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I love this question because it gets straight to the heart of what compassion really means in politics.I feel that this is one of the cases where comparison between the two extremes better communicates the values of Conservatives, so allow me to try to first communicate my views of modern progressivism’s methods for dealing with the poor before explaining why I think that the Conservative approach is actually the more compassionate of the two.To begin, let’s talk about equality. Everyone believes equality is a fundamental right, however when Conservatives and Progressives say the word, they actually mean two very different things. When a Conservative says that they value equality, what they mean is that they value equality of opportunity. This means that Conservatives advocate that society should aim to free everyone from as many artificial barriers to their own prosperity as is possible. Progressives advocate for equality of outcome. They seek to make all people’s lifestyle relatively identical regardless of factors surrounding that person, such as job, education, or personal wealth. The Progressive stance is to use state authority to level the playing field through taxation or other forms of wealth redistribution until the wealthy and poor lifestyles meet in the middle. The Conservative instead wants to remove obstacles in the way of the poor so that he can rise to the level of middle class or even the wealthy, usually through actually removing government interference itself.As an example, a Conservative sees a rich man and a poor man, and asks the question, “What artificial barriers prevented this poor man from being rich?” If after analysis they discover that the individual’s choices, such as drug use or managing their money unwisely caused their poverty, then there is no systemic problem that needs to be addressed. This man made his bed and now must sleep in it. If, after analysis, it is discovered that this man has some been the victim of some system barrier to opportunity, such as being born to a district where he was not allowed to choose to go to a better school and instead received a poor education that didn’t allow him to progress to a good college and so on, then that is a failed system in need of redress. In that case, Conservatives would fight for future children in the man’s district to have the right of school choice so that they could flee known failing schools for better ones where their their success could better be determined by the quality of their effort than the luck of their birth.As you can see, this doesn’t fit the narrative of Conservative callousness as depicted in questions like: “Why don't underprivileged people just work harder? or “Is being poor immoral?”Conservatives don’t believe that people who are working are doing anything wrong. They argue for a freer economy that can sustain more positions where those who work harder can find better alternatives for themselves, which actually makes it easier for people on all levels of the work spectrum to be prosperous at the level they want to occupy.Alternatively, when a Progressive sees a rich man and a poor man, they usually gravitate to ask the question, “What did the rich man do so that he gained an inequitable share of the poor man’s wealth?” In this instance, wealth is not owned, but shared in collective, so inequity of wealth is a form of immorality. For Progressive ideology, any time there is an inequality, it must be due to some systemic societal structure which was engineered for the purpose of creating advantage and disadvantage for specific groups. The presumption usually is that the rich gained their wealth through exploitation of the poor, in keeping with class based arguments reaching back a few centuries. It is to say that no matter how the rich man gained his wealth, be it through the creation of a widely desired product or service, or family inheritance; and likewise without regard for the possible poor choices of the poor man, the basic assumption that somehow, in some way, the rich man benefits through some known or unknown exploitation of the poor man. For Progressives, the solution has nothing to do with rewarding the rich man for his good decisions or holding accountable the poor man for his decisions, or even understanding why the rich man became rich or the poor man poor — the solution is just to right the inequality through the most expedient means possible — tax the rich man and create social welfare programs to raise the poor man out of poverty.Now, I’m going to leave it at that, without getting into specific examples because both sides can list off pages, and pages, and pages of specific examples where their point of view was proven right, so no one wants a pissing match. I want to handle the theory on the question.Let’s assume that the Progressive model is true, but what are the outcomes of such a model? Frankly, by and large, it doesn’t work to tax the rich and give to the poor on several accounts.The first is that taxing the rich for the simple reason that they are rich comes off as an attack, which it is. For that reason, the rich will defend themselves by whatever means they have available, most notably, through means such as Capital flight. Capital flight is when the rich simply leave a stigmatizing wealth environment that overtaxes them, depriving that environment of the top tax base. It doesn’t matter what your opinion is on if they are being overtaxed, but what their perception is on the matter as they are the ones with the wealth and the mobility, and their perception determines the reality of the system. This shifts a much larger burden down on the next tier of the tax base, who also move, perpetuating the cycle downward until we reach a point where the richest people are still being taxed, now overwhelming so, but these are the people who, in fact, are just the riches of those too poor to leave. In this situation, the wealth producing class has fled, and there is no one rich enough to provide the social welfare support for the lower class, and the system collapses.The second way the Progressive model has failed is that it relies on a fundamentally flawed premise — if you give to the poor, that they will leave poverty.Let’s look at pretty graphs for a moment, because everybody loves graphs.Below we have a history of welfare spending in the United States. Prior to the 1950s, in spite of Progressive welfare reformers such as Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt, welfare spending was negligible. With the institution of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and the War on Poverty programs, many new programs began which, rather than encouraging the poor to receive aid in an effort to join the Middle Class and no longer need it, encouraged lifelong participation in the aid programs, both causing the poor to stay poor while increasing government spending. Attempts by both Republican and Democratic policy makers (Reagan and Clinton respectively) did almost nothing to prevent the rapid growth of welfare spending.And this spending isn’t small numbers. Often I’m forced to defend military spending because of my time in the US Marines. The argument is that if we have a bloated military and that, if we would just cut spending toward the military, we could solve all our various needs, welfare included. Mars too. We could all have free healthcare, education, basic living, and live on Mars if not for military spending. Looking at the actual amount of government spending, we see that welfare spending already dwarfs military spending as a percentage of annual budgetary expenses. In fact, military spending relative to GDP has stayed constant for decades, including the War on Terror and 15 straight years of warfare (perhaps an indicator of why those wars never ended) while welfare spending continues to grow at unsustainable rates.[1]But here is the biggest problem with all this spending — it isn’t creating fewer poor people.Comparing the percentage of poor in the United States to the amount of spending to help them, we see an uncomfortable reality. Poverty in the United States was on the way down precisely until the implementation of modern welfare programs. Since that point, as welfare spending has grown to more than a trillion dollars a year, the average amount of poor people in the United States has stayed constant at between 10 to 15% for over half a century.Sure. We can both agree that there are people who get out of poverty who are on welfare, (me for instance) but the system seems to obviously stabilize poverty, rather than help the last fraction (a very large fraction) of Americans out of it. This concludes the pretty graph portion, but now leads into a video that will steal a minute of your life you won’t get back.This is a case study on what Conservatives are afraid of.Any truly compassionate person would agree that the example of Kiara is not one which they would wish on someone they love. That’s the big question with compassion, “Would you want someone you love to live like that?” We have an attractive, young, person who is apparently reasonably rational and most likely very capable, voluntarily living a life of poverty. She, by the age of 30, had accrued four children with no spousal support or permanent role model for her kids. She has been living on government assistance for her entire adult life with no future prospects of ever paying that back. Furthermore, the level of income she has is just enough to keep her at the level of subsistence, but keeps her poor because if she actually did get a job… she would net less money toward her monthly expenses. It’s a dehumanizing and horrible cycle.What’s worse, she has absolutely no ambition to improve her situation in life. She is fine with this because the lifestyle is normalized and encouraged by those who don’t see it as a systemic trap that keeps people Kiara in a state of inescapable poverty. Why is this the worst part of her story? Because in the United States, poverty isn’t an inescapable status. It’s a product of behaviors. In the US, it’s more than possible to fall on hard times and need help, but it is very, very hard for someone who works hard with the goal of improving their status in life to be trapped in inescapable poverty. You gotta want it.This was backed up by research done by the Brookings Institute, a left leaning thinktank. They found that for a person to escape poverty in America all the average person had to do was three things.Graduate from high school.Waiting to get married until after 21 and do not have children till after being married.Have a full-time job.That’s it. There is no need to start a company or even graduate from college if you only want to break out of poverty. This is true of any race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or anything. These three rules apply to everyone.[2]Worst of all, at the rate she’s going, her behaviors are going to be passed on to her children, who I’m at a loss to understand how they will get a better idea, or even want a better life, if their mother continues this lifestyle into making them believe such as existence is normal.But what if we just gave people in Kiara’s situation more so that they wouldn’t be trapped at the level of poverty forever?Again, it really doesn’t matter how much you give, because it comes down to the behaviors. If people don’t learn positive behaviors that build and keep wealth, they won’t be successful regardless of the amount of money you shower them with. Proof, you say?Lottery Winners.Lottery winners are a beautiful case study on behavior because we selectively choose a population which already can’t do math, as the risk rewards payoff of actually winning the lotto almost never meet the amount they pay to it and then ask them to make good decisions with vast sums of money. Unsurprisingly, people like this do the darndest things, such as nearly half reporting having lost it all in around 5 years.So if throwing money at people without the mentality to handle it doesn’t solve people’s money problems even in the scale of millions, how will it do anything for those doing it in the thousands today? It simply won’t. The behaviors must change if these people’s lives are to improve. Under guaranteed welfare they have no incentive to improve their lives. They choose poverty for the security of a welfare check. It’s a miserable existence and I question anyone who would call this a “compassionate response” on either the grounds of their sincerity or the amount of research they’ve actually done into the real numbers of those trapped in the welfare cycle.So what is it most Conservatives actually suggest to remedy the problems? It isn’t just to pull the rug out, though obviously it is to end welfare dependency. For most programs, temporary needs to mean temporary, and all programs need to be temporary. There must be deadlines that people know, “I have two years to get my life in order.” At that point, they are contributing to society, which studies have shown is far better for the person than the meager amount they actually add. Working and earning their own money gives people a sense of agency in their lives and their decisions, and gives people a sense of value, to say nothing of improving depression and overall health, reducing the risk of crime, and opening the door to better opportunities down the road. No, they won’t be fulfilled in their dream job on day one. Were you? I like what I do, but I was still making pizzas for gas money when I was 16. It wasn’t bad for a first job, but I wouldn’t have had a lot of the growing experiences that I needed to be successful later on without that first job. This is adulthood.But what about the really hard cases? What about the people who still need help and these incentives aren’t enough?This is where the power of private charity is encouraged. Private charities allow people, individual people and not large bureaucracies to determine if someone will abuse their welfare as well as offer counselling, training, and support to transition out of the behaviors that cause poverty. This form of giving is far superior in actually solving people’s problems as charities are incentivized to focus their efforts, as well as specialize to help, rather than give the helpless just enough money to remain dependent on more welfare.The problem with charity is that according to Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism by Arthur C. Brooks is that as government programs are created to “solve” a social ill, it decreases charitable giving to a point that there is a net loss to services rendered to the poor. So in at least one very real way, more government funding actually reduces the funding for the poor by hurting the perception of need for a charity, and thereby drying up funding, while replacing it with substandard care and a population divorced from responsibility i.e. compassion.Second, charity does something that government bureaucracy doesn’t. It’s incentivized to be efficient where governments suffer inefficiency. While most charity is volunteer, government welfare requires many layers of bureaucracy that are all paid positions. This means that the money going into that program is devoured by a structurally inefficient allocation of goods before finally reaching the people it is intended to help. This is to say nothing of the need to ask for money, rather than make requests in the form of Congressional Budget Proposals, where they are incentivized to spend every dollar lest they have their budget reduced in future years. Furthermore, if a charity is shown to fail, it is less likely to receive more funding. If a government agency fails, it is more likely to receive more funding as the reason for the government agency’s existence isn’t to solve the problem, but to show that politicians really care about the problem that exists. This is perhaps a cynical view, but one which is hard to disagree with. This gives charities even more of a reason to achieve mission results where government only creates feedback loops of inefficiency and corruption, even if the majority of the people who work for these agencies are decent people committed to service and care.And a final reason Conservatives prefer charity to government oversight, they get to choose who gets the help. I am naturally much more sympathetic to money going to elderly homebound women, single mothers, veterans, and to alzheimer's research because of my personal experiences in my life. I simply care more about these because they have affected me, where other issues do not carry the burden of personal history in my soul. That said, I am deeply involved in following the outcome of the charity I support, more so than an average taxpayer contributing to an anonymous millions of people in cities across America — some who deserve the help, and some many who will merely become dependent on it. What I really don’t like is someone who lives thousands of miles away taking my money to spend badly on someone who they have no plan on helping either get out of poverty or live a better life, and if I disagree with that, men with guns are going to come to my house and take me to jail. I’m just not down with that.One last thing that I want people to consider, the rich don’t want to prevent others from being rich. This is an old stereotype that makes little sense when we think about the nature of Venture Capitalism. A good venture capitalist has no incentives to keep anyone poor. In fact, a good venture capitalist yearns for someone great, anyone great, who has a great idea to show up and make that VC tons and tons of money. More so than this, every person who has ever become wealthy wants to at some point, become a venture capitalist. In fact, this is the chief message of a book out there many might find interesting “Why We Want You to Be Rich: Two Men, One Message”. One of the men who wrote it, you ask?Donald Trump.No, the modern economy wants everyone to have the ability to be rich, and the rich know that. They know that a poor person today lives a better life than a king 100 years ago for the simple reason that millions of people working for their own benefit do amazing things when put together with all the other people doing the same. It’s to say that when you become rich by making a new invention, all of our lives get a little better because I can now have one of those new inventions. If you want to improve an idea, all of us are richer because we get the benefit of an improved good. If you create a service, all of us get access to something that makes our lives better. The rich fundamentally understand this, where the poor hold on to a stereotype that they being oppressed when it is in no one’s interests to do so.The Conservative philosophy isn’t as simple as “the poor should work harder” and you don’t get to feel great because you voted to help people through a really simple plan that “People X get $Y, which will be taxed from people Z.” The right way to do it is more complicated than that. It requires the individual in need to develop behaviors, and to pull themselves out of poverty. Furthermore, once they make the decision to do that work, all barriers keeping them down must be fair so that they have just as much chance to prosper as the next person. Conservatives want to create a system where success isn’t guaranteed, no one can guarantee success, but to make it so that you have as few obstacles in your way as possible. Will it benefit those that work harder more? Yeah, but more importantly, it will make it possible for that kid who doesn’t stand a chance today to escape poverty to have a path to follow and lead others down as well.To make an analogy, Conservatives want to build a ladder, which they can leave so that a person who wants to can climb up to meet them at the top. The system is the ladder, but the person has do the work to get up.The other alternative is the rope. Welfare is people at the top throwing down a rope and saying, “Trust us and we’ll pull you up.”Now on the surface, the rope looks great. There’s no work involved. You just put your trust in someone else and they do the heavy lifting until you are prosperous. Everyone wants the rope, but there are problems with the rope. First, an obvious one, once you’re at the top, how exactly are you ready and able to pull anyone else? What new skills have you gained and how will you stay there? Second, on the way up, once you’re in the middle, you really have no guarantee that anyone is going to keep pulling or if they’ll just let you fall. Worse, you have no idea if they will just leave you stranded somewhere in the middle as they move on to someone more politically expedient. And perhaps worst of all, they bring you to the middle and shout down,“If you can help us out come November, we’ll be able to get you all the way to the top!”“But that’s what you said last year.”“Don’t worry, just trust us!”Second, you can’t really know how strong the one pulling is, especially when way too many people are on the rope with you. People, even good people, make promises they can’t keep, not because they are liars, but because they really don’t see what the realities are until they get into office. They make promises that involve compromises they didn’t prepare for, and for many who voted for them on those promises, the end result is just enough rope given to them to hang themselves.So if it comes between a rope or a ladder, Conservatives want to maintain the ladder. Maybe we are untrusting cynics, but don’t want a system where we are reliant on others for our beholden to others for our livelihood. Second, we want to make it so that people can compete because competition is good for everyone. Furthermore, the act of competition makes people better people, people who don’t believe anything is owed to them and people who are thankful for what they have because they earned it. Finally, when the process is built to make fewer poor people rather than incentivizing them to say poorer longer, you are able to spend the funds for welfare on people who really, really need it, those who simply can’t participate in competition for legitimate reasons beyond their means. Frankly the current system doesn’t work. We’ve got way too much rope and the people at the top are just too stupid to do what they promised. This is true of both Democrats and Republicans. If you call it harsh to say that Conservatives want all poor people today to be rich someday, but they have to work for it, then fine. The ladder’s still there, but don’t expect me to pull you up or apologize that I have already climbed a few steps.Finally, this hateful stereotype that Conservatives only care about making the rich richer and the poor poorer is utterly garbage that needs to die in the hateful conversations far too common today. Look, as Progressives or Liberals, there are plenty of fine arguments which can be brought to the table about specific problems with the mechanics of Conservative ideology or particular plans, such as how to make charity work, or the fallout from removing the safety net of some 40 million people dependent on welfare when it is removed, but the vilifying and character assassinations of millions of people just because you either don’t understand our views or because lying to those who trust you is politically expedient to rational and respectful policy debate doesn’t leave you in the moral high ground.I’ll be honest, I don’t think the vast majority of Left leaning people are bad people. I don’t honestly buy a lot of the thoughts on the Right that welfare is just to buy people’s vote, or a new form of slavery. Maybe some really, really clever Democrats really did come up with such a plan, but really I think the main drivers of welfare spending comes from the Liberals who are genuinely good, kind, charitable people, who want people who have it worse than themselves to have it better. I simply think they are wrong in how they pursue that goal. I think they do it in a way that sacrifices too many freedoms for the people on welfare and simply doesn’t work to get them out of it. Me though? I’m an evil capitalist bastard who only wants poor people to suffer because… well no one really knows why. Racism? Maybe, but then I screwed up in creating over 30,000,000 white Americans also on poverty and the welfare rolls.Many know that they’ve been in those conversations and that something just didn’t add up. This write up should prove that these hateful stereotypes are baseless and that a great deal of thought on the nature of compassion has gone into the conservative stance. Let’s accept that it simply isn’t true, start arguing specific policy instead of character, and probably find a nice solution somewhere in the middle we can both agree on that will help many, many people far more than the political infighting we do as they suffer.***Thank you for reading. If you liked this answer, please upvote and follow The War Elephant. If you want to help me make more content like this, please visit my Patreon Support Page to learn how. All donations greatly appreciated!Footnotes[1] What Is Driving Growth in Government Spending?[2] Three rules for staying out of poverty

Thanks for the A2A.Look, I can help you get a black belt far faster than a year. You just have to follow my system for doing so. I can even get you to a full “shihan” black belt quickly with this tried and true martial system that’s been proven in the streets.Step 1. Read this answer.Step 2. Follow this link: Amazon.com : Shihan Karate Black Belt Satin Golden Dragon Embroidery 300cm Length Kenpo Kickboxing : Sports & OutdoorsStep 3. Click “Add to Cart”.Step 4. Enter all necessary information and hit “Confirm Order”.Step 5. Wait a week or so. My info says this black belt will be there by April 19th. That’s a black belt in nine days from the writing of this answer.Boom, Sensei Richard has spoken. You are a black belt. It’s proven in the streets because that's how they get the belt to you. Do you feel good about yourself?Now wake up, and realize what you’re asking.No, you can’t become a black belt in any serious martial art in a year. Not going to happen. It usually takes years to become a black belt in anything but the shadiest of McDojos.(Image credit: Jiu-jitsu Times)But the question is about black belts and time, it’s not even wrong.Let me explain.The goal of a martial art is twofold:To learn how to fight. At least in my opinion, the goal of any martial art should be to teach you something about combat. Even if that is just theory, and you never throw a single strike in aggression, you should learn something about fighting in a martial art. Martial means war, after all.To become a better person. You learn about yourself through the trials and tribulations of martial arts. It’s meant to be a crucible, a place where you are melted down to come out a better person on the other side. This process isn’t easy, in fact it’s usually harder than learning how to fight, and it for damn sure takes longer than a year.Becoming a good person is a relatively modern view of martial arts, by the way. It became increasingly popular when we saw the transition in Japanese arts from “jitsu” or “bugei” or “war/combat methods” and to the “do”, or path. Perhaps Chinese martial arts had a similar transition, I cannot say, I’m not learned enough in them to comment. Other combat systems in Asia evolved similarly though, from a combat system to either a sport or “a way”. European martial arts, historically, have only been concerned with killing, there was almost never a spiritual component. They largely evolved into sports.You’re goal as a new learner shouldn’t be a black belt, why do you care for some piece of colored cloth that hangs around your waist? it really doesn’t matter. I’ve been involved in martial arts for nearly 28 years, Kyokushin and judo through Muay Thai/Amsterdam Thai boxing and BJJ, plus a smattering of other things. Do you think I care what color belt I wear, or what “rank” I’m thought of as? No, I do not. The only thing I care for is that I’m accorded the basic respect I’ve earned, and will continue to earn, and that I am bringing a positive impact to those around me.The black belt, the rank, shouldn’t matter. It’s just a way to organize a class and for some people to chase, at the beginning. Once you train for a while, you realize that the pursuit of rank doesn’t matter. In fact, it’s generally so far off that you don’t care.The only thing that matters is getting that one counter kick right, or the punch, or the footwork, etc. The form just right, the power, the speed. You’ll be too concerned with bruises, sore muscles, and blisters to care about some belt far off. If you’re training somewhere serious the pursuit of belts will fall by the wayside in the pursuit of ability. What good is a black belt who can’t fight? (And many of them can’t, which is a continuing problem in martial arts today)More so, what good is a black belt who can’t lead? Do you think that training for a year will give you the requisite experience to lead new learners on their martial path? That in that time you will learn how to deal with the student who wants to quit because he’s just not getting it? Or the student that has physical limitations? Or the student who tells you they are having a hard time with bullies? Or the student that tells you that they are being physically abused at home? Or abused in a relationship? Do you think a year of strip mall McDojo bullshit will prepare you to be the person those students need you to be?Fuck. No. It. Won’t.As I said above, I’ve been on this road for nearly 28 years now and I’m still learning how to handle things like that. I’m still learning how to fight, there’s always something new to add, some new wrinkle. And believe me, it’s hard. Why don’t you go ask Raz Chen how he deals with students that come into his Krav Maga school that face antisemitism. That’s a real thing, you will have learners who face institutional racism and sexism. You, as a black belt, are at least a role model in a class, and you have to be prepared to deal with some of these things. Or to turn the other way, go ask Wayne Sherman what it’s like to have bouncers come into your gym and say they need training, because they work in a rough spot. These students are trusting you with both their livelihoods and their health. Do you think a year of training and a fancy piece of colored cloth will give you the ability to deal with these serious as a heart attack situations?Once again:Fuck. No. It. Won’t.After a year, you’re basically not a drooling knob of a noob anymore. Congratulations, you’re now beginning to be adequate as a beginner. Welcome to the party. A dedicated fight gym, with seriously competent instruction and dedication on the part of the student, trained at multiple times per week with serious strength and conditioning work done outside the gym, can get you to be able to successfully fight an idiot in the street after about six to eight months. That’s going to be after some sparring, maybe your first amateur fight or two.Note, that’s a dedicated fighting gym, a place where the good person part is very much secondary, and the “building fighter” part is why the doors are open. You’re going to go through a very difficult season to get there, but it can be done. After a year of that kind of training you probably can beat quite a few black belts in the foo-foo martial arts.But that doesn’t mean you’re a black belt level at that fight gym. That “master” rank is generally held by people who have a decade or more of experience and 20+ fights to their name. Of one kind or another. They can back up what they’re showing you in the ring or could, and respect is automatic because of their history.If you’re training in a place who’s goal isn’t just to produce fighters, than this process is going to take longer and will have other personal benefits at times. But it’s a long road and one that isn’t to be treated lightly.At one time, a black belt was considered to be on the road to mastery, it wasn’t a trinket to be given to kids in “Lil’ Dragons’ after school Taekwon programs. And let me tell you, the road to “master” is a twisting one, because you never really stop learning. The way I look at it is this: a black belt in one system is just a white belt in another one. There’s always something new to learn, always something to add or something to subtract. You want to have a black belt, you want to call yourself “master”, then be prepared to call yourself student.For life.A year indeed.

I turned 26 yesterday.Over the past 26 or so years, I've learned valuable lessons from great (and not so great) experiences.After some introspection, I have implemented specific principles based on these lessons. This has given me a framework on which to build my worldview around. As a result, I feel as if I'm more effective, more efficient, and best of all - happier.I'm not perfect by any means. Nor do I know everything. But here are some principles that have worked for me.1. Life is a game - Many people think of life as a battle, but it is a game. It is not a game of brute force. Rather, it is a game of finesse and diplomacy. Think of it like chess. You need to outsmart your opponent and strategize to win. Who is your opponent? Yourself. Your laziness. Your negativity. Everything that stands in the way of your self-actualization.2. Learn how your mind + brain work - The brain is a complex organ. Neuroscience has come a long way but it still has a ways to go. You can still learn a bit about how to control your brain (and in extension your mind) so that you can achieve optimal results in your life.3. Learn how to truly focus - Few people know how focus and for long periods of time. This is especially evident in the millennial generation, the first generation to grow up with on-demand entertainment and distraction. If you hone the skill of focused attention, you can have virtually anything you want.4. Learn how money works - If you don't know how money works, you're in for a world of trouble. To be honest, there's no real excuse being ignorant on how money works. Personal finance books, courses, and sites number in the thousands. Pick one and implement the ideas in it.5. Don't feel guilty - The most effective weapon in the world is guilt. If you can make someone feel guilty, then you can control them. Beware of people who try to make you feel guilty for no reason.6. Simplify. Simplify. Simplify. - You need less than you think. It's been estimated that there are over 300,000 items in the American household. Over 90% of them are not used at all. More things = more maintenance = less time to spend on important things. Tyler Durden was right in Fight Club when he said "the things you own end up owning you".7. Don't be "busy" - Most people have more free time than ever but many people will say they're "busy". It's one or the other, both can't be true. For most people, when they say that, they're saying: they just don't have the time for it in their schedule and that it's not important to them. There is no virtue in being "busy". There is virtue in saying that you don't want to do X,Y, or Z because it isn't important to you.8. Exercise, diet, and sleep - Want to be healthy? Get enough exercise, eat a good diet, get good and restful sleep. That's 85% of health. All of the foods that you don't want to eat, the strenuous workouts you don't want to perform, and the getting-to-bed-earliness you don't want to do? Yeah, you should do it.9. Consolidate your gains - Any advantage you currently have can currently be lost unless it is solidified into permanency. For example, if you blow your recent paycheck, you have lost money. Not only have you lost money, but you now have the tendency to do so the next time because actions, if not changed - tend to repeat themselves. But if you make saving some of your pay before you use it a habitual action, you have consolidated your advantage - because it's a habit. Habits are hard to break. Habits help you solidify small disciplines into larger advantages.10. Become a master time alchemist - Many people don't believe in alchemy. But we are all alchemists. We all transmute the raw material of time into physical efforts. You become what you spend time on. Be aware of what it is.11. Limit your media consumption - The people you pay attention to on YouTube, Instagram, or your television? You know, the sexy fitness model types and sensationalists? Yeah, they're profiting off of your attention. And you're getting nothing in return.12. Read - It's very hard to get a leg up on someone who knows what's what. The best way to do that is through books. Some influential people have spent years of their life putting all of their secrets, tips, and tricks in book form - and people don't read them... Their loss.13. ACTION. - Let this word burn itself across your brain. Reading and learning is useless without ACTION. I'd rather have a poor plan executed than a good plan with no execution. Learning without ACTION is mental masturbation. Become a person of fervent ACTION if you aren't already.14. Watch what people do, not what they say - Many people talk A LOT. But how do they act? Human communication is 90% nonverbal. Learn how to decipher body language and you'll get at someone's true intentions. This is also known as social intelligence.15. Don't be scared of the opposite sex - Being afraid of women (or men) is illogical, yet a lot of people are. After all, you can't make a baby with only one person. I think it's because of how we're programmed as children, mainly to think of sex as "dirty" or "wrong". When you meet someone of the opposite sex, that potential is always there, and you need to be comfortable with it. The people who are incredibly comfortable with sexual tension are the best friends and lovers.16. Systematize - If you want your life to run smoothly, you need automatic systems in place. Continuing with the "money" train of thought, automatic deductions to a savings account is one type of system to help save time and money.17. Burn through the strain - Most of your life will involve work. Work will be inherently "not fun". This creates a strain on the mind because it doesn't want to use up energy to focus. You have to train your mind to push past this level of mental strain. It's the only way things of value get done.18. Be fine with the present moment - Most of the madness we're experiencing in the world today is because people spending too much time in an overidealized past or a utopia Pollyanna-type future. Being fully acceptant of what is happening right now is how you create a better future, not through idle daydreaming.19. Consistency will win at the end of the day - Giant steps don't win the basketball game. Thousands of smaller plays do. Those plays were perfected from hours and hours of practice time. Put in the hours and don't fret too much about the end result.20. You need goals - If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there. Goals are a destination. Systems are the road. Action drives the car down the road to the destination. They're all interconnected.21. Stop making excuses - Losers make excuses, winners make progress. There are a thousand excuses to why you didn't do something...but never a good reason. Excuses are not a good look.22. Stand up for your values - "Peer pressure" is more prevalent in school but it can easily be seen in adult life. Your values, your principles must be so strong that you're willing to die for them. This is a hallmark of some of the greatest figures in history.23. Stick to something - One of the greatest destroyers of momentum is instability. I'd rather complete one task and stick to it until it's done instead of switching tasks like a fly in a jar.24. No zero days - There should never be a day where you don't do something to push you in the direction of your goals. Even if it's just a tiny little thing, it's better than nothing.25. Learn the seasons - For some people, it is their time to shine. For others, it is their time to step out of the spotlight. This is a natural occurrence. Recognize what season you're in and act accordingly.26. There's no such thing as "forever" - All life is a constant tide of change. Nothing stays the same. If you're down, you will eventually be up - and visa vera. Realize this and accept it.I write about millennial self-development on Unstoppable Rise.