Why You Can't Enjoy Life - Dan Koe

Learning is how you become more aware, conscious, and skilled in the game of life.

When you start playing a game for the first time, you learn and ask questions.

Asking questions is how you determine if it is worth adopting this new activity into your life.

You have routines, lifestyles, social events, habits, errands, and other things that could be impacted by playing this game on a consistent basis.

If playing that specific game isn’t perceived as more “fun” or more “valuable” activity than the other games you are playing, why would you make it a constant in your life?

Learning is how you uncover the depth that life has to offer.

When you first start learning a game (or trying something new in life) you may not like it.

It may not make sense to you just yet.

You don’t see it as a game. You fixate your focus on the tip of the iceberg and assume that everything under the water serves no purpose.

You aren’t giving yourself a chance to find your “why.”

Do this enough and you won’t see past the tip of the iceberg of life itself. A shallow existence.

You will find yourself ready to quit before you even leave the tutorial.

Whenever I talk about “doing what you want” I always get the same responses.

“You mean if I wanted to jump off a bridge I should???”

“You mean if I want to be the next Hitler I should?”

“You mean it’s okay if people are mass murderers?!?!”

 Have some common sense and think critically about what you are saying.

This brings up the difference between conscious and unconscious living.

If you were conscious of the widespread impact of what “becoming the next Hitler” would lead to, you wouldn’t want to do it.

There are specific ways to manipulate your attention or frame your focus with the result of a more enhanced experience.

Chemicals like dopamine, adrenaline, and norepinephrine squirt into your brain to reward your pursuits that stem from your nature.

• Developing your skill set
• Mastering your craft
• Pursuing your vision
• Working towards your goals
• Living by a code of values
• Living in the moment

When you pursue your curiosity, fulfill your basic needs, gain a degree of geographical freedom, and consistently make progress — you are psychologically rewarded.

• Busting out of the trenches of struggle.
• Conquering the challenge.
• Winning the battle in the ever-unfolding story of life.
• Reaching the peak of the mountain.
• Feeling the energy in the drop of a song.
• It’s all the same.

The creation pyramid combines the spiritual, psychological, and philosophical teachings that I’ve found to cross over when it comes to life enjoyment. Not only occasionally, but on demand. That is, once you understand the parts of the system. The aspects of the game.

All five “C’s” of enjoyment are both tools and tells.

You can use and combine them to increase your enjoyment of day-to-day existence.

Or you can become aware of them when you are doing things you genuinely enjoy.

What do you feel pulled to do?

When you feel the pull, what limiting beliefs arrive?

From there, pause and question.

Don’t let your monkey brain think that your survival is at stake.

The death of a belief is not death itself — even when it feels eerily similar.

Questioning is how you open up new mental pathways to explore.

Questioning is how you expand your consciousness by diving down the rabbit hole of infinity.

Questioning is how you dictate what you need to self-educate on next.

The cause of most modern problems is clarity.

Anxiety, uncertainty, fixed mindsets, closed-mindedness, and the rest are all due to a lack of clarity.

Clarity comes down to structure, information, and surrender.

Information is abundant and potentially overwhelming, yet necessary.

Structuring that information (or ordering consciousness) is how you start to “outline the puzzle.”

Surrender and rest usually piece everything together.

In psychology, there is a phenomenon known as pattern recognition. There is also the “construct aware” stage of ego development along with systems thinking as a whole.

Connection stems from the ability to zoom out, see the big picture, and recognize patterns, models, constructs, and connections.

This is best illustrated as the “aha!” moment (or a series of these moments).

Along with curiosity, connection raises dopamine in the brain.

Challenge is encoded in the system.

Challenge is what kicks you into flow.

Challenge is what eliminates boredom.

We are so afraid as a society to take on new challenges because they threaten the comfort we’ve been conditioned into.

If your work, life, or self isn’t challenging you on a consistent basis, your life won’t be interesting and you aren’t making much progress.

The Solution:

• Set a challenging goal
• Gain clarity by breaking it down into smaller goals
• Act with intention by aligning all aspects of your life (mind, body, spirit, business) with those goals.

Consciousness is about depth and appreciation. Love.

For now, start seeing beyond the surface.

Take on the challenge of becoming curious in understanding all of the connections that any given situation presents (so you can gain clarity).

While most people perceive a motorcycle as a purposeless death machine — you can make the conscious choice to see beyond that and break out of your unconscious, conditioned emotional reactions to life.

When you find yourself in a bad mood, use the LE5 to your advantage:

• Question why you are in a bad mood (curiosity)
• Set a goal to reverse the bad mood (challenge)
• Reverse engineer it so you know what to learn (clarity)
• As you learn, observe the excitement that fills your mind as you make new discoveries (excitement)
• Remain conscious during this entire process.