Hey,

I was looking for something in the living room the other day.

My little sister was on the couch watching YouTube Shorts on the TV.

Suddenly she screamed. Angry. Frustrated.

"This guy always makes me so angry!"

I stopped. Looked at her. Gave her the "what the hell" face.

And I asked her one simple question.

"If he always makes you angry... why are you watching him?"

She just smiled. No answer. Nothing.

Because there is no answer.

And that moment made me think of a quote from Ali Ibn Abi Talib.

"اعتزل ما يؤذيك"

Withdraw from what harms you.

Distance yourself from anything that causes you harm.

Simple words. Obvious wisdom. And yet.

We do not apply them.

Not even close.

We see the things that harm us every single day. We interact with them. We engage with them. We let them into our lives over and over again.

And at the end of the day we try to resist them.

And we fail.

Because you cannot free yourself from phone addiction while the phone is sitting on your desk.

You cannot quit smoking while you keep going to the coffee shop where everyone smokes and the cigarette box is still in your pocket.

You cannot eat healthy while your friends invite you to restaurants every week and you say yes every time.

You just cannot.

Most people think they can resist. They think that is strength.

"I will go with my friends but I will not eat the pizza."

Good luck.

When the pizza is on the table. When everyone is eating. When it smells incredible and looks even better. When you are hungry and tired and your willpower is at zero.

Good luck resisting that.

You will not.

And here is what Ali Ibn Abi Talib understood 1400 years ago.

Many battles in life should never be fought in the first place.

Some environments. Some habits. Some influences. They are designed to make you lose. The game is rigged before you even sit down.

And the wise person does not prove their strength by staying.

They prove their wisdom by leaving.

Think about it.

When you try to remove a bad habit, you are fighting a battle you already lost the moment you entered it.

The first hour of watching Shorts? That was the battle you lost.

The first cigarette? Lost.

The first time you opened that app? Lost.

And from that day forward you are trying to get out. But you cannot. Because you are still fighting.

Still in the arena. Still facing the enemy. Still exhausted. Still losing.

Here is the secret nobody tells you.

Do not fight.

Run.

Leave the battlefield. Turn your back. Keep running.

Because your enemy, that bad habit, will get tired one day.

It cannot chase you forever.

But only if you stop standing in front of it every single day waiting to be defeated again.

Let me give you real examples.

Your phone is on the desk. Notifications are on.

That is two enemies staring at you all day.

First enemy — notifications. Kill it. Turn them off. Done. One enemy eliminated.

Second enemy — the phone itself. You cannot kill it. But you can run from it. Put it in another room. Out of sight. Out of mind. Out of power.

You want to stick to your diet?

Do not pass by the restaurant. Yes it is hard. But do it anyway.

Do not accept your friends' invitation to eat out. Let them say whatever they want. Let them call you boring. Let them laugh.

You know what is more boring? Fighting the same battle every week and losing every time.

Fill your kitchen with tasty healthy food. Learn how to cook delicious recipes that you actually enjoy.

That is how you run from fast food.

That is how you win.

Not by staring at the pizza and clenching your fists.

By never being in the same room as the pizza in the first place.

This is the difference between the wise and the naive.

The naive person says:

"I will put myself in every tempting situation and prove my discipline."

The wise person says:

"I will not place myself in situations that slowly break me."

And here is the truth nobody wants to hear.

Even if you resist today. And this week. And this month.

There will come a day when you fall.

Because you are still seeing the enemy every day. Still thinking about it. Still in the battlefield. Still fighting.

And one day your guard will be down. One day you will be tired. One day you will say "just this once."

And you are back to zero.

But if you quit the battlefield entirely?

If you run far enough for long enough?

The enemy forgets you exist.

And you are finally free.

I am not saying quitting is easy. It is not. It is hard.

But it leads somewhere.

Fighting a battle you cannot win? That leads nowhere. Just pain and failure on repeat.

Withdraw from what harms you.

Stop proving your strength.

Start proving your wisdom.

Thanks for reading.

Just a quick reminder:

The $25 off on all my productivity systems is still running for the next 5 days.

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Grab it today for less.

Osama (OLS)

P.S. — You do not win by fighting harder. You win by refusing to fight battles that were designed to break you.