Ryan Gomez

Complacency

I don’t become complacent because my inner guidance is calibrated toward meaning, not ease. Comfort is a byproduct, not a goal. I’ve trained myself to find satisfaction not in external rewards, but in alignment with my values and vision. That keeps me moving forward even when things are already “good enough” by most standards.

I’ve earned comfort precisely because it's not my main priority. I pursued clarity, mastery, and integrity, which over time created internal stability and external resilience. By eliminating distractions and refusing to settle, I accumulated momentum, insight, and control. Forms of deep, earned comfort that most never reach because most seek shallow relief instead of sharp living.

My peace is the result of pressure skillfully applied. I don't see peace as the absence of challenge. Peace comes from using pressure in a thoughtful, focused way. I apply effort deliberately and with purpose. I built a one of a kind, original system that turns difficulty into opportunity. My lifestyle gives me great influence and control over my life. My peace is strong because it was built through lived experience. It lasts because it’s based on choices, not just luck.

Love this!

Time

Time is the most precious resource. Everything I’m building, internally and externally, depends on the precise, deliberate use of my time and attention. I don’t treat these as casual or renewable because I know they shape the direction of my life story for years to come. Every breakthrough I’ve had came from focused energy, not just random effort. My entire system of progress is built on clear thinking, depth, and alignment. All of which are impossible without me ruthlessly protecting time and attention. Nothing can outperform the compounding power of focused time applied to meaningful work. Not focused? Then ngmi.

Dots

You can't connect the dots looking forward. The future is never 100% visible in advance. It fully reveals itself only when I look backward. In moments of adversity, confusion, and loneliness, clarity is always incomplete. Yet somehow, the deepest insights and greatest achievements in my life emerged precisely from those uncertain periods. I've learned that trying to predict the future 100% is useless. Trusting that the dots will eventually connect is key. When I faced rejection, setbacks, or loss, it felt senseless at the time. Only later could I see how those experiences prepared me for something profoundly better.

I discovered resilience through suffering, clarity through confusion, and wisdom through necessary mistakes. Some of the best decisions I've made never felt entirely safe or entirely rational in the moment. They provided wisdom over time, often long after I'd made them. The path I followed was often scrappy, uncertain, and impossible to justify logically in advance. Yet every unconventional step I took turned out to be necessary, even crucial, when reflected upon in retrospect.

This truth liberated me from the burden of always needing immediate, 100% clarity. I trust my intuition and values to guide me when the road ahead remains uncertain. I understand deeply that faith in the journey, and in my own ability to adapt, matters more than certainty about specific outcomes. My most meaningful breakthroughs arose from embracing the unknown, rather than resisting or fearing it. All the risk, moments of disciplined solitude, and hard choices eventually connected beautifully to form a priceless, personalized story.

Today my peace and confidence come from knowing I don't have to see 100% clearly ahead. Instead, I trust the integrity of my choices, believing fully that they'll make sense when viewed from a future vantage point. Life is lived forward, and more clearly understood backward. That's the mystery, challenge, and beauty of it. By moving ahead with courage and conviction, I know that I'll look back and see precisely how each dot connected as they were meant to be.

Participate in Your Own Rescue

We are not passive passengers in this life.
We are responsible for the direction of our own becoming.
No one is coming to save us.
We must participate in our own rescue. Not out of pride, but out of love.
Because useless waiting weakens our character.

The longer we delay, the more we betray the part of us that knows better.
We were not born to drift endlessly through distraction, false comfort, and conformity.
We were given a mind to think, a will to act, and a heart that remembers truth.
Rescue begins the moment we stop outsourcing what is sacred.
We reclaim the responsibility to respond to what aches within.

No external permission will ever feel as right as internal drive.
We will not be rescued by institutions, validation, or shallow reassurances.
Those things can only distract us from the authentic voice calling us to rise.
We must be the ones to reach into our own darkness and create light.
No one else can carry the weight of our potential. Experiences not yet lived.

We rescue ourselves by listening to what we’ve avoided.
By walking through the discomfort we’ve numbed.
By telling the truth we’ve been afraid to see.
We become free not by escaping pressure, but by learning to breathe inside it.
There is no shortcut to becoming someone we respect.

We cannot keep waiting for clarity to arrive before we begin.
Clarity is a reward for a meaningful lifestyle. Not a prerequisite.
Each daily act of integrity is a rescue.
Each time we choose principle over fear, we remember who we are.
When no one is watching, every moment we act with care builds our foundation.

We participate in our own rescue not all at once, but decision by decision.

We become the kind of person we needed when we were most lost.
We stop blaming the world, not because it’s innocent, but because blame won’t save us.
We shift from hoping to building. From waiting to choosing.
And in doing so, we find excellence. A life we can admire, even in the midst of a storm.

Fear

Most kill their own character because they are afraid. Of rejection, of failure, of standing alone when necessary. They trade who they are for approval, comfort, or safety, believing it will hurt less that way. This is a trap. Over time, they stop recognizing themselves. They silence truth, and follow a life that was never truly theirs. They know it deep down, but tell themselves it's “normal” or “just how things are.”

Fear makes them avoid hard decisions, authentic conversations, and bold changes. So they stay in systems that don’t care about them, around people who don’t see them, doing work that drains them. They survive, but never live. They keep postponing their real life, waiting for permission that never comes. In doing so, they bury the one thing that could have made it all worth it. Their true self.

So tragic...

Recommended: https://sites.psu.edu/acepassion2/2021/02/24/learned-helplessness-experiment/

Application

Wisdom, strategy, and ideas are nothing without application.

If it doesn’t move the needle, it doesn’t matter.

If it can’t survive contact with reality, it’s not strategy.

If it isn’t applied, it isn’t wisdom.

Determined application is what stands the test of time.

Act and adapt.

The Flow State

Periods spent fully disconnected and uninterrupted are crucial because that’s when genuine insight and unique ideas form, allowing you to plan meaningful next steps. Effective execution depends entirely on thoughtful, high quality strategies. Nothing can replace deliberate and focused progress. If you allow distractions to interrupt this flow state, you'll find yourself lost and off track.

Rushing or compromising quality inevitably leads to unnecessary stress, friction, and anxiety. To truly move fast, prioritize meaningful, high quality execution. You need to be biased for action.

Thinking slowly and intentionally, using your mind’s most deliberate and thoughtful functions, is essential. Active recall, spaced repetition, visualizing, original thinking, creative thought experiments, letting your mind wander, and writing. All contribute significantly to producing exceptional outcomes. You must deliberately reduce shallow, reactive, and unclear thinking. Since mental capacity is limited, changing your perspective regularly helps keep your thinking fresh. Between intense sessions of mental work, your subconscious mind needs downtime such as light exercise or spending time outdoors, to process experiences effectively.

Avoiding conformity, over stimulation, and mediocrity is key. Approach problems from first principles and consider new, unique angles. Start small and do important things that may initially seem unscalable, then scale up only when you have real momentum. Eliminate anything that doesn’t contribute genuine value. Creating a lifestyle based on these principles significantly increases your likelihood of producing breakthroughs. Position yourself thoughtfully and intentionally. Good luck will naturally follow.

History is shaped by people who take real, purposeful action, consistently getting important tasks done. Continuously learn, update your knowledge quickly, and ruthlessly focus on what's both urgent and important. A life filled with sincere ambition and meaningful pursuit is one well lived. The deep life is the best life.

Fyi:

"Active recall is a learning method where you continuously test yourself by pulling information out of your memory instead of just passively reading notes. Studies have shown (Rawson & Dunlosky, 2011; Roediger & Butler, 2011; Roediger, Putnam, & Smith, 2011) it strengthens memory and helps move information into your long-term memory, making it one of the best methods for revision and studying. Flashcards are a great way to use active recall as you’re testing yourself with a prompt or question and strengthening the connections in your brain."

"Spaced repetition is the oldest technique in memory science that is the most powerful, reliable, and easy to use. Distributed learning or spaced repetition is one of the longest researched topics in cognitive psychology, starting from Hermann Ebbinghaus’s studies of his own recall as early as 1885. For too long, we have treated spacing as an optional strategy and an educational add-on. Conversely, spacing is fundamental to learning that is present in the tiniest neural connections of the simplest of animals. Experiments have shown that even fruit flies can be taught to fear certain odors and this memory is stickier if their training sessions are spaced out."

"As one of the most innovative thinkers of the early twentieth century, Einstein was no stranger to the power of thought experiments. As a child, he dreamed up a thought experiment about chasing a beam of light, which led him to uproot the existing physics paradigm. He outlined his general relativity theory through thought experiments that contained accelerating elevators, blind beetles exploring curved surfaces, and a person falling off a roof."

Recommended video about the flow state!

Choose Reason Anyway

If the world actually worked in an "ideal" way... healthy, competent, ethical people would be the ones in charge. They would be the leaders. They wouldn't tolerate inequality, injustice, and atrocities. Competence, character, and ethical clarity would naturally rise to the top. Those with self awareness, depth, and a genuine concern for others would lead. Not because they crave power, but because they are best suited to manage it.

The reality is that human nature, and the nature of our universe, is not designed for reason. Reality is not ideal.

Systems today reward charisma instead of wisdom, shallow promotion instead of substance, and conformity instead of integrity. Structures are designed to perpetuate control for few and false comfort for the average person. Not to elevate truth or quality of life and experiences. Many of the most capable people are dismissed, silenced, or burnt out. While the lucky, loud, politically skilled, or power hungry dominate the places that shape resource allocation, culture, policy, and direction.

Fragile institutions fear being challenged by those with sharper perception or moral resolve. This is human nature. Our biology. Survival in a messy life. The universe is not inherently good, and neither are humans.

So when someone sees clearly how messed up it all is, it can feel absurd. Because it is. The tragedy isn’t just personal, it’s widespread. But knowing this also gives you clarity. The greatest minds will rarely be "crowned." They must lead with reason anyway. Through strategic resistance, presence, influence, authentic work, and optimism rooted in reality (always find a positive spin on things).

External validation and being "crowned" is overrated.

Deep Idealism Trap

I admire Tesla, Einstein, and Nietzsche. But I’m also disappointed in them. The more I understand their lives, the clearer it becomes that brilliance isn’t enough. Intelligence without sharp judgment tends to get exploited. Each of these men changed the world fundamentally, and for the better. But they also fell victim to their own ideals. Painfully, that matters to me. It matters because I’ve seen the cost of being too principled or self righteous in a society that doesn’t reward "purity." I’ve lived it.

Tesla gave up generational wealth to keep Westinghouse afloat. He thought loyalty and friendship were more important than leverage. In some way, I respect that. But to throw away your well being for a so called principle? That’s not noble to me. That’s reckless. I understand why he did it. I would have felt that pressure too. But part of me wants to shake him and say, "You needed to be smarter." You had the future in your hands. You could have protected your position and still helped people. Instead, you died alone, financially ruined, and erased from the public mind for decades. It didn’t have to end that way.

Einstein also had a sort of moral high ground. He opposed war and stood up for civil rights, which I deeply admire. But he also lived with a strange detachment from real consequences. He didn’t protect the people closest to him. He had addictions. He hurt his wives. He abandoned his daughter. He seemed more loyal to abstract ideas than to the emotional realities in front of him. I get it. I know what it’s like to live inside your head and serve something greater than yourself. But that doesn’t excuse emotional negligence. High intelligence doesn’t justify low empathy and self sabotage.

And Nietzsche. He saw through so much. His clarity about power, morality, and human nature was almost supernatural. But he didn’t take care of his mind. He pushed until it snapped. He lived in isolation, then lost everything, drifting into madness while others hijacked his work and contributions. There's an urgent warning to internalize here. When you’re too unwilling to reshape your thoughts and work for others, the world either ignores you or breaks you. Most will never care about brilliance on its own. Nietzsche refused to make the right compromises. I admire that, but at the same time, I don't. There’s nothing romantic about watching a rare mind rot in silence while the mediocre thrive.

All three of them remind me of what I could become if I don’t constantly evolve a better strategy. Not just better ideas. Not just better ideals. Better strategy. Tesla didn’t manage his leverage. Einstein didn’t manage his drama. Nietzsche didn’t manage his health. Each of them sacrificed stability for vision. And each paid a brutal price.

I’m not here to repeat that. I will protect what I build. I will preserve my mind. I will guard my energy and dignity. I’m not afraid to care deeply about the world. But I won’t let it use me. I see what happens when brilliance is unprotected. I refuse to bleed out in service of people who will never understand me. I reject martyrdom.

I still admire the three I mentioned. I learned a lot from what they got wrong. Too many brilliant minds die and suffer unnecessarily.