Internal vs. External Solutions – Part 2

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-By Caleb Jones

A few weeks back, I published an article here called The Stupidity of Looking for External Solutions. While it upset many of you more politically-minded folks both on the left and the right (as I knew it would), it became the most re-posted, re-tweeted, and shared article in the seven-year history of this blog. Clearly, a strong majority of you are interested in this topic, regardless of the smaller percentage of you of whom it angers. Today, I will expand on the topic and the overall concept in an effort to, as always, improve your life rather than worrying about what your world, society, nation, or race is doing or not doing.

In that above linked article, I stated that if you pursue external solutions like becoming politically active in movements or supporting / worshiping politicians (regardless if their names are “Trump” or “Sanders”) with the hopes that these people will somehow directly improve your life, you will succeed only in venting some anger and perhaps making a few new friends. You are extremely unlikely to succeed in actually improving your own life, and you will likely waste decades of your time in the process.

If instead you shift your focus, time, and effort on internal solutions, like working on improving your own income, your dating / relationship abilities with women, your physical fitness, and otherwise improve your own life, while this will still take a few years of work, it will take far less time to achieve real results, and the odds of actually achieving these results are extremely high, often 80% or higher.

Obviously, internal solutions are a much better, smarter, and more efficient way to go about improving your own life, regardless of how entertaining or seductive external solutions may be.

I also said that since you only have very limited time in your life to get all of your stuff done (only about 17 waking hours per day with only three or four decades of truly productive years) like eat, work, pay the bills, attend to family matters, attend to personal hygiene, etc, it’s very foolish to waste your precious little free time on external solutions when you could be focusing on internal solutions instead. Thus, focusing on external solutions is not only non-productive; it can actually harm you by stealing happiness-creating internal solutions away from you.

Does that mean I believe that one should never, ever engage in any external solutions under any circumstances? Not exactly. There are some isolated scenarios where engaging in external solutions won’t harm you. Here they are.

When It’s A Pure Hobby and You Don’t Actually Expect It To Change Anything

The people who are damaging their lives by focusing on external solutions usually suffer from these two conditions:

1. They spend a decent amount of time on external solutions like trolling people on the internet, arguing with people on Facebook or Twitter, watching political videos (that both reinforce and oppose their political viewpoints) and getting worked up about them, voting in national elections, trying to get others to vote, creating or participating in movements to create societal change, getting into screaming fights (both verbal and physical) at protests, and so on. They are doing this stuff every day, seven days a week or close to it, often for hours a day.

2. They really think their guy or the people on their side can actually change things, soon, and in a radical way. In 2000, George W. Bush supporters really thought he was going to make government smaller. (He didn’t, as I said he wouldn’t.) In 2008, Obama supporters really thought he was going to end the US wars in the Middle East. (He didn’t, as I said he wouldn’t.) In 2016, Trump supporters really thought he was going to build an unbroken wall on the Mexican border spanning from San Diego to Brownsville (He won’t. Watch.) In the near future, Bernie Sanders supporters (or whomever replaces his legacy) will really think that they’ll get free college, free health care, and free whatever else, and/or that doing so will work out great. (They'll get those things eventually, but it will be a fucking mess. Watch.) And so on.

If you spend time in external solutions, but you remove these two conditions, then it won’t harm you.

For example, let’s say you consider bitching about politics as a fun hobby, but you are very sure no actual societal change will come of your actions. You know damn well that you bitching on the internet or punching a chad once every four years for the next corporatist president isn’t going to accomplish a damn thing, but you still think it’s fun.

Let’s also say that, in your day-to-day time management, you treat external solutions the same way I treat video games. When I’m playing a particular computer game (and I’m usually not), I play it just three or four times a week at the most. Every time I play, I set a timer for one hour, play my game, and when the timer goes off, I turn the game off and get back to working on my internal solutions (my goals, my Mission, and my life).

Let’s say you do the same with all of your political stuff. Instead of doing it every day for hours a day, you do it three or four times a week for one hour, and you really don’t expect it to make any big changes in your society; it’s just something you do purely for fun.

In that case, being in the external solution world is probably fine. You’re not going to be upset when your guy or your side screws you (which they always do) and you’re not stealing too much precious time away from your internal solutions.
When You’ve Already Reached A Fundamental Success Baseline

As I talk about in my book, a man requires two fundamental areas for long-term happiness regardless of his age, scenario, personality, or interests. That is, money and sex. For a man, these two things provide a basis for all other success in all other areas of life (like family, children, spirituality, etc). Unless you are a very bizarre exception to the rule, lack of either money or sex for prolonged periods will cause you unhappiness regardless of anything else positive occurring in your life.

However, if you reach a baseline of success in your life where your long-term happiness is more or less assured because you've already built that money/sex foundation, then, at that point, it’s probably okay to pursue external solutions if you still want to.

Based on the fundamental baselines of masculine happiness that I talk about in my book, this means that you have accomplished these things:

1. You make $75,000 a year in income or more, via your own business (having a job doesn't count). Convert to your own currency equivalents if you live outside of the US.

2. You have zero or very little debt.

3. You get laid literally whenever you want with women you consider attractive (having sex with ugly or average girls doesn’t count), and can quickly add new, attractive women to your sex life within 30 days whenever you want, and without having to pay for it. (That last part is only if you're under the age of about 50. If you’re over age 50, paying for sex is probably okay as long as you can afford it.)
4. You’re in at least decently average physical shape. You don’t have to be ripped or anything; you can even be a little overweight as long as you’re overall healthy, particularly for your age. I mean that you have no major health problems and you’re not a fatass.

If you've accomplished all four of those things, then if you still want to spend time in external solutions, it’s probably fine. You’ve established a baseline of masculine happiness financially, sexually, and physically, and may be perfectly happy with where you are for the long-term. At that point, if you really want to spend your time trying to save the world, save Western Civilization, save your country, save your race, or whatever other external solution turns you on, then I guess go ahead.

The problem is that the world, and the internet, is jam-packed full of men on both the left and the right who spend hours upon hours farting around with external solutions who make no where near $75,000 a year and/or who barely know how to get laid unless it’s an average / ugly girlfriend or hooker.

NO!!!

Dude. If this is you, you need to slap yourself in the face and wake yourself up from your political trance. You are sucking the happiness out of your life and you’re likely never going to achieve any level of personal success if you’re wasting your time farting around with politics when you don’t make enough money for basic happiness and/or don’t have decent dating skills so you can get the sex you need.

Stop fucking around with external solutions and:
  • Start your own business.
  • Get your income up.
  • Pay off your debt.
  • Get good with women, or at least to an intermediate level of skill with pickup, dating, and relationships.
  • If you have any serious health problems, get them handled (drug addiction, being seriously overweight, sleeping too much or to little, etc).

Once you get those things done, and yes, it might take a few years if you’re starting all of these areas from ground zero, then feel free to spend time on external solutions if you find meaning in that kind of thing.

You May Not Care As Much As You Think You Do

One parting thought about this. Some of your hardcore political types may find this hard to believe, but once you actually get your life to a place where you’re making plenty of money, getting plenty of sex (from attractive women), have your business and finances pretty much the way you want them, you may find that you don’t quite care nearly as much about the world’s problems as you did back when these things were problematic for you. (And even if you do, you'll think about them very differently, taking perhaps a "Bill Gates directly eliminate polio" internal/independent approach rather than a "Bernie Sanders make government force someone else pay for my stuff" external/collectivist approach.)

It’s easy to scream for free college when you’re so goddamn poor you can’t even afford to move out of your parent's house. It’s easy to bitch about Hispanic or Muslim immigrants taking your job when you rely on a dehumanizing corporate job just to pay your friggin' bills. But, once you’re a self-sufficient guy with the parameters I listed above, and you've detached from most of that bullshit system, most or all of these problems go away. That means your concern about them lessens.

I’ve seen it happen, both to me and men I’ve known throughout my life. I was very politically active during the 1990’s, just as angry as many of you about the state of the world/society/nation/culture, back when I was making a fraction of what I make today and when I was barely ever getting laid. Today, since I live the Alpha Male 2.0 lifestyle of high, location independent income from my own businesses that I enjoy, while getting all the attractive sex I want via nonmonogamous relationships, not only do I not care about this stuff anymore, but I actually find it quite hilarious, like watching a comedy movie. My focus has shifted to internal solutions, plus helping the top 10% of men (as opposed to the world or my nation/culture) who actually want to help in their lives, as I described here.

It’s a good place to be. I highly recommend it.

(By the way, if you live in the US and on the East Coast, I've got something for you that will significantly help you on your journey. Watch this blog on Thursday.)

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