire time, the US falsely believed that their plane flew high enough to be invulnerable from Soviet radar and missile systems when in actuality the enemy was just waiting for the right moment to strike.
Complacency kills, when we stop short of challenging our upper limits, growing our capabilities, and improving our character, we allow our guard to be lowered that we fly so low to the ground and allow circumstances in life to easily target us like heat-seeking missiles.
Mach Power
Years before the crash, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) fully understood the slow speed of their U-2s made the plane vulnerable. Hence concluding to replace a two-year-old plane with a whole new craft that would out-run and out-climb any intercepting aircraft and their weapons.
Space is your edge over adversities
The enemy our society faces today is both quantitative and qualitative; the sheer amount of distractions, all ingrained with the grasp of addictive design to strike the parts of our brain that manages our addictions. As a result, entertainment like Facebook or Netflix is now easier to pick up over a storybook.
This social circumstance stems from a longing for temporal comfort from a hierarchy of KPIs and ladders. Although rest is essential to maintain a healthy psychological state of mind, this rest turns destructive when our Netflix binge session goes from being a nice reward for weeks of hard work to an entire lifestyle.
Similar to money, wealthy people aren’t defined just by their raw earning power but more importantly, it’s how they spend or sow it. Since time is an irreplaceable commodity, we’ll have to stop and ask ourselves, how have we been spending ours?
Perhaps we had always wanted to pick up the guitar or an online course to design illustrations. Just by spending a couple of hours a day, these “side-projects” can add up to a week’s worth of working days, a week’s of improvement that you wouldn’t have had if you hadn’t started, gaining a new talent and building power.
Already have a lead above the peers around you? Expand it, because it is very straightforward to glide through a day job, but when the storms of life hit, it is only with velocity and agility that we retain the ability to outrun and steer past the clouds of an uncontrollable outcome.
Lone Wolf
Being unconventional is the Blackbird’s nature, flying at 80,000 ft (24,000m) and at more than three times the speed of sound, the plane’s surface temperature would rise beyond 500°F (260 °C). To top it all off, the pilots had specialized pressurized protective suits for any emergency ejections at this unsurvivable altitude.
It feels lonely up here
Are we being bound by social pressures? How long have we been enduring an unspoken pain in an endless shallow race to one-up the Joneses? When in reality, we have been settling by splurging beyond our means to feel a moment of empowerment from wealth or living with toxicity that everyone looks up to but will always pull us down for a sense of belonging.
We do not need to be industry disruptors like; Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, and Jeff Bezos to challenge the status quo of our reality. A snowball rolling down a mountain can become an avalanche and it begins from a simple “No”; no more gossiping, no more partying, or no more accumulation of debt. Yes, we may risk losing our short-term coping mechanisms and gain judgment from failing the established community around us.
But it takes a life-changing understanding of sacrifice and an expansion of bravery that we are able to blast past our fear of failure. A glimpse of success is the ability to survive independently against the grain and what society views as mere loneliness, it’s our fort of solitude, a shelter of strength.
Manufactured by Opposition
Titanium was the material of choice for 92% of the Blackbird’s body. With a network of Third-World countries and bogus operations, the United States was able to attain the ore needed to build the Blackbird, ironically from the major supplier, the Soviet Union.
Your steel will be forged by enemies
Society constantly plays a cruel irony by neglecting the process associated with the successful end-result. Hence, there will be pivotal moments of our climb that we risk; discouragement, condemnation, and rejection when we try to externally source crucial empowerment and affirmation.
A tree is most vulnerable as a sapling, a storm could uproot it, a passing animal can crush it and a surrounding forest would leave it eternally in darkness. Have we aligned more towards the unbelief of others instead of our own goals and dreams?
If you currently feel like a sapling trying to grow in a hostile environment, have hope! The forest floor will eventually be moist with life-giving rain, your ground will be nutritious from animal droppings and the moving sun will always find a way to shine for you.
Be proud shining amongst your opponents! Like the survival of the fittest, this ongoing fight will test our perseverance against conforming to a standard mould. The beauty in the struggle will be rediscovering that your north star, the reasons for getting up in the morning has always been inside you all along.
Know your Battles
When SR-71 Blackbird took flight, it did at more than three times the speed of sound for more than an hour while its closest threat, the Soviet Mig-25 risked destroying its engines to match the Blackbird’s speed. Due to this, the SR-71 went on to be virtually unchallenged in the skies capturing valuable intelligence of Soviet territory, at the great ire of the Soviet Union.
Stay in your lane
With a barrage of voices constantly racing through our minds, ears, and social feeds, this convenient access to the global human consciousness has ironically built up barricades of self-doubt, worry, and condemnation.
The killing blow comes when we feel the need to tear down those mental barricades, defending our point of view through all the shouting and getting ourselves stuck in endless waves of screaming hordes, that dries up our bones.
We have limited time on this planet and every decision has a cost. Immaturity impulsively acts on every immediate situation but it takes maturity to access a need to act and if so, prioritize according to the bigger picture.
The ability to measure and deal with external challenges only comes from someone who is already internally established. Perhaps some questions to stop and ask ourselves; Who am I as a person? What is my schedule like? How often do I challenge myself to improve, from craft to my character? Am I just settling to reach perfection in another video game over refining my hobbies with regular practice?
When we reach a level of high self-worth, the importance of regularly measuring it fades away. What we will feel is our focus would just be solely on our list of goals and priorities. Any future situations and circumstances that do not align with the list would be thrown away.
Calmness in the middle of a storm takes maturity, maturity is only established with a list of priorities and this list originates from a single focal point. Be encouraged if you currently feel that there a sense of nothingness in your life! You aren’t bound by a multitude of options and choosing to go up will be the only decision that you will have to make!
Now Boarding
This article can only present us with a perspective of the final impact of our lives from a single decision. We may be residents of this world but we are not of it, a job can replace our position, friends can move on and opinions will fade over time but you are created uniquely, so its time to live life like it.
Change our reality but not our dreams
This flight comes with a fight, choose wisely, your choice to sacrifice the next year to buckle down may just set you on the path towards greatness for the following decade. It’s alright to start from small improvements but its more important to maintain that focus. With time, when we get to the edges of our dreams, remember to stay high above and leave the unbelievers in the dust.
Ultimately, you are beyond priceless to just be a mere stunt plane.
—
Previously published on medium
***
If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project and want a deeper connection with our community, please join us as a Premium Member today.
Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS. Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
—
Photo credit: by Chintan Jani on Unsplash
The post Why You Should Live Life Like a $1.2 Billion Spy Plane appeared first on The Good Men Project.
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