LIMITLESS (2011) – IN SEARCH OF A REAL LIFE NZT – 48

Limitless was released in 2011 and stars Bradley Cooper as Eddie Morra. Eddie Morra is a struggling writer, whose girlfriend Lindy left him because of his lack of ambition, focus and desire for success. He is later introduced to NZT-48, a nootropic drug which gives him the ability to fully utilize his brain instead of the 10% of the brain theory (a typical myth as modern brain scans show activity coursing through the entire organ, even when we’re resting. If minor brain damage can have devastating effects, that pours cold water on the theory that we had 90 percent spare capacity). NZT-48, allows him to have a perfect recollection of data stored in his brain, organize it properly and use it to his advantage. 

So, NZT-48 – let’s break down what it allowed Eddie Morra to do:

1. He gains the ability to quickly learn new languages

2. Through his reading ability, he begins to impress people in a newly developed social circle

3. He finishes his book in record time 

4. He improves his daily lifestyle – organizing his house, grooming himself well and getting fit

5. He begins playing the stock markets and make huge returns on the same

6. His communication skills and confidence boom so he sleeps with attractive women and impresses strangers

Now, all these seemingly “superhuman” traits really got us all interested. All these abilities are actually available to us all but they require hard work, focus and commitment, stuff we hate to do and would rather believe some myth about not using our brains and needing a special magic pill to build us into something better. That is why the market for Nootropic drugs is around $1 billion and rising. Research proves that most of these Nootropic drugs either don’t help at all or help so marginally. Caffeine has offered better results than most of these, and even that we don’t really use properly. 

Why are we so easily fooled? 

So, let us have another thought experiment – Eddie’s girlfriend dumps and that finally shocks him into getting his life together. Instead of wasting time humping his landlord’s wife, he goes to his apartment, takes the trash out, organizes his apartment so that new thoughts and ideas flow in better (it has been proven that getting rid of unnecessary clutter decreases stress in our bodies). He could have always joined the gym and gotten a hair cut. With thousands of online resources to teach about stock trading, he could have just as easily, using a simple Excel spreadsheet timetable organized his life such that, he could have written the book as well as gotten into stock picking. 

Agreed – learning a language takes time but mostly because we are so distracted by useless things that we aren’t committing ourselves to it. Do we really need to reach the XYZ level on Candy Crush? Do we really need to see Picture number 203 on our ex’s facebook albums and like it at 2 am in the morning? Do we need waste time on checking out morons on Jersey Shore or which idiot loves whom on Love Island? 

The answer is a big, resounding HELL NO!

We have let ourselves lose focus – we want to coast through life and yet try and justify that we deserve the best in life. We see flashy cars and exotic locations and say hey I deserve that even though based on our work ethic we don’t. 

Some say, hey I work hard but still it doesn’t happen. Um, no. For most of us we commute hard and we do our daily tasks hard but we don’t really work hard. Just because we spend four hours commuting to our work place doesn’t mean we are working hard – no one is paying us for it, it is time lost out of our limited 24 hours stock. We come home, fueled by a diet heavy with sugar and fat all day long and then we get home and crash in front of the TV. 

Do you think a drug could help that? Even Eddie began to see NZT-48 hit him with side-effects unless he kept his diet clean and organized his lifestyle better. Thus, there is no magic pill. All the billionaires we see enjoying the rewards of their wealth, did they become that through a magic pill or through organized lifestyles, diligently working daily through incremental progression towards improving their skills and their abilities and having a strict commitment to health, lifestyle and time allocation.

To discover NZT-48 in real life, model yourself on the truly wealthy – not the Instagram millionaires or the morons who get rich on reality television. These people are adding zero value – they are rich because other idiots pay to see them to basically the same stuff all of us do daily. Using excellent photo and video editing, they portray an image of themselves as perfect when all of us know they are anything but. The truly wealthy, the ones for whom the wealth lasts for generations, they do splurge on toys but they don’t make their wealth all about the toys unlike the Instagram rich – whose position at the peak is only temporary. 

Every man and woman out there is capable of truly reinventing themselves – no magic pill to help gain focus, commit to your plans or organize your life – you know why? There is no need. You just need to refocus that organ inside your skull, that allows you to focus on Candy Crush so well, towards your actual goals.