Nobody is Going to Save Nikocado. Nobody.

this is 6am
freezing my ass off west coast of canada walking to the gym why would i do that to myself why would i put myself out here on the block my fingers and toes and nose numb in this cold beneath this strangely bright white overcast sky first thing in the morning just to go and do 200 push-ups on my knuckles on a rubberized floor at a time of day when it can be guaranteed there will not even be one good looking woman at the aforementioned gym at a time when the only people working out there are basically endurance athlete nerds who bring their tie to the gym to change into their office apparel at about 6 45 a.m and go off to their respectable jobs well i go back to my apartment with my gorgeous 25 year old friend to do youtube why would i do this to myself this is the fundamental reason old man some of us are up at 6 00 am walking to the gym and some of us are on youtube feeling sorry for ourselves on a whole another level people think the difference between discipline and self-discipline is the difference between mustard and dijon mustard and it's not nothing could be further from the truth what you've got to learn in this life is to laugh at and sneer and spit on discipline and to value self-discipline and this is exactly nickel god i have a goddess problem in life i see you breaking down weeping in one video after another old man i just want to be normal and i'm not adorable the last time i talked to orly he just told me to jump off the roof i'm disgusting i'm so ugly look at me i [ __ ] have this double chin i've worked so hard trying to lose my weight to get rid of my double chin given the fact that you clicked on this video this is a situation most likely you already know nicoto avocado is an ex-vegan and he's been coming on youtube he's been coming on the internet uploading videos weeping crying for help saying in effect somebody fix me i'm broken but why number one he feels unlovable number two he actually is unlovable number three he is aware of points one and 0.2 but he is not sure of what to do about it he knows about the problem he does not yet know the solution he's at that dangerous level of enlightenment and ignorance where he knows enough that he can accurately perceive himself as sub-human garbage also but feels powerless he knows not what to do about this fact the difference between discipline and self-discipline is the difference between being the commander or the general in your own army and being the lazy piece of [ __ ] that the army commander has to scream at while he's doing push-ups that the other soldiers have to roll out of bed where other people have to pick you up explain to you why you're motivated we're basically you're like the psychological equivalent of a leech not sucking the blood out of other people but sucking something out of them that they're probably much more reluctant to give away than their blood their own sense of will and direction other people have exactly what you lack even in accomplishing the things you do want to accomplish yourself let alone those things that you lack the foresight or vision to realize you ought to want to accomplish grocery store isn't even open yet this doesn't just apply to doing push-ups in the gym of course people who lack self-discipline those are going to be the people who pay to go to a language school not to have a teacher explain the language to them not to have the teacher provide them with the tools they need to learn the language but precisely for the school to provide them with deadlines expectation peer pressure even basically these are people who lack the ability to direct and motivate and govern themselves and spend their whole lives trying to sell themselves into a kind of slavery whether that's with uh a boyfriend or a girlfriend who goes into a higher standard whether that's with a university professor language teacher maybe they have a trainer at the gym maybe they have someone they look up to who can hold them that higher standard but uh these are people who are going to spend their whole lives looking around outside themselves for some of the rest of us are going to find within it should be obvious to all of you by now that we are discussing a problem that cannot be solved through diet and exercise as much as i might love to pretend to solve this problem by selling you a copy of my ebook for 17.99 so that you also can learn how to do 200 push-ups a day on your knuckles by supposedly following uh black and white diagrams and getting a few paragraphs of meaningless pep talk in bold italic text interspersed with anecdotes about my unbelievably awesome life that's actually not the way to go in this specific scenario again the fundamental solution for being a terrible person is not to work on the optics is not to try to tackle the fact that people perceive you as unlovable as a scumbag as garbage as a terrible person but to work on the fact that you uh you actually are a terrible person so those of you who follow me on twitter will notice i said this a couple times in the last few days what uh diet and exercise can do for you is offer a very limited and very shallow change in your personal appearance and by contrast changing who you actually are is profound and seemingly unlimited so in talking about discipline and self-discipline it's much the same whether we're talking about uh something intangible and ethical and philosophical like veganism or something entirely tangible like doing 200 push-ups a day it's not the same thing if you only become vegan because your boyfriend or your girlfriend already was vegan and forces you to be vegan against your will and in accordance with their will that's their self-discipline that's them dominating you now there is a further wrinkle to this because uh nicotta is currently living under the delusion that he eats food for a living that people pay to watch him eat food and you're wrong nick your job what you're paid to do is to come on the internet and talk about your feelings you don't do a cooking show man nobody nobody really can possibly be so ignorant that they don't know what a miserable fat dude eating a mcdonald's hamburger looks like most of us see that every day that's not what the show is man the show ultimately is you the question of whether or not you should be vegan become vegan again ultimately doesn't have to do with the food doesn't have to do with the animals doesn't have to do with ecology it doesn't even have to do with your health it has to do with you it has to do with what kind of human being do you want to be you showing a sense of responsibility that you don't just want to be a you don't just want to be a mindless consumer you want to at the bare minimum be a mindful consumer that's that's not a lot to ask nick it doesn't really matter whether you think of this optimistically or pessimistically but on the level of practical philosophy the good news is you can change who you are you can be in your own eyes a good person rather than a contemptible piece of garbage but the way to do that is by changing who you are but fundamentally becoming a good person not raising your self-esteem not making yourself appear to be a good person in the eyes of others but uh making a change that starts with what for some people is a crushing and demoralizing realization of uh just who it is they are right now just what it is that needs to be changed just all of the assumptions and excuses in your life that have to be discarded and you know some people are broken by that some people never come back habits don't define who you are but they exhibit who you are and with time not even all that much time you become the reflected image of your habits and that happens relatively quickly with the habit of going to the gym with diet and exercise but it happens instantaneously with the habits of the mind so yeah nick you can change you can be a different person you can be a better person you can be a good person question we all get asked now is uh will you ah ba le ciel