Man, You've Got to do Something

Time is Running Out

Wednesday, April 16th, 2025

Writing to you from Denver, Colorado

One of the best things I’ve learned in The Preparation is that time is finite.

Most people live life unconsciously and, because of that, cannot absorb that fact. Their life slips by - days, weeks, months, years, decades - then before they know it, it’s over.

The potential of a good life was lost because they just couldn’t see the value in a single hour of time.

It’s wild how much your view of life and the way you operate in it will change when you know how little time there is. You start doing things that make you scared or anxious, peer pressure fades, and doing what is right becomes (at least it should) the only thing that really matters.

There is a barrier to entry to this change in how you live life…

At least, if you’re like me, in order to understand the passage of time and value it (and not crumble under the weight of that realization) you need to know that you’re a person who can make the most of their time to live a good life…

No matter how long or short that life is.

Do Something, Anything

Two years ago I was like most young men today - anxious, incompetent, and disappointed with myself for what? I didn’t quite know at the time.

Now, looking back, I know it was because I wasn’t on my own path.

Yet, despite all of this, I assumed that the stars would align. Unwarranted opportunities would somehow come my way and create some kind of future for me. I figured that, like my father, I’d become an entrepreneur.

But, I was lazy, angry, and idle.

Not long before my eighteenth birthday I was shown a list of games, activities, and occupations that Doug Casey came up with. The theory was that if a young man became competent in several of the listed skills he would be far above the rest.

That was when The Preparation was conceived.

Let me tell you though, it almost didn’t come to life…

If it weren’t for my dad pushing me off the cliff to go to EMT school and become an EMT (one of the things he added to Doug’s list) then I would have still been lost and The Preparation would not have existed.

Of course, I wasn’t forced to go to EMT school, I went by my own will.

But, it ended up changing my life. It was the first big thing I had ever done, despite the fact that I had no plan to use my EMT certification it was still the first thing I set out to do and accomplished.

If you’re young like myself then you need to do something, anything.

Like I said, I didn’t want to go to EMT school. First off, I was scared to go, but besides that I just had no interest. That didn’t matter. It showed me that if I set out to do something, no matter what it was, I could get it done.

So, dive into the deep end of something, force yourself to stick it out, and get it done. You need to prove to yourself that you can make a good life out of whatever amount of time you have.

Rise to the Occasion

The stoics used to say something in the effect of, “He is blessed who has been given a challenge by life, for he is favored by god.”

Challenges comes in all forms.

Nowadays one of the biggest challenges young men have is that we are not given many substantial challenges from life, but instead we must find a challenge - a burden to bear.

“We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives.”

-Tyler Durden

Find the best thing you can do where you are now and do it immediately.

That EMT school I went to started hosting classes two weeks after I signed up and was only 30 minutes away from me. It was something I could do ASAP and it was close to me.

In order to rise to the occaision of your situation you must have respect for time. Find something, get it done, and do it now.

Time is running out.

If you haven’t done anything of significance by the time your 25 as a young man, you might want to pack it up. That doesn’t mean that begin to live a good life afterwards, but the the more time passes the harder it is to get started.

So…

Rise to the occasion.

-Maxim Benjamin Smith