Living to Work Is No Life At All

My first and epic blog post rant led you into a basic understanding of what a unproductive, unfocused life most of us in this "village" we call "the world" are living.

Now it's time to use that knowledge to understand why we want to avoid all that--what the alternative is. It's my "vision" about why making smart decisions with money is important.

I'm gonna get philosophical here for a while, so I hope you'll bear with me.

Clearly, one must have money to survive--to buy food and other necessities of life. On the surface, it looks like we go to work every day just for this--to have the things we need in life. But what's the purpose of "having what we need?"

In the industry I work in, I've actually met people who have told me their motto is "I live to work." They have no family, no ties, basically no home life. They have significant others, but they seem more like tools to these people than anything else--temporary sources of diversion and physical release. To hear them talk, they sound like sociopaths. They talk about nothing but work outside of work... and really never stop working. See the caption to the right for any questions you have about this unvirtuous cycle of sociopathy.

As I explained in my first post, my own motto is far superior to both of these things. In essence, it is:

"Live to be happy."

It's lightyears beyond on the happiness scale compared to the workaholics I know. But to truly live a life like this, you have to be free of money--free of the need to work for a paycheck.

For now, I work by butt off in a boring cubicle on an obsolete computer system, dealing with cranky and uncooperative Wall Street types for a higher purpose--so I can have a LIFE.

It's taken me quite a few years and a couple college degrees to get where I am. I've spent and sacrificed a lot of time to get here, and my focus now is working to support my family, and building up a bit of wealth so someday I can QUIT my job...

Every day when I wake up, get ready for work, and walk out the door, I dread it... not necessarily because I hate it, but because I want to stay home... I realize the awesomeness about what I'm missing in life...

I had one of the best experiences of my life recently. I got to take my daughter to kindergarten for the first time. She was so excited as her friends arrived with their parents and she lined up outside the classroom with them. She could hardly handle her excitement as the teacher arrived, and the other students began filing inside.

Just as she was heading inside, she looked around, spotted me in the crowd, waved with excitement, and gave me a huge, cheesy smile... then disappeared.

I had just one thought: “I need to be doing this every day.”

I want to be with my kids and my family all day, every day. This is the good stuff in life. As I thought more about this, I got to thinking what else I'm missing...

Saturday is easily my favorite day of the week. I "sleep in" till about seven, when the kids wake up and beg me to play with them. We spend the next couple hours or so building lego castles... playing with ninja turtles or barbies... building forts... or something equally or more awesome.

I usually make a good breakfast--eggs, pancakes, whatever I feel like. I sit down with them at the table and we talk. This is definitely my favorite time of day, and favorite day of the week.

Why would I not work toward making every day like this?

What if it were possible? What if I could take the day off whenever I wanted, with no repercussions? What if I didn't have to be awakened by an alarm clock and leave the house every morning at 5:30, missing the best parts of my children's lives?

What if I was completely free to choose what I want to do, even if it's nothing at all?

These are riches that money can't "buy"... time and freedom. But money can facilitate getting them.

I don't believe for a second that God wants us to waste one-third of our lives working for someone else. This is the 21st centruy for crying out loud... we're more productive than this! And I'm quite positive he can see us doing plenty of better things with our lives than scraping by making a living, or working for the weekend...

How do you escape being a sociopath?

How is it done, HOW? How do we eliminate our reliance on money and day-to-day work, the need for a job? How do we get these riches that money can't buy... Time, Freedom, and Choice?

The answer is to make sure whatever money the big man upstairs gives us, we are putting to work. I'm absolutely positive that we weren't designed to work for money... it was designed to work for us!

After all, money is much more productive that we can ever be... it doesn't have to eat, it doesn't sleep, it doesn't die or get sick... it doesn't need clothing, shelter, or comfort... it never takes a vacation or a weekend off... it has no family to take care of (except mine). But it's with us every second of every day, a round-the-clock employee. Every single dollar.

Keeping as many of them as we can, and putting them to work immediately, is how we're going to eliminate financial worry, stress, and uncertainty in our lives. Doing so will lead us to a previously unexperienced concept called "financial independence."

Let's understand one thing... not only are we the cause of our own money problems... we are also the solution.

Our goal is to seek for riches that money can't buy... but having money does make obtaining these riches largely possible. That's the truth about "filthy lucre." It is simply a means to an end.

Going forward, there's a lot to learn and a lot to think about...

So huddle up, hunker down, pop a squat with your favorite internet-connected device, and crack open a can of your favorite cold beverage to keep you company for the duration of the journey...

I've got a few more "lectures" for you to sit through on some more general money stuff. Once we're through those things, we'll get a bit more specific on how to defeat The Art of Financial Suckiness.

My next one is all about Choice--specifically, choosing Reality over Fallacy.

Wake Up and Smell the Financial Freedom