15 Traits of a Bad Life (2023)
If yesterday we talked about the good life, it just makes sense to look at the other side of the coin. The worst thing one can do is reach the end of their existence and realize they never lived; they were just alive. Along the way, by the end of this video, you will understand what you should avoid at all costs. Here are 15 traits of a bad life.
Welcome to Alux. Before you freak out, the Alux lady is coming back in a couple of days. She's on a well-deserved holiday, and I'm just filling in for her temporarily. Now let's get back to the video.
Number one: feeling of solitude and disorientation. A bad life is one where you feel both alone and lonely. You lack connection and proximity, and you feel like other people don't care about your existence, even those who you consider close to you. Life is about sharing the highlights with others, or they start losing their meaning in time. A study shows that when you look back on your life, the only memories you remember are the ones when you were with the people you care about the most. Being lonely removes even the sense of direction; you don't know where to go or what to do with your life, and you end up simply existing, always in search of something the world doesn't seem to want to give you.
Number two: mental unrest. It's hard to put your head on the pillow at night. Your mind goes racing, reliving, imagining, or creating scenarios that leave you restless. Your mind should be your safe space, but it's dark and dangerous to hang out with your own thoughts for too long. There's simply too much to unpack there, so you don't even come close to trying. A bad life is one where you're running away from your mind because it knows the truth about you; a truth you don't like to admit.
Number three: debt and not being able to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Most of the items on this list have to do with constraints over your freedom, in all the shapes it takes. Debt is the modern-day equivalent of slavery, without all the brutality. They raise the cost of living to a point where it's hard for you to even stay alive. They got you into debt you were not ready for, so now you have to work for 30 years to buy back your freedom. For the first time in modern human history, we're entering a stage of multi-generational debt, where, in order to be able to afford a home or to study, two or more generations will end up paying the same mortgage. As long as other people reap the rewards of your labor, you are not free and find yourself in an impossible situation to live a good life.
Number four: physical pain or not feeling good in your own body. A bad life is one where pain is tolerated as part of the experience. You're not supposed to feel this pain consistently. Most people have forgotten what it was like to be pain-free; their last memory is somewhere in their childhoods, and for some, even then they were victims of emotional abuse and bullying. You're stuck with this meat suit for the rest of your life, so do your best to take care of it and make it a great place to hang in. Do it right, and it will contribute to the quality of your existence. A bad life is one where you're trapped in a self-designed prison, and it's not supposed to be like that. If that's you, find help, because we guarantee that there are ways to at least improve your situation, if not change it altogether.
Number five: lack of guidance and support. Remember the feeling of loneliness we mentioned earlier? It's even worse if you feel like there's no one there who wants you to get better. Mentorships, apprenticeships, someone to hold your hand and help you navigate this maze of misery you find yourself in; it's all augmenting this feeling of separation. We know this from first-hand experience; there was no one there to hold our hand coming out of the ditch. Our best teacher was trial and error. That's why so many of you relate to our message because we represent those of you who are willing to change their reality at all costs, no matter where you start from. We found the way out, and we want to help you as well. Instead of making your own footsteps, walk in the footsteps we've already made. Go to alux.com/app right now, download the Alux app, and stick with it. Six to twelve months from now, your life will look substantially different. With the Alux app out there, misery has become a choice, and you're smarter than that. Allow us to be the guiding light we never had when we were in your shoes.
Number six: feeling unlucky or cursed. A bad life is one where you believe the entire universe is trying to keep you down. You feel unlucky or even cursed. Even when you try, it seems like things will not work out in your favor. Here's how we dealt with that: you need to increase your luck surface. You're not lucky because the chances of you getting lucky are too slim, so increase those odds. When we were starting out, someone told us we shouldn't start a business because 9 out of 10 businesses will fail. Hearing that, we decided to start 10 businesses because that way at least one would succeed. It only took four businesses before figuring it out. Life is a game of numbers, effort, and expertise. Try as many times as you can, give it your all every single time, and make sure to learn from each failure because now you're coming back with experience you didn't have before. That's how your luck surface increases.
Number seven: self-abuse. A bad life is one where you feel the need to punish yourself for being alive. You're doing things you know are harmful to you, both in the short term and in the long term. Self-destruction is usually a sign of life spiraling out of control, and it usually acts as a cry for help. But who is there to listen if you're also lonely and alone? Life already has its ups and downs; don't negate the ups by focusing on the downs.
Number eight: every day is the same. When every day starts feeling the same as the one before, you slowly begin to realize that you're not living; you're just waiting to die. That's one of the harshest realizations some people have later in life. They didn't actually live; they just spent the same day over and over again for the past 40 years, and by the time this wake-up call happens, it's already too late. Paolo Coelho put it best in his Alchemist book when he said, "For her, every day was the same," and when each day is the same as the next, it's because people fail to recognize the good things that happen in their lives every day. The sun rises. A bad life is one of ignorance. Life can be incredible, but it requires you to open your eyes and heart to it.
Number nine: unreciprocated love. A bad life is one with unreciprocated love or, in the words of Lana, your favorite cone, "a life without a genuine connection." Yeah, yeah, yeah, we know you're watching it for the plot. Imagine going through life without feeling like the person you were madly in love with will never love you back; a perpetual state of heartbrokenness. What kind of life is that to live? Abandonment issues stem from this feeling of unworthiness of love. But beyond that, a bad life is one where the other simply refuses to engage with your feelings. You will have your heart broken, but you don't have to live with it like that.
Number ten: having no goals, ambitions, or purpose in life. If you've watched Jonah Hill's Stutz documentary on Netflix, which we genuinely recommend you do, you know there are three things you will never escape in your life: pain, uncertainty, and constant work. Now that you know this, you can begin focusing your attention on how you're going to deal with them in the long run. If there's going to be constant work, then the question becomes, what kind of work do I need to embrace that will make this life enjoyable or at least bearable? A person without goals, ambition, or purpose is just like a leaf floating in the middle of the ocean; you are at the mercy of wind and weather. There is nothing for you out there since there's nothing you will do to change your course.
Want to hear something crazy? Surveys show that 83 percent of the population doesn't have goals for themselves. Seventeen percent had plans but not in writing, and only three percent had written goals. All of this while research has shown that you are 42 percent more likely to achieve your goals if they are written down. It might be the case that your life is [ __ ], but you don't even do the most simple of things. Most of you don't even know what you want from life, so there's no way for you to learn how to get there. In this upcoming update to the Alux app, your first experience will be defining exactly what you want from your life, and then we will leverage our database to provide you a path that takes you there. Go to alux.com/app right now and get ready for the next update. We genuinely build a performance-enhancing app; it's the closest thing to a limitless pill you can take. It really works, but you have to put in 10 to 15 minutes every day while you drink your coffee or tea in the morning. Get the app and see for yourself.
Number eleven: hurting more people than you've helped. Did you take more than you gave? What kind of damage did you do? A bad life is one where at the end of it all you're left with a net negative on your existence. A bad life is one where you could have chosen not to do harm to others, yet you did it anyway for personal gain or pleasure. A bad life is one where pain was inflicted without a moral purpose to justify it, and even if you do think it's justified, it's rarely the case that reality is so.
Number twelve: if your children want nothing to do with you. There's a simple way to measure how good of a job you did as a parent; if your kids still want to hang out with you when they're adults and tell you that you've been a great parent, that's the only way to know you've done a great job. Children are one of the closest things you have; they're your absolute inner circle. If your kids are traumatized by you, want nothing to do with you, or avoid you at all costs, you know you screwed up big time. Sometimes it's ego; sometimes it's this desire to feel powerful and relevant, where the only way you'll get a reaction from them will come out of something outrageous you do. Remember that one day you'll die; if the people around you will feel relief that you're gone because you've been a toxic part of their existence, know that you lived a bad life.
Number thirteen: a life without emotion, art, beauty, curiosity, velocity, or creativity. Because of a unilateral focus, art and beauty don't refer to paintings in a museum, although that's one of the simplest ways to encapsulate feelings. But life is about a variety of senses, experiences, memories, and sights. A life without sunsets or sunrises is a life with less. The world is filled with beauty if only you choose to see it. You don't have to travel to Positano or Paris to see it; it's all around you. It's in the color of the fruit, it's in the sound bread makes when you break it, it's in the laughter of children. It's super easy to find yourself a big goal and then spend your entire life in its pursuit, only to realize that by the time you close in on it, time has already run out. You're watching Alux because you're interested in understanding the money game primarily, but here's a gold nugget that we've learned since the beginning of the year: there's a threshold where more money is useless. Actually, it just causes more pain. You should make a ton of money, and we can show you how to get there. But once you do, set aside some for your kids, build the life you want for yourself, and spend the rest. Give it away if you must. If you die with more money than you should, you actually lost the game of life because you spent all of your time making money and not enough time enjoying it.
Number fourteen: a feeling of perpetual entitlement. The world doesn't owe you [ __ ]. Stop expecting it to give you things you haven't earned. Anything of value in this life requires a price of at least equal to the value you are asking for. For example, the worst thing that you can do for your children is leave them enough money that they do not have to do anything at all. They'll grow up spoiled, entitled, and will lack any surviving and thriving mechanism. If that's the case, you just wasted the time and effort it took for you to generate that money.
Number fifteen: a life you’re not grateful for having. In yesterday's Sunday motivational video, we mentioned a quote: "A life not lived is a life you don’t deserve." A big part of that process stems from a feeling of gratitude. We believe that 2023 will be a big year for journaling; more and more people will start keeping a journal in order to document their progress. We do so as well, and every day we begin by writing down two things that we are grateful for. The smart journal inside the Alux app forces you to be more grateful for what you already have; it just sets the mood of the day and reminds us that we've already won. Everything else is just something we're pushing toward as a bonus.
But before we get to the bonus of this video, we want to ask you: what did we miss? In your opinion, what makes for a bad life? Share your insights with the community in the comments. As for those of you who still watch a Monday video until the very end, of course, there's a bonus waiting.
Bonus: it doesn't matter how far you've come if you went the wrong way. Although we appreciate progress in all shapes and sizes, there's a case to be made for true progress versus the illusion of progress. Most people are busy all their lives and never make much progress towards their dreams. This is a big distinction that we want you to focus on this year. Make sure you're making progress, not just keeping busy.
If this video was valuable to you, we recommend you watch the one we did yesterday, as it completes this one really well. Although the Alux lady is coming back in a few days, the Alux team is curious to know what you thought of my male voice. Do you want me to return now and then? That's why we're asking the true Aluxers watching a motivational video on a Monday. It sure was a lot of fun for me to do these, and I would love the opportunity to come back. If not, you'll still find me in the app, narrating some of your favorite learning packs and sleep stories.
Take care. Thanks for spending some time with us today, Alux. We're so glad you did. If you found value in today's video, please give us a like, hit that bell icon to never miss an upload, and hey, don't forget to subscribe.