Foreword: Why We Must Factory-Reset Our Minds
Yes, you must reinstall all your apps too.
“Many people die at twenty five and aren't buried until they are seventy five.”
― Benjamin Franklin
Our world view is generally set by the time we reach our early twenties - while our brain retains plasticity, our perspective and view of the world is broadly formed by then, making it hard to change unless some strong stimulus is received.
For many of us, there is no such event in our youth and young adulthood as we are brought up in a life structured around safety - by preparing, saving, and carefully planning. Especially in sheltered countries such as Singapore.
This is what many of us are taught from the moment we achieve memory recall as a toddler. In the videos we watch. In the classes we attend. There is a path, trodden by the masses, and it is a safe path.
Kindergarten leads to primary school, which eventually leads to college, perhaps graduate school, and a career, followed by a family and yes, prosperity. This is the boot loading program we all go through, similar to what happens to your computer when you first turn it on and see the apple or windows logo.
Except, this is not reality due to two unspoken truths:
Firstly, as life meanders on, a strong stimulus inevitably occurs despite our best efforts at staving it off. And when it does, it is internalized instead of being used as a catalyst to spur action due to a lack of preparedness. Our boat has capsized but we still can’t help ourselves and continue to row harder with our trusted paddle, even as the boat sinks deeper and deeper into the ocean’s depths. This leads to desensitization and a feeling of emptiness that desperately seeks to be quenched. No matter how many times we “reboot” ourselves, just like a computer stricken with malware, the problem persists to our ever increasing aggravation once we “log in.”
Secondly, and more insidiously, is the truth that the promised prosperity is not all what it was made up to be, even in the unlikely case of becoming successful whilst dodging most of life’s curve balls. For after landing a great job, raising a textbook family, and acquiring a home, we inevitably realize that saving and living carefully to prepare for retirement in an old age home isn’t the golden ticket to prosperity we thought it would be. Especially as we continue to live longer and longer lives.
Is it then really a surprise that the most common regrets of people on their deathbeds are spending too much time at work and living someone else's life and not their own?
Material acquisitions can provide temporary relief along the way, as can accomplishments such as promotions and business success - but the emptiness in fulfillment continues to be a chronic and recurring theme. While serial-entrepreneurship may evoke a sense of accomplishment, it begs the question of when is enough. Likewise, the same question festers for billionaires who cannot answer how much is enough. And the list goes on.
Here is another truth: none of us are sentenced to live the life we are living - we all choose to live as we are.
We at FoFty are committed to breaking this cycle, to broadcasting truths, to assisting those willing and ready to listen, and to emancipating as many minds as we can from mental slavery.
The FoFty manuscript detailing its ideology, concepts, and frameworks will be shared incrementally each week through this Substack instead of publishing it in its entirety as a book. FoFty is a fluid and evolving belief system, whereas books are essentially snapshots in time. Snapshots may provide value at some point in the future, but not at genesis - so here we go.
The first step is to factory-reset our minds, to unload all the outdated boot-up programs fed to us since our childhood that operate beneath our consciousness and create blind spots we aren’t even aware of.
That software is old and must be discarded.
➡️ Watch the accompanying YouTube video of this post here:
http://fofty.net
About Sang: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sangyshin