Why you can’t live life like the people on Medium are telling you to.

Don’t take all that advice too seriously.

Unfortunately this is advice, too.

People tend to give advice in its most radical form. Especially those who are paid for writing about it. It took me a while to understand that.

As your parents were teaching you not to play with fire they probably told you that if you did the house would burn down. Not that in 90% of all cases most likely nothing would happen. But it worked on you.

Same applies for all the Why successful people get up at 4am kind of stories. Those who tell these stories probably got up at 4am once. Would you have read the story if it was named Why some successful people sometimes get up at 4am, but mostly go to work like everyone else?

People tell you the extreme, because it is more effective and it eventually sells better. Allow yourself to feel inspired, but don’t feel pressured.

Another problem with storytelling is that it always happens in hindsight. And in hindsight everything seems more compressed, tighter and eventually more extreme. Ever told someone about that amazing Saturday night (you might even called it the best night ever), which was 90% of average and only 10% of ‘amazing’ time?

And if you ever are in the situation of giving advice: At least give the advice to balance that advice as well.