Be pissed off and let that drive you

Orthodontics negatively changed your life trajectory. But what are you gonna do about it?

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It is pretty much everyday that I get someone either DMing me or writing a post in our community about how they were damaged by orthodontics.

Sometimes I even get multiple such messages in a day.

And in some messages they talk not just about what it did to their health or appearance, but rather also what it did to their life trajectory.

For example they were a happy, good looking child and then after the braces they had attention and mental health issues… plus their appearance got far worse.

Many folks in fact send me these pictures of how they looked before the braces as proof of how they were on a solid trajectory before it came crashing down.

And I feel for them. I really do.

Because at various points along my journey I was there in a similar place of regret.

But my question to them is…. “Ok your eyes have been opened to what happened to you. Now what are you going to do about it?”

Make your recovery your battlecry

The first step is of course to recover. And that takes time.

But my advice is declare war. I sometimes think about Winston Churchill’s famous quote:

"We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender."

As it kind of depicts how I approach this stuff.

I don’t expect to win quickly. I know from having it done it before that this process takes time.

But i bring passion to making everyday a battle. I often use every spare minute to do my stretches to push my progress just a little bit forward.

I think of the enemy as all the dentists and people that told me I was wrong. I imagine them being the ones defending the beaches of Normandy as I storm their asses.

And take them out one by one. Till their numbers whittle down and they realize at some point they will lose.. their bullshit lies will be laid bare for all to see.

Then i can see the fear in their eyes.

And I relish it.

They are now the hunted.

Remember the pain… and use it as a weapon

I’ve gone through many mentally painful moments in my journey. Particularly in the last decade or so.

I remember people that disrespected me.

People that hurt me.

Times when i felt like I wanted to give up as it felt like the whole world had conspired against me.

And I bottled all that pain and parked it somewhere deep. Somewhere you cannot see in my daily, happy demeanor.

But it’s there.

And I use it like a weapon to drive me. To give more meaning to each and everyday.

You see i am not a ‘turn the other cheek’ type of person.

I want to get even with all of them. Or at least all of the ones I remember.

And getting even doesn’t have to mean doing something bad to them. That would take too much effort and I honestly don’t want to give them the respect of expending much effort.

Rather for me.. it will be sufficient to look and feel amazing for the coming decades as they fall apart, which aging invariably will do to most of them.

I can look at their wrinkled, assymetric face… their twisted body…. and just smile as i think to myself…. “You lost. I won.”

The puzzle to a long, healthy & happy life was not the the exercise & diet paradigm you thought it was.

Be the rich dad from the book “Rich Dad Poor Dad”

Robert Kiyosaki’s classic book “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” was first published when I was in college back in 1997.

It’s about a kid with two fathers… one of them invests wisely while the other one invests poorly.

And so I like to think of this metaphor a lot. Because once you understand the rules of these biomechanics you realize that it is kind of the equivalent of being the ‘Rich dad’ in terms of health, your appearance, your function and a lot more.

And you just need to let these biomechanics compound.

Then time will do the rest.

You just need to be patient.

And so you can watch as the people that made fun of you do their exercise regimes and diets, take their Ozempic, do their veneers, their palate expanders, and all the rest of it.

And inside you know that that is the equivalent of them behaving like the poor dad living paycheck to paycheck. Their health, appearance, function… none of it will compound. It will only get worse.

You will gain ground daily and then surpass them almost effortlessly.

The question is only when.

Closing thoughts

Today’s piece was another somewhat philosophical one… not just because I like writing these haha.

But also because this game is so much about psychology.

You hit plateaus and you need to stay determined and problem solve to fight your way past them.

The weak turn and run. Or they second guess.

I know because I did it many times.

But at the end i figured it out and did it without a guide or a roadmap.

Why?

Because the shit that burns inside me… burns deep.

I wasn’t gonna accept anything except total victory in my fight.

Find that fire… and you will be there with me at the end of this tunnel.