Introduction to the Site

I love reading books and doing anything that will help me learn about this reality that surrounds me. When I was looking for a new path in life it was only natural that where I sought answers first was within books. I had read tons of history, economics, and business books which made it clear that although I could for sure make a living within ‘the system’ through exploitation, that path never resonated with me. I looked within myself and found that I was unhappy with my physical appearance, my finances, my social/romantic life, my status, my clothes, my lack of respect, etc….and I wanted to change that so I dug deeper.

My natural inclination towards curiosity, led me to seek information out on how to cure these problems. I felt lonely, so well, I searched for how to get a girlfriend and was met with superficial information about pickup lines and whatnot which while helpful (I could use a set opener to start a conversation) didn’t really reflect what I saw the guys around me who were successful with women were doing. With my finances the same thing happened, more superficial information about playing by the rules, finding a job with benefits for some corporation and doing that until I could hopefully retire. Once again, this didn’t reflect the reality of both my reading and what I saw around me…wages have stagnated for decades, personal debt has increased, people are working longer hours or not at all, and retirement has been getting pushed back for people who did ‘all the right things’.

When every area of my life I sought to improve upon turned up the same superficial type of result, I began to seriously question the validity of both my search and of society itself. I realized that all of my problems essentially boiled down to how I perceived my situation due to years of conditioning and not in any inherent flaw within myself. I felt like a failure because I didn’t have this, that, or the third but I began to think about what failure really meant on a larger scale. Was I a failure if I wasn’t in the top 1%? Was I a failure if I didn’t have model girlfriends and the best of everything? Was I a failure if I didn’t meet the criteria of society by any other metric that is randomly set? When my mind was at its most selfish I would’ve said yes and then gotten depressed about it. But what if I thought outside of myself for a second….is a poor man somewhere in the world a failure? Does some indigenous tribe member feel like a failure because he doesn’t drive a Ferrari? No, he has no concept of it and very well might find it ridiculous. Were people 200 years ago failures because they lived, worked, and died on a farm, never to experience the joys of picking up a chick at a bar? Of course not! These societies had completely different concepts about their lives, so that told me that the one in which I live is entirely a fabrication. These beliefs have to be perpetuated because if people feel content, they don’t need to buy useless crap constantly and if they don’t buy useless crap constantly the economic system craps out.

When the change within my own mindset began to take hold from one that was completely self-absorbed to one that was secure in myself but thought about the bigger picture, I really became interested in social conditioning and how deeply different socio-economic factors affect people’s lives and their ability to be content within them. It’s quite a realization to truly understand that you are not alone versus just knowing that as a concept. The same questions I was trying to have answered I realized that other people were looking for them as well. Using the Google Keyword Tool: “How to lose fat” gets 1.5 million searches a month (just that keyword, imagine all the variations of that), “How to get a girlfriend” yields 550K, “How to be happy” 55.6 million searches a month! Hmm, seems like there is a whole lot of people who were just like me. What does that tell you about society? Does that sound like a healthy and functional place to you?

Where this all led to and the point of this article (haha I’m getting there, be patient) is that I ultimately found that I love expressing ideas with people in order try and help them to solve problems or at least offer another way to think about them. All those people who share the same longings and questions that I did, all of the anger and confusion I felt about the path society wants me to take, all of the readings, and experiences that I have had led me to this. It was my desire to create a living for myself in the future without holding a job that I hated, that pushed me to begin writing online. At first it was mostly fluff but nonetheless it was information that people wanted to find.

A few years ago, I wrote a blog post about how I dealt with my depression. That was the key connection between my passion for expressing ideas/helping people and trying to make a living online. I had written other articles in the past that have received 50,000+ views but this one honest post about depression received 12 Facebook likes. The reason that I remember the exact number is because of how genuinely great it made me feel to know that I might have helped those 12 people out in even the smallest way. I thought back to how dark my mind used to be, how sick and I sad I had once felt, and how they were probably feeling the exact same way I had or even worse. I have no idea the extent or effect that that post ultimately had on these people, but it touched them on some level. One side effect of this honest content, was that people who had read that post first on my blog, stayed on my site the longest, read the most articles, and clicked the most advertisements which made me the most money out of any other post I had written. This all showed me that if you truly express your ideas in depth and in an honest way that helps people, the financial rewards will take care of themselves.

How do you find what you truly love doing in life? How do you feel this passion for something when everything around you can seem so meaningless? Those were some of the questions I’ve had in my life and I still face to this day. Along the way, through posting on this website I want to explore those and other similar questions that guys around my age face. Let me state for the record that I’m not a guru. I’m not a pick up artist. I’m not anything really, other than a guy expressing his opinions on various topics and sharing his own experiences.

So with all that in mind, I’d like to welcome you to Attract Your Development. The ‘attract’ in the name reflects my goal of attracting the life I want and helping others do the same. The ‘development’ refers to the personal development aspect that permeates the articles on this site. It is not merely relying on sending out intentions and relying on the ‘law of attraction’ to do work for us, but it is using personal development to take action and help shape the life we want to lead. Enjoy the site, take your time and read some articles if you would, and try to think about the changes you’d like to see happen in your own reality…even if you didn’t like anything here.

Tens of thousands of people have already paid this website a visit, so here is a list of its greatest hits:

How to Get Your Ex-Girlfriend Back: Do You Really Want to?

How to Make Money with a Niche Website

Dealing with Loneliness

Best Smelling Cologne for Men

No Fap Challenge Benefits

Financing Your Lifestyle: Creating a Passive Income

How to Start a Conversation with a Girl at a Party

Building Self-Confidence

30 Days to Start a Life Change

How to Dress Well for College Men

Quitting Energy Drinks

Also, I don’t always make recommendations but I have created a reading list for this site based on books that either enjoyed or felt that they helped me immensely in some way. I love working out as well, not only because it helps to keep me in shape but the mental clarity and sleep benefits have been amazing. I have been using Visual Impact Cardio as a part of my workout routine and I really like how challenging it is. Here are my reading recommendations and a review on Visual Impact Cardio.

Visual Impact Cardio Review

The Attract Your Development Reading List