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[Alexandr Korol]

backed into a corner, they read my books very carefully. They respect ordinary people and listen to me without argument. But give that person freedom, and they will dismiss you and me, thinking they are superior. This is how ego inflates. I’ve tried to reflect on this from different angles multiple times. The ego inflates from good opportunities. And then something happens to deflate that ego, and the person becomes scared again, humble, confined – but very attentive. And you know what? People like that focus very well. They read my books very quickly. But when their ego inflates, and they get freedom, they don’t have time to read. They can’t focus.
Imagine this paradox. Let’s set aside my books, readers, and everything else for a moment, and imagine a simple situation, like being in school, discussing things with classmates and teachers. You might logically assume, as most people do, that a person can’t read a book because they work at five factories, have many tasks, poor living conditions, no money, and they’re always tired. This person would sincerely tell us that, “If life were a bit easier, I’d read books avidly.” But the paradox is that in 100% of cases, if you give this person freedom, so they don’t have to go to the factory, give them money and housing, they will say something different. They’ll say, “I can’t read books, I can’t concentrate.” Even though, back in those difficult conditions, they at least managed to read something, maybe 50 pages. And back then, they would say, “If life weren’t so hard, I’d read a book in a day.” But give them an easier life, and they can’t even read five pages. Isn’t that a paradox? And this is one of the themes I constantly need to bring my readers back to in all my books, to remind them of it. Of course, each person is in their own place, in their own skin, in their own, let’s call it, multiverse, at their own frequency, living in their own world with their own challenges. But if you strip away all the noise, the essence is the same for everyone. I want you to take note of this once and for all: when you’re suffering from something, and if the system gives you a temporary break from it, it’s watching to see how you’ll handle it. Now, let’s say you’ve got a job where you don’t have to wake up at 6 AM and your salary is five times higher. Here’s how you can use this opportunity without losing it. Now you should wake up at 5 AM, not at 6, even if you don’t need to. Out of gratitude to the system, because it gave you better conditions, you should sleep an hour less. Even if your work starts at 11 AM, you should wake up at 5, not 6. That’s how you should treat the freedom that life might give you to try. But the system will take it away quickly if it sees you starting to be lazy. The same goes for everything else.