The day I made $1,100 and still felt poor

Hi friend,

I made $1,100 yesterday.

That’s the most money I’ve ever made in a single day.

Now, I’m not writing this to brag. I really don’t make a lot of money by the standards of where I live.

The reason I’m writing this is because I realized something yesterday after I earned that money.

I’m never going to be happy.

Let me explain.

Last year, when I started my landscaping business, I did 2 leaf cleanups in a day.

The first job paid me $300.

The second job paid me $150.

A total of $450 over the course of about 7-8 hours.

At the time, that was the most money I’ve ever made in a single day. That would normally take me 2-3 days to make working hourly or at a salaried job.

My mind was blown.

But on that day, something strange happened.

I suddenly realized that it was possible to make $450 in a single day, and as a result, my baseline for what I considered “a lot of money” went up.

Over the next 8 months my baseline continued to go up.

The weird thing is that any amount of money earned below this baseline, was now considered a regular amount of money, or in some cases, a “bad” day. Even if at some point in the past, it would have been the most money I’ve ever made in a single day.

I’m at the point now where earning $600 in a day seems normal.

(Once again, I’d like to take a moment to emphasize that I am not rich. I do not earn this kind of money every day. There are several days a week I earn $0. I also live in Canada, so my line of work is only possible 7-8 months of the year, leaving me practically unemployed for 4-5 months.)

The same thing happened with my YouTube channel.

I had an old video “blow up”.

At the time I write this, it has 44,000 views.

The most views I had gotten before that was 5,000.

So, my baseline for “a lot of views” has now gone from 5,000 to 45,000.

That really sucks.

It sucks because the video I posted last week performed objectively well given the context of my entire channel (1,800 views), but I feel like it’s a flop because it was way less than 44,000 views.

I know, poor me, right? Cry me a river.

So, what’s the lesson here?

I guess it’s this: The goalpost always keeps moving.

The human brain is really weird. It evolved to always desire more.

And while that was a necessary trait 100,000 years ago (finding more food, better shelter, having more children, etc), it isn’t so practical today.

In fact, it’s an extremely quick path to unhappiness.

But that’s the path that most of us (certainly myself) are heading down.

Maybe the real challenge isn’t earning $1,500 in a day, or getting 50,000 views on a video, or achieving what ever it is you are trying to achieve.

Maybe the real challenge is learning to appreciate what we have right now.

To stop for a moment, look around, and say, "Hey, this is actually pretty cool."

Because if we keep chasing after the next big thing, we're guaranteed to miss out on the good stuff right in front of us right now.

I’ll leave you with one of my favourite quotes from Marcus Aurelius:

A SONG I CAN’T STOP LISTENING TO

I can’t stop listening to this song/album. If you like dance music, check it out.

Until next time, try not to take life too seriously.

Talk soon,

Devin

P.S. In case you missed it, here is my link to my free reading list.