The One Thing
Dec 13, 2025
What’s really underneath everything.
This essay is different from my usual writing. I’m a couple of weeks away from the end of my 67th year and not feeling inclined to waste time. I’m showing up to do some existential excavation today; if you’re here for comfort, I’m not your guy. If you’re here for transformation, pull up a chair. You’ve been warned.
I’ve been trying to figure it out since I was a kid: What is this place? What are the rules here? Who the hell is in charge? I studied and read and got a bunch of degrees and a lifetime of experience but still, it felt like I should know the one thing that ties it all together by now.
And I do. All of a sudden, I do.
Choose whatever job you feel like doing; whatever is worth your effort. Or choose none at all.
Become an expert in a field that interests you and benefits others. Or save your energy for porn and TV bingeing. Your best effort will likely be inconsequential, statistically speaking.
Pick whatever political rhetoric resonates with you at the moment. Or pick none. Over time, your views will change anyway.
Love whomever you want and fuck anybody who will willingly fuck you back, but realize that love and lust are not the same thing. Or don’t. You and everybody you know will be dead in a few decades.
Save and invest carefully. Or blow it all on sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll. Or play it somewhere in the middle. It can all go away in a second no matter what you do, trust me. It’s your money, after all.
Eat right, exercise, stay away from shit you know is bad for you and hope that you live a happy, pain-free life. Or tempt the gods and push it right to the edge because anything can happen at any time. I personally try to hedge my bets, but you do you. It’s nobody else’s business.
Worship whatever god or gods make you feel safe and secure, or don’t buy any of it. No one really knows anything at all; hope and faith and belief are not knowledge. Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to control you.
Identify as whomever or whatever you please. No one really gives a shit, honestly. Anyone who tells you otherwise is using you for their own motives.
Be a really nice person or be a raging asshole. The course of your life isn’t guaranteed in either case.
Follow the rules and stay out of trouble. Or be a “rebel.” I choose whatever enhances my chances at freedom, but that’s just me.
No one cares. It doesn’t matter, in any permanent sense.
Get this: You don’t have to answer or explain yourself to anyone. You don’t need anyone’s permission to do anything, or to do nothing.
The past is gone and for all of your whining and bitching and crying, there is absolutely nothing you can do to change it.
Stop wasting your time trying to influence things that are out of your control. Know that almost everything is out of your control.
You are mortal, nothing lasts and little besides luck creates real change.
You didn’t ask to be here, you have no idea what to do while you’re here, and you are clueless as to when you will leave, or where you go next, if anywhere. Remember that, and do what thou wilt. But don’t dwell on it. Memento mori is useful right up to the point that it becomes the only thought in your head.
Think for yourself, as well as you can. If you need to figure something out, do it from your own limited research and reasoning. If you need a moral compass, consult your own fallible emotions.
Or follow the herd and let someone else think for you. It’s unlikely to have a consequential impact one way or the other.
Do what you believe you should do, in accordance with your own thinking. Because I — we, all of us — HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE. This raw rant is, at its core, all you need to know about existentialism.
So here you have it: several hundred words of my own bullshit, to put with all the other bullshit you have consumed in your lifetime. Ignore it, if you want, but realize there is something real in there — maybe the only thing that is real.
Here’s what I came to say, the only absolute truth I know, the One Thing:
Live your life while you’re alive.
That’s it. That’s the whole fucking thing.
β© β© β©
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β¨β¨To learn more about how to use these concepts or to inquire about working with me, go to the Jeff W Welsh website, subscribe to my Substack or Medium accounts or the Hardcore Happiness blog page, and follow my Instagram account for daily insights.
β¨β¨β¨- JWW
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