Have you ever watched Star Wars?

What about Rocky? How about any movie at all?

Okay, forget about movies. Have you ever read, heard, or watched any story about anything? This is a silly question. We all have watched movies and TV shows, and we’ve all read books. We love storytelling. We love entertainment.

All stories use the three-act structure: set-up, confrontation, and resolution. Many of these stories revolve around two characters: protagonist (good) vs. antagonist (bad.) Luke Skywalker pitted against Darth Vader. Rocky squares off against Apollo. Stories need conflict, otherwise they wouldn’t be very entertaining. The ones I’m referring to do that by creating good-vs-bad. Luke vs Darth is just a glaring example.

On the surface, this seems like a good thing. Not only do stories entertain us, but they also help us develop our moral compass…

We all have bad habits.

It’s kind of confusing because in the moment, these habits always seem to mask themselves as great ideas. I certainly have a few.

Let’s take alcohol. I’ve always enjoyed drinking with friends. I try to be responsible. I don’t drink during the week. I don’t drink and drive. I even track how much I drink. I’ve talked about my tracking sheets in the past, so this might not surprise you.

I’d be the first to admit that alcohol has screwed up some moments in my life. It’s also been an aid to some amazing ones. The latter is typically the rationalization I use every time I go out for “drinks” with friends. It could be said that drinking alcohol, at all, is a bad habit. The research is pretty clear that it’s not healthy for you. But it’s fun, that’s why I do it.

The problem is, I get lost in the moment. One leads to two, and all of sudden I’m dancing in the moonlight…

I love dining out. I do it pretty often.

All cuisines, too. I give every restaurant a shot. Thai, Indian, French, Spanish, Mexican, Chinese, Greek, Japanese, the list goes on and on. Italian, certainly.

I go to fine dining, cafes, bistros, takeouts, delis, pizzerias, pubs, food trucks. I don’t discriminate. I enjoy trying new restaurants. I’m all about equal opportunity.

Warren Buffett once said, “Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.” A lesson that’s apparently rooted in one of the many lessons Benjamin Graham taught him at a young age.  Obviously, this quote is about buying and selling stocks. It’s about investing. For the most part, it’s pretty good life advice, too. I rely on it all the time…

Let me first start by saying I experience this urge almost every day. And I’m willing to bet that you do, too. This is how I knew I needed to share it with you.

It’s an urge that’s so prevalent, pertinent, and unmistakable that, when you read it, you’ll have no choice but to accept its realness. It’s an urge that carves out what you know to be true, reconfigures it, and gives it back to you. Just for you to see it an ideal state, every time. It’s intimidating and desirable all at once. And it’s an urge that will shape your life.

Maybe you’re wondering what that urge is. That would be a good question. I’ll answer momentarily, but first, let me share something with you…

Have you ever heard of a lemming?

I hadn’t either until I played the video game GoldenEye for Nintendo 64 in 1997. They’re small rodents that typically live in very cold habitats. It’s said that every few years, enraged herds of lemmings band together, run off a cliff, and commit mass suicide. In the game, if you happened to kill yourself more times than anyone else, you received none other than the “lemming award.” For the next twenty years, I went on believing this story about lemmings.

Quite literally, it wasn’t until I went to research more about lemmings for this very article that I learned this whole story was nonsense…

It was summer 2015 when I first started to realize I could swim in the sea of debt I’d been piling up. It really didn’t matter how much I earned, I spent more. It was a pretty crappy feeling.

There’s was a world of pressure to ensure I’d keep spending too. Just tap the Instagram or Facebook icon on your cell phone. This pressure of leading a life focused on outcomes was really starting to weigh on me. I started wondering, What if something unpredictable happens? What if I don’t have a six-figure income anymore? Am I really that stable right now? What if I can’t keep this rollercoaster moving along? I saw myself as someone who was secure, strong, and stable. But, was I really? Honestly, at the time, hoping I’d land on my feet was my only hope…

I’m not perfect. I’m far from it.

I cry. I kick and scream. I stutter and slur. I think every idea I have is an amazing one. I get stressed out. I’m stubborn. I procrastinate. I’m overly concerned about my appearance. Of course, I don’t always like to admit any of this. Then again who does. These are all considered points of imperfection.

For 30 plus years I went on and on chasing perfection. Perfect job. Perfect relationship. Perfect life. Perfect body. Perfect, perfect, perfect. Have you ever felt similarly? We’re conditioned to believe in perfection from an early age. Nobody really wants to talk about it, though. It’s considered a point of imperfection.

Recently I was one of 10,000 attendees at…

Sometimes I think to myself, Finally I’ve got it all figured out.

I might be talking about a musician, a pair of shoes, or a TV show. Time and time again, I’ve caught myself saying, Absolute best, hands down.

Have you ever said that?

I remember convincing myself I could eat chicken and brown rice every day for the rest of my life. I realized it was nuts (although I still try). I also thought I could write a blog post (like this) daily. It took only a month to realize I couldn’t realistically fit that into my schedule. So I modified to once a month.

After 11 years in sales, I figured I knew everything I needed to about “selling”, so I started groundupSALES—only to realize about three months in I was just scratching the surface. Oops. I was a little off with that one. Every time I read a new book, my life seems to shift. I learn something I didn’t know before, and that experience adds to all the others. It proceeds to affect everything else I was thinking about. Slightly changing whatever I’m absolutely sure about at that moment. So, what gives?

What’s really going on here?