Why do we really need caffeine?

As I was looking up ways to make your own Red Bull, or in other words, a high-sugar, high-caffeine recipe, something dawned on me. There’s a plethora of products out there selling energy boosts, promising to stimulate your brain activity also your metabolism. But do we really need it?

Is it just a cop out for bad health and a lacking desire to do what we have to do? I think that we don’t really need it, in my opinion. I think that if you do things that you truly believe in, or truly want to do, you will put in the extra work required and will not need caffeine to help you along the way.

Case in point, last week I was a part of a 168 hour film project, where a team has — you guessed it, 168 hours to make a 7-10 minute film. Essentially I had 2 days to complete my portion of it, (which was the film score) since I had to wait until they finished writing the script and filming the scenes. Side note, I’m in a high-stress program in school (which also does not have anything to do with music, engineering actually) and drink tea almost every hour to keep me going. Anyway, back to the film, I worked 18 hours each day, probably had one complete meal in that entire timeline and a glass of milk. I kid you not. Despite that fact, I was able to focus and concentrate.

Never did I give it a thought to even grab a cup of hot black tea or coffee or red bull. The only source of energy I had was my motivation and determination to get the music done. Yet, the moment I was finished that project and I had to go back to my school work, the first thing that hit my mind was that I needed a cup of tea. And candy. And whatever food was out there. I cannot say that this was because I was starved the previous days. But I really do think that I was in a different frame of mind when I was making music.

In consuming all this caffeine and energy boosters, are we actually trying to fix something that has nothing to do with our lack of physical capability and everything to do with the fact that we are not doing what we want to do? Is this healthy?

Are you doing what you really want in life? Are you getting out of life everything that you can and want and believe that you should have?

I know I am not. I know that I hate school and the things I learn — I should have quit 3 years ago. But, its too late now. I am going to grab what it is that I want and do what I love to do. We all know what we love to do but so many of us choose to go the safe route and stick to a 9-5 job. I will not do this. I will not give in to the caffeine.

Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

this is why i didn’t want to come back

Being out east with a network of friends and lots of places to go and see, the money to do whatever I wanted, go wherever I willed, when I wanted, it made it really hard to miss home.  Home, — school, or campus, rather, is  a place where I feel failure to the nth degree.  It is boredom at its finest, bluffing at its worst, and convincing myself that all the time I have spent here has been worth it.  I had so many new experiences out east.  My biggest fear was that I would come back and be the introvert I’d always been, stay in my room for hours on end with nowhere to go, looking up websites on potential and breaking out but really living a life that was small.  Here I am.  I am back, and it sucks.  I guess I really put myself in the position to do so.  I can change, sure, but really I don’t know what I want.

Perhaps its also because I feel like I don’t know what I should want.  Again, the whole living by others’ expectations mentality is bobbing its head out of the water.  Who do I want to be?  What do I want to do every day of my life?  What am I living for?  What can I do to wake up in eager expectation and anticipation for the day ahead?

Each morning I wake up on campus I feel like I’m already doomed to fail.  Sure tell me to change my attitude.  But nothing can change the fact that I don’t give a #$%t about school.  I think in the end that’s what matters.  I’ll work hard for something I care about.  I will.  I just don’t care enough about school to work for it.  I suck at it.  Its not my forte.  I don’t to put effort into something that is just going to make me feel like $%^&.  My subconscious is telling me that I haven’t tried hard enough.  That maybe, just maybe, if I change my attitude and work a little harder, it’ll all get better.

Shut up.  I don’t want to do this.

I want my passions.  I want them.  Where are you?  Come to me.. soon… get me out of here… I want to finally do something with my life.

7 Questions To Finding Your Passion

1. What puts a smile on your face?

Listening to live jazz with great food and my closest friends.  Blue skies.  A great piece of music that moves me a certain way.  When people can make jokes about themselves and be confident in who they are.  When other people are happy around me.  Being with a group of friends that are funny.  Textured oil paintings.  Watching people talk about their passions and how they have succeeded.

2. What do you find easy?

Learning new songs on the guitar.  Learning new software.  Puzzle games.  Finding fun in the most boring places and being spontaneous.  Seeing possibilities, potential in people.

3. What sparks your creativity?

Things that happen in life.  Usually social situations.  The weather.  Great art with vivid colour and especially texture.

4. What would you do for free?

Listen to people and their problems.  Try to motivate people to do their best and to reach their full potential by realizing their passions and acting on them.

5. What do you like to talk about?

I like talking about things that are new, I love talking about relationships, goals, dreams, passions, successes, business.  I love talking about social situations, how people react to things and examine why people do the things they do.

6. What makes you unafraid of failure?

Starting a business.  Playing music/learning a new song on any instrument.  Cooking and baking.  Taking pictures.  Talking to strangers.

7. What would you regret not having tried?

Culinary arts.  Fine arts school.  Composing music.  Life couch.

Gary Vaynerchuck – Building Personal Brand Within the Social Media Landscape

Awesome

My Success Story

So I came up with this idea which I am pretty sure its been done before — but I want to write my success story.  I want to write it before it happens.  I need a clear vision for my future.  I don’t need the details, but I need to know the direction I am going and why.  I need to realize my passions.  I need to do it before I get old and regret going the safe route and always living by others’ expectations of me.  I need to be myself.

I am unmotivated in school.  I think ever since I arrived at university, I always knew I would not like it.  Three years later, nothing has changed.  I worked so hard just to secure a spot for myself here, and when I finally arrived, I found that I was not good enough or, I was no longer among the top 10% of my class.  I was now average, an A-student among A-students and even more, A+ students who had taken advanced calculus.

So where did I fit in all this?  I was no longer special.  In fact, I think I was among the slowest.  I guess you could say that coming here made me realize just how many intelligent people existed and how much of my academic confidence thrived on the fact that I was always incrementally smarter than my colleagues.  This was no longer the case.  I remember doing my first calculus assignment with friends I had just made. We were on question 1 and even then I had stumbled, asking, “wait, why does that make sense?”

They said, “you know, its so simple, just look at it.”

“Okay.” I said.

But it really wasn’t okay but I really did not get it.  I did not get how quickly they processed it.  I usually have to examine and ponder about it or have a teacher pound the information into my head.  From here I think I developed a mechanism.  I hated feeling like I was the only one that didn’t “get it.”  I lied to myself throughout the years in my classes telling myself that “I got it” that I could be just like them and pretend to get it.

Truth is, I have not learned anything in the past 3 years I’ve been here.  That is, if you were to ask me something about my courses, the amount of content that I had actually learned would be very little.  Should I have gotten help?  Maybe take fewer courses in order to fully understand what was going on?  Probably.  But the fact is, I didn’t.  I didn’t.  I chose to stay silent out of fear that others would judge me for being stupid and for not being able to understand something so simple.  Now, whenever something gets difficult in my courses (which it always does) I have this unnerving stomach feeling and I just want to gloss over it.  My ability to learn has been deeply scarred.

I shouldn’t pity myself and I shouldn’t make excuses, because I believe life is about second chances.  I like to believe that one day I will have everything I have ever wanted and more.  I believe that it is never to late to start life — but that is by no means a reason to delay yourself another second.  That is the mentality I have been taking on for quite some time.

Today I felt pretty bad about my performance in my  group projects.  When it comes to contributing opinions or thoughts, I get so nervous.  I can’t contribute, I can’t.  I feel like someone is just going to think I am stupid.

Alas, such is life.  I realize there are a ton of insecurities that I possess that I myself would like to get rid of and never see again, ever.  There’s just this thought of “what should I have done instead?”  Should I have pursued something else?  Engineering is not fun.  I am not passionate about it.  All this talk about not having to enjoy your work for it to be satisfying is absolute bull$h!t.  These salary men, I hate it when they say that.

Screw you, I want to enjoy my work.  I don’t want comfortable.  I want to do something I care about something I believe it.

I want to say at the end of my life “I may not have been the best student in university, but I found something I was passionate about and devoted my time to that.  And it is only that passion and determination that has brought me the success I have today.”

I want to be able to say that.  I want to be successful.  I see potential, but I do not see action, in my life.  I want to see difference.  I don’t want to see anymore indifference because that is what the shy persona is telling me to do.  Its safe.  No one will laugh at your ideas.  No one will think you are stupid.

That is the future I envision.  One where I am in my rich red brick-walled loft with white walls running a business I care about.  With people I care about.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a slow walker, so long as you don’t walk backwards.

-Abraham Lincoln

A goal is a dream that has an ending.

– Duke Ellington

You can have anything you want—if you want it badly enough.  You can be anything you want to be, do anything you set out to accomplish if you hold to that desire with a singleness of purpose.

Abraham Lincoln

If you have the courage to begin, you have the courage to succeed.

David Viscott