Read This If You Want to Know Whether You're a Free Human or (Accidentally) a Slave to Society
Money is a mental illness that clogs up the mind
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I worked as a secret slave for a decade.
Tax got taken out before I got paid. Other people told me what to do. I couldn’t take a piss without asking for a bathroom break, like a 5th grader in elementary school.
None of this was obvious.
A friend said “you’re institutionalized and don’t even realize it.” That was the first time I’d heard that word. I went home and googled it.
He was right.
I’d spent so long working for a big bank that I started to tell myself I actually liked it. The same way prisoners start to think prison is good after they’ve been there for long enough. Don’t fool yourself any longer.
Let’s determine if you’re truly free or an accidental slave like I was. That’s the only way to break free. See reality for what it is and then decide to change it.
The change won’t happen overnight.
But if you start now you’ll be much better off than wasting another decade telling yourself “I love my job, I love my job, I love my job.”
Did you choose this life or settle for it?
It’s damn easy to settle in life.
Go to college, get an obvious degree, go to work to access a computer, spend the day sending emails, then commute home in a train full of fellow sardines.
I’m gonna admit right here, right now. I settled – big time. I couldn’t be F’d to become intentional.
It was easier to just live in comfort and have my decisions mostly made by an institution that didn’t give a sh*t about me and would happily replace me if I died tomorrow. They wouldn’t even come to my funeral. I’m not even worth a 60-minute ceremony.
Once you realize this your mind warps. Your work brain starts to become free.
Settling is doing what you know you don’t want to do and then trying to pretend you like it. No ya don’t. Be honest.
You see 9-5 is 7-7 (+ weekend work)
Who believes there are work hours anymore?
Not me. When the 2020 bat virus blended home life with work life the boundaries were forever blurred. The fact it was an emergency situation made us act differently and experiment with a permanently on-call life.
Now it’s all over, we keep working the same way.
I don’t think I’ve ever worked 9-5. There was always more work to do that required me to work longer hours. Much of the problem was caused by meetings. The more meetings the more the real work got delayed.
No boss has ever said go home early. They have said “can you stay back?”
My weekends have never been sacred either. There’s always some urgent report or overseas customer that needs help.
No one can ignore their email for long periods of time. It’s an addiction. We have to check our email or it feels like it could take away our job. A job equals food and shelter and there’s no way your caveman brain will allow that to happen.
9-5 = modern slavery
Doesn’t mean you can escape right away. It does mean you can realize that’s the case and start to plan your escape.
I went from full-time 9-5 work, to 4 days, to 3 unofficial work days, to zero. I slowly got off one of the most addictive drugs in the world.
You can too. But first you must see the big picture.
“The sheep will spend its entire life fearing the wolf, only to be eaten by the shepherd” – African Proverb
The thing you fear most is often a misdirection.
Fears lie to us and keep us trapped like lab rats. A truly free human can see fear for what it is: bullsh*t.
So many people fear what it’s like to be free. They’re like I was … afraid that if they took a chance and did their own thing they’d be banished from a normal job forever. It’s crazy how many people think career gaps are a problem.
Let me be real with you, after working in the recruitment industry: there aren’t enough suckers willing to work soul-crushing jobs anymore.
So, if everything blows up in your face, you can always get another boring-ass job and rebuild your freedom machine again.
So what are you so afraid of?
The “dream life” is a scam
Many people have a dream life they masturbate over.
The challenge is once your dream becomes the new normal it gets real boring. That’s what happened after I quit my job to be free. Real freedom isn’t living a dream. No.
It’s having a purpose or a mission that gives your life meaning.
That’s what you have when you’re free.
It’s the ability to transcend the shallow idea of money and completely not give a crap about it anymore. I can’t tell you how much money I have right now or what my cash flow is. That’s deliberate.
Money is a mental illness that clogs up the mind.
The ideal life is to escape money for higher states of consciousness driven by meaning.
Can you take a day off work without asking for permission and feeling guilty?
I know I couldn’t for most of my life.
I’d worry about customers or the workloads of my colleagues. And walking up to my boss’s desk to ask them for a day off felt scarier than watching The Blair Witch Project horror movie.
Looking back, I realize that a lot of modern work is designed to test your courage.
The reason promotions, pay rises, and extra holidays aren’t automated is because it forces you to ask for permission - and most won’t do it, so the corporate machine wins by default.
Reminder: if you have to ask for permission to take a day off, you aren’t free.
Now, some of you may think this means you have to be an entrepreneur to get this level of freedom. Wrong. I experienced it while still working my last job. I became so valuable to my employer that they’d do anything to keep me.
They rarely asked me for reports or to do stuff I didn’t want to do because they knew competitors were hunting me every day, and I made it clear what did and didn’t piss me off.
This level of autonomy requires you to become valuable, then be assertive enough to communicate that value.
Otherwise, you’ll get told what to do and there’s nothing you can do but bend over.
Do you purposely struggle or is struggle “randomly” assigned to you?
When I randomly got assigned a near-miss with cancer diagnosis in 2015, it felt like crap. I had no control over the situation.
Struggles always felt random. I did everything I could to avoid them.
The gym taught me a different lesson. The more I struggled to lift weights in the gym the more energy I had and the more confident I became.
I had to lift weights beyond the failure zone. Once my arms felt like they were going to drop off, only then was I getting started.
Too many people wait at the bus stop of life for struggles to show up randomly.
That ultimately leads to a comfort crisis. Free humans seek out struggles because they know it’s where true growth comes from. And growth compounds and makes you freer every day until you become unrecognizable.
Betting on yourself versus being a bet in someone else's business
(Justin Welsh)
It’s damn tempting to never bet on yourself.
Risks feel stupid. Your gorgeous logical brain hates ‘em, so it protects you from them. But if you never bet on yourself you’ll never know your potential.
I bet on myself 18 months ago. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done. Admittedly, it took me until 2011 to finally do it. If only I’d done it earlier I’d have achieved much more in life. But you can’t go back, you can only be free looking forward.
I ain’t mad at it.
Corporate slavery taught me many of the lessons that made me wealthy. Nothing in life is a waste if you choose to see the lessons.
Bottom line:
Don’t just be a line in a spreadsheet for the rest of your life, where you’re a bet in someone else’s business. Bet on yourself. Start a business. Or dare to start a side or build something incredible online after hours.
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I really enjoyed your info.. At age 85 I have been free for 60 years when at age 25 I chose the freedom of self employment. Onward and Upward
That’s a packed article full of accuracy. Beautiful.