I eat reality for breakfast

Look at where you are, compare it to where you want to go, and deal with what’s in front of you.

The first principle

Embracing reality, the first principle of Ray Dalio, is arguably the best and one of the only principles you need in your life.

It’s the sole principle that can drive you forward, and set you free from over-complication and the behavioural patterns that derail your progress so quickly. The simplicity of the principle is also its beauty.

Where you are, where you’re going

To embrace reality, or to deal with reality, simply means to look objectively at the situation you’re in and compare it to where you want to go.

Then you deal with the things in front of you, even if they’re annoying or hard.

Life is hard

To get where you’re going you’ll have to endure hardships, and do things you don’t like, for extended periods of time.

So stop being a little bitch and “just do it”. See it as a war, or a game, or enjoy it and flow through it like breathing. Whatever your mentality, just deal with REALITY as it presents itself.

Just deal with it

Don’t try to think yourself out of situations. Don’t blame your environment for your own shortcomings. JUST DEAL WITH REALITY.

It’s so simple. Don’t be emotional about it, don’t be happy about it, just deal with it.

Behind each one, a fear

Dealing with reality by embracing it, or as I like to say, “I eat reality for breakfast”, is the single most powerful notion in self-actualisation.

There are so many things I’d rather not deal with at all. Behind each one of them lies a fear, a deeper insight about myself that I either have to uncover and face slowly, or just eat right then and there.

The second is likely the more efficient, because you force your subconscious to un-fuck itself. The blocker evaporates, because you don’t allow it to be a blocker.

Jab, cross

It’s an instant move, like a jab-cross combination in boxing. Swift, flawless.

The cross is for the KO

The jab, realising the blocker, is not the knockout punch. The cross, moving past it by eating reality raw as it is, is for the KO.

Everything is a challenge. I challenge myself to reality. I eat reality for breakfast.

First written in December 2024.