Take Your Life Back. Or Don’t
Jul

Think
I want you to do something right now. I want you to look back at your life as it was 10 years ago.
Take a few moments to really think about who you were then, where you were in life, and what you had to look forward to.
There’s a good chance you were in a much different place. I won’t say a better place, but probably a simpler place.
Try to remember the feeling you had when you could do anything! You could stay out all night without any repercussions (aside from a killer hangover), you could spend your hard earned money however you chose, and you could sit in front of your tv playing XBOX for 14 hours straight if you wanted.
It’s not that you would do all these things, but rather that you could…
Your life wasn’t filled to the brim with errands, responsibilities, and never ending to-do lists. Looking back, life was a breeze. Is it coming back to you yet?
Think about your mindset. You knew what you wanted in life. You wanted to be fit, wealthy, and completely happy. That was going to be your life!
The world was truly your oyster.
Think about all the ambition, drive, and hope you had. Your future was limitless and there was nothing or nobody that could stand in the way of your dreams.
Life was going to be awesome, right?
FAIL!
Then one morning you wake up and realize 10 years have passed. You’ve become like Nicholas Cage in “The Family Man” and you realize that you’re living a life you never thought you would have.
The carefree existence you once had has been replaced with insanely high levels of stress and even higher levels of consumer debt.
Children are running around the house screaming, the lawn needs to be mowed, you need to pick up your pants at the dry cleaners, and you need to get to Safeway ASAP because you have a 50% off coupon for bologna that’s about to expire.
Instead of working hard and playing harder, you are working harder and not playing at all.
You have a vague recollection of the last 10 years, but aren’t quite sure how you went from being unstoppable to being a doormat.
You swore you would never be one of those people who you saw standing in massively long lines at Costco on a Saturday morning holding diapers in one hand and tampons in the other and looking like they want to keel over and die.
You were not going to become like everyone else and settle for a job you hated, live paycheck to paycheck, and eke out a tolerable but highly unfulfilling existence.
Your life has become a never ending grind of errand running, home improvements, and schedule following. Your life is no longer fun, it’s work!
The desire to work for Warren Buffett or Steve Jobs has been replaced by actually working for Bill Lumbergh.
Your dream of cruising up the Pacific Coast Highway in a brand new black BMW 325i has been replaced with driving a rusted out Chevy Astro minivan with 186,000 miles on it and no air conditioning.
The prestigious and important career you planned on having has turned into a meaningless job where you are told when you can take your 30 minute lunch break.
Your lifelong commitment to fitness and health has slowly faded into a lifelong commitment to just making it through the day without losing your shit and having a meltdown of epic proportions.
You look in the mirror each morning and see not George Clooney, but rather George Costanza.
Life.Is.Hard
What The Fuck Happened To My Life?
How many times have you been staring at your dull gray cubicle walls, thinking of being anywhere else, and wondering what went wrong? How did I end up here? What did I do or not do to be in this position? Why is life so fucking hard all the time?
How many times have you come oh so close to walking into your boss’s office and quitting right there and then? How many times have you talked yourself out of it because you were scared of losing that “security”?
How many times have you told yourself that you were going to find a new job? How many times have you actually seriously looked?
How many times have you come home and spread your anger and negativity all over your family? How many times have you regretted it?
How many times have you held your tongue because if you hadn’t, you would have told your boss what a worthless fucking piece shit they were? How many times have you been so pissed at yourself because you didn’t?
Yes, My Friend, You Are Trapped in Hell on Earth!
The bad news is that you are trapped in a world of shit. A life filled with stress, anger, and resentment with a huge side of keep-you-awake-at night responsibility. No, life is not good for you, my friend.
Life has taken a turn of events that has led you away from a life of lying on white sandy beaches sipping frozen strawberry margaritas and into a life of getting served mortgage default papers instead. Not exactly what you had in mind.
Instead of traveling the world racking up thousands of frequent flyer miles on your credit cards, you’re racking up thousands of dollars worth of 15% debt on those cards instead.
Instead of waking up with passion and meaning, you wake up to another day of building someone else’s dream, not yours.
Your idea of happiness is no longer backpacking through Yosemite National Park with your buddies but has instead become reading about someone else doing it.
Your biggest fear is no longer skydiving over the Great Barrier Reef or bungee jumping off the Space Needle. Your biggest fear is getting fired from the “secure” job you hate more than anything else in this world.
Your reality is no longer heading to Vegas for the weekend for a little gambling and hanging out. Your reality now is just trying to get the fuck out of your office before your boss sees you leaving.
Your thoughts are no longer of bringing the world to it’s knees. It’s you who is on their knees begging for a sign of hope, a sign that things will get better, a sign that this is not all there is to life….
You Have 2 Choices: Give Up or Step Up
You are like 95% of people who will accept your fate as is. You will not venture forth the effort needed to make a dramatic change. You will life a life of mediocrity.
This sucks more than anything else you will ever do
This isn’t entirely your fault…
You have been beaten down, worn out, emotionally drained, and had your confidence stripped away from you.
You have been taught since birth that you needed to follow a system that does not bring happiness or wealth. You have been told to do what everyone else is doing.
You have been told that failure is bad and that happiness comes from within. You have been given a false sense of hope that corporate America will provide you with security.
You have been told that it’s OK to be mediocre. You have been to not rock the boat.
A Lifetime of Average
You are living a life of complete averageness and will spend the rest of your days wishing for something, anything, to change.
Well, guess what? It won’t. Why? Because you are scared shitless that you will have less than you have now if you fail. Because you have already subscribed to the belief that you can’t. When we think we can’t do something, guess what, we can’t!
The problem is that you have already failed and don’t know it yet. Am I calling you a failure? No. I’m telling you that you have failed yourself up to this point because you have given up on living an incredible life.
Well, let me tell you something about failure:
- Spending 40-50 years working a shit job just for a paycheck is failure.
- Living in fear of losing a job you hate is failure.
- Allowing your dreams to be taken from you by people who don’t matter is failure.
- Spending the best years of your life building something for someone else and nothing for yourself is failure.
- Playing life not to lose instead of playing to win is failure
- Choosing unmeaningful and unimportant work because it’s easier is failure
- Living paycheck to paycheck your whole life is failure
- Allowing hope and luck to control your future is failure
- Adhering to the status quo because that’s what you’re supposed to do is failure
- Dying without having impacted this world in a remarkable way is failure
You know what I say? Fuck failure. Failure is for the lazy and the weak. If you want to make shit happen in your life, you have to take life by the balls and run. That’s it.
Don’t wait until that next 4% cost of living raise. Don’t wait until your Acura is paid off. Don’t wait until your kids go off to college.
If you wait for those things, you will never do it. You will procrastinate yourself right into guaranteed life of mediocrity.
It’s All Bullshit
The good news is that your life can change. It can turn a complete 180 if you have the balls. Will you ever get to live the life you had 10 years ago? Probably not. But you know what? Your life can be ten times more fulfilling then it was back then.
What you need is balls.
You need balls to face and beat the fear that is controlling your decision to stay in your current life. That fear is incredibly powerful, which is why most of you will do nothing, and in turn, get nothing.
You need balls to reclaim your long forgotten dreams of doing and being something extraordinary. You need balls to take your life back.
You need balls to step up to the plate and take the biggest swing of your life. If you miss, so what. Swing again and again. The only way you will ever strike out is if you walk away from the plate. DON’T YOU DARE!
Your life CAN become great! Will it? Well, that’s completely up to you. If I could change it for you, believe me, I would. But I’m not here to tell you what to do.
I’m here to get you to wake the fuck up to the fact that what you are doing with your life right now IS NOT WORKING.
Every person has it within themselves to live the life they most want, whatever that may be.
- Do you want to wake up each morning with enthusiasm?
- Do you want to live with a sense of purpose?
- Do you want to live without the “mandatory” responsibilities that we are told we need to have?
- Do you want to be above average?
- Do you want to raise your children instead of paying someone to do it for you?
- Do you want to actually enjoy your life?
- Do you want to see the wonders of the world before you’re too old to do it?
If so then you need to find a way and make it happen. I know you’ve already come up with dozens of reasons why you can’t, like:
- I’m broke
- I’m too far in debt
- I’m dealing with personal issues
- I have too much going on right now
- I don’t have enough time
Me too. All of them. So what.
In truth, the only reason you aren’t doing the things you want most in life is that you’re scared. You know what? We all are.
Your time here is short. Incredibly short. You need to be asking yourself each and every day if you are living your life or just getting by. We both know the answer to this question.
It’s your job to find out what matters most to you in life and then do whatever it takes to make it your reality. That’s it. Let me repeat that-whatever it takes!
A quote from one of the best movies ever about freedom, The Shawshank Redemption, says it best, “get busy living or get busy dying“. Most of us are so busy dying that we never get to living.
What are YOU going to do?

Riley Harrison
Well Steve I hope you are getting out from under and making progress towards a better life. Hope you have a good 4th.
Riley
Steve
That I am Riley. Working as hard as I can to do just that! Enjoy your holiday..
Hector Avellaneda
Hi Steve, this is my first time here on EndTheGrind but I absolutely love the message behind your blog. (btw- have already subscribed to your rss 🙂 )
That was definitely a very interesting post (in a good way) and I can tell there was a lot of passion in you while you were writing it.
You know, most people complain about how hard life is and how stressed out they are about their jobs and their life (I used to be one of those people), but I realized that there was absolutely nothing that was going to change as long as a pouted and blamed the economy, my college or my lack of financial intelligence (at the time).
I decided to do become someone I had never been before so that I could one day live the live that I have never lived before.
I think most people have forgotten that to be able to have great things in life or to be able to live a life on your terms in your time frame – it takes a lot of hard work.
Today’s technologically advanced society is mainly to blame. We seem to think that we can do something today and achieve microwave results by tomorrow.
Most people have engrained this conditioning into their mindset for so long that they would not be able to stay inspired long enough to see their dreams come to existence, even if they wanted to.
Today, in the day we celebrate our Declaration of Independence, people should remember the sacrifice, hard work and shear American grit that went into freeing our nation from tyranny and building it into the most powerful nation in the world.
It certainly didn’t happen overnight and it the only reason why we have come be be known as the nation we are today is because the founding fathers had a VISION and throughout time we have not only continued building on that vision, we’ve upheld our VISION and defended our principles everywhere in the world.
That’s how people who are aspiring to live life on their terms should start out, with a vision. Motivation to do something only lasts for so long. Inspiration to do something on the other hand, brings dreams into fruition.
Steve
Hector,
Glad to see you found my blog!
To be honest, this post took me longer to write than any other. I’m just so fed up with the rat race, corporate bullshit, and idiot bosses. I can’t take it anymore.
Your right that our society is looking for overnight success and overnight happiness. Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. To dig ourselves out of our situation,whatever that may be, we have to bust our asses.
I love hearing about people like you who are taking committed action towards living the life they want. We need more of them. Lots more.
Hector Avellaneda
Hi Steve, actually I am glad success is not an overnight thing!
It separates those that are willing to do what it takes to succeed from those that don’t – the people like you and me 😉
The reality of is that nothing that is worth doing is usually an overnight thing.
Thanks for reading my story and thanks for the email with your feedback. I will definitely be taking some of your points into consideration.
Steve
Exactly right Hector. Those who are willing to put in the blood, sweat, and tears are the ones who may will reap the rewards of their efforts. The Internet makes becoming successful quickly seem easy. We both know that it is far from easy.
As long as we are in it for the long run and stay committed and passionate, I think we will get to where we want.
John
Hey Steve,
I just found your blog a few posts back and subscribed. Today’s post hit me right between the eyes. Very powerful. I’m not sure where you are at in your path to freedom, but with motivation like that it’s inevitable you’ll get there (as will I).
Looking forward to reading more of you stuff! I love your posts so far.
Steve
Thanks John, I appreciate that. My blog is about 8.5 months old and I’m working like crazy trying to get out of my job, but the truth is that I still have a number of significant hurdles to overcome before I’m where I want.
Good luck on your journey as well. Hopefully I will see you around…
BethanyBob (@bethanybob)
The nice thing about being young is that 10 years ago I was entering high school. I use this fact to make everyone else around me feel old.
😉
But I also feel like I have hope, limitless potential, and enough wisdom to escape the grind while I still can.
Happy Independence Day!
Steve
Bethany,
It worked! Not only am I feeling old, but I AM old. I’ll be 40 in a few weeks. Where did my life go? Good thing I have longevity in my family 🙂
With your attitude towards your future, there is NO reason you won’t succeed!
Keshav
sucks!
Steve
What Sucks??
Keshav
The fact that all of the above in your post is true and still I keep sitting on my ass!
Thanks Steve for the nudge
Steve
Well get on it already!!!! We still need to chat on Skype.
Meg
I am currently reading this in a cubicle. Shitty. BUT… I do have plans to travel the world. My last day at work is August 15th. We can all do it!
Steve
Meg,
Congrats on the big quit! That’s one less cubicle slave out there 🙂
Will you be supporting yourself through your blog?
Adrienne
The bad thing about being older is that looking back just 10 years ago, I had already been in the rat race for over 20 something years. I didn’t know any better. I had no dreams of a better life, I had no dreams of financial security, I had no dreams of vacationing anywhere I wanted anytime I wanted. I was stuck in a career I thought I would have the rest of my working life and there was nothing I could do about it. I didn’t know I could have more or even be more than what I have right now.
You are SO right Steve. There is a way out and it doesn’t have to take you another 10 years to get to that point. If people just open their minds to other possibilities, everything you ever wanted is very possible. I’m living proof that when you loose your job and open your mind to other possibilities, it can happen. I just hope that those who want more will do more.
I can’t wait to read your post when you’ve said goodbye to the rat race and hello world! That is going to be a huge celebration and I have no doubt that it will be sooner than later.
Rock on my friend!
Adrienne
Steve
Adrienne,
When I wrote this, I had someone like me in mind. An almost 40 years old loaded down with responsibilities, debt, and a unfulfilling job. Someone who maybe has been married within the last 10 years. Someone who had life by the balls a few short years ago and is now hanging by theirs.
I can’t wait until my “liberation’ post although it is some time off. I’ve got a plan and working as hard as I can to see it through.
Thanks for your support as always!
Torre
Life got awfully serious, didn’t it? It’s always a confronting experience to read your blog posts, not because I see myself in this situation, but because I know of so many others who are there (yourself included). It’s a very real and very miserable reality for so many and that’s quite heartbreaking, but I have no doubt that you’ll claw your way out because you have incredible drive and determination.
The only point I’d disagree with on your list is “Dying without having impacted this world in a remarkable way is failure” — I think this puts a lot of pressure on yourself to create this ‘remarkable’ thing. For me, life is like camping: you should go in, make your little home, toast some marshmallows, admire the view, and then depart without leaving a footprint. The need to create something ‘remarkable’ stems from the ego: from man’s desire to be immortal. I think happiness is found in letting go of the ego and accepting yourself as a part of nature. An outcome may be that you create something remarkable, but if you make that the goal, you’ll potentially be just as miserable in the chase for ‘remarkable’ as you are in the rat race. Just my thoughts.
Steve
Life IS serious. Well, mine is anyway. The problem is that it shouldn’t be. Life should be fun, exciting, challenging, and exceptionally interesting. Unfortunately, it isn’t for many of us. It sucks.
I see your point about not impacting the world being a failure. What I am talking about is not necessarily changing the course of history with your actions, but rather leaving an indelible mark on one or many.
I don’t think anyone should be chasing ‘remarkable’ but rather should live life the way it will make them happiest. I know that being in the service of others is one of the most powerful things we can do. It will change your life and theirs.
Eugene
Steve, I don’t know what else to say except “holy shit!”
That post was epic! I’m seriously considering printing this out and posting it on my wall for inspiration.
I can tell that was pure passion/anger pouring out of you. That was one of the most exhilarating things I’ve ever read.
I’m pumped.
Steve
Finally!!!!!
I wrote this post with this exact response in mind. I’m so glad to got it. It took my well over a week to finish this post and I went through a whole range of emotions during it.
I’m so fucking sick of reading (and writing) average, bland posts. Shit is never going to change unless we get fired up!
I did an interview with Ashley Ambirge a few weeks ago and it got me really thinking about how I am coming across in my writing.
I plan to start writing more and letting it all hang out. I’m sure I will piss off some people but I’m tired of not writing out my emotions…
Thanks again for the comment, it means a lot.
Eugene
My pleasure! This was seriously inspirational. If you’re going to be doing more posts like this I think you might be quitting sooner than you planned!
Cordelia
Holy F’in Awesomeness.
If you’ve ever seen the movie Pump Up the Volume, this post made me want to “rise up in the cafeteria and stab them with my plastic fork!!”
It then gave me an uncontrollable urge to march directly into my boss’s office and say, “My life means more to me than this,” and quit on the spot. I am fighting that urge with every fiber of my being right now because I’ve got my 3-year plan and a husband to consider, and I’m already almost halfway there.
But really, when it comes straight down to it, if it weren’t for the fact that I have that husband to think of, I’d do it, right now, fist pumping the air. I’m to the point where it just hurts too much to slog through a mediocre life day after day, and I’d rather take my chances with fate and personal moxy than now I’m wasting precious years of my life. It’s hard when you’ve got a family to consider–my 3 year plan really isn’t all that far away, but every day I lose to me right now feels like a little death.
Steve, this post is epic. Like benchmark, gut-punching, best thing I’ve ever read from you or from anyone else quite possibly in months. If you keep it up on this level, I may be writing a post of my own soon titled “Dear God, I just quit my job, what do I do now?”
Loving it, in other words. Absolutely loving it.
Steve
Love that this post hit you so hard. That was my intention all the way. I’m actually glad that you didn’t forego your plan and quit on the spur of the moment. There is a lot to be said for having a plan of action and seeing it though.
I feel like this was definitely my best post and thanks to some great words of inspiration from Ash Ambirge and Catherine Caine, I plan to continue writing from deep within my heart. Thanks so much for the support. Your comment has made my day!
Adam W. Warner
Hey Steve,
Timely post, and a great one. I just got back from an extended holiday with a group of friends and as always, we seem to end up brainstorming about business ideas after a few drinks;)
I’m a serial entrepreneur (I know, an over-used phrase), but I have passion and am always trying something new. If you’re not moving forward, you’re moving backward…anyway…
As we were talking one of my friends asked how I make a living online. Loaded question with a LONG answer, but the most important starting point is changing your outlook, your attitude, breaking the chains of all of the so-called rules of society in order to change your mindset and set yourself up for success.
So that was my advice…start with yourself, start with changing what you BELIEVE to be possible, then work hard…for yourself…and it WILL happen. I’m living proof.
I’ve linked to an article on my site in my signature above that discusses this, but you and your readers may also be interested in learning where I was and how my MINDSET change came about in an article I wrote here: http://rinf.com/alt-news/mind-self-improvement/believing-in-success-is-the-secret/11953/
Steve, here’s to your success and everyone else reading your site! YOU CAN DO IT!!!
Benny
Wow Steve I could feel you not holding back at all in that post. I enjoy it when you write here but I know your schedule doesn’t allow you to post as much as you’d like.
It’s really about make a change or quit complaining. People complain when they know there is something better for them but they don’t do anything about it.
That used to be me because I didn’t do anything but complain. I took no action.
Now it’s different and though it’s scary because building a business online is all I can think of now, I’m not turning back or giving up without a fight!
Look forward to that day in the future when you’re free from Shawshank prison and that evil warden!!
Steve
Thanks Benny,
I am recommitting myself to writing more. I have struggled with time management for a while but just have to do it. I love writing and it’s what got me here in the first place. I ‘m looking forward to the day I call it quits with my grind and I’m hoping you’ll be right there with me!