Stop Living a Financial Lie

It's Time to Choose. Which will it be? The blue pill, or the red pill?

The pills I’m referring to are a cultural reference to a popular science fiction movie, The Matrix. In the movie, a man named Thomas Anderson, who goes by the hacker alias Neo, hears rumors of a mysterious thing called The Matrix. He spends most nights on his computer trying to uncover the secret of what the Matrix is.

Another hacker eventually introduces Neo to Morpheus, the man who can explain the Matrix. Morpheus explains to Neo that the Matrix is an imaginary world created to blind humans from the truth that they are slaves to an almost unimaginable external force--an artificially intelligent race of sentient machines. At this first meeting, Morpheus holds out a capsule in each of his hands, and describes the choice Neo faces:

“You take the blue pill—my story ends, you wake up in your bed, and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill—you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”

By staying in Wonderland, Neo has the chance to live a genuine existence—one of true substance, purpose, and satisfaction, albeit potentially limited food, leisure, and living arrangements.

For the majority of humans in the world of the Matrix, “reality” as they know it is a fabricated artificial reality within their minds, where they think they are experiencing a true existence, but really they are living blissfully unaware of the fact that they are slaves, nothing more than a sick energy source used to power a world of machines. They’re sitting naked in a pool of goop, hooked up to hoses that sap their life energy to keep the machines alive.

Those humans who have taken the red pill and "woken up" are living in holes deep within the earth, working diligently on plans and opportunities to overcome the machines that keep them from living a life of freedom above.

Naturally, Neo takes the red pill, and two movies later (SPOILER) eventually frees the human race of the tyranny of the machines. BOOM. Freedom.

It’s an analogy for our existence. Our financial one, anyways. We all need to wake up from our false existence, and smell the financial freedom available to us.

Yes, We Really Are Slaves

Like 99% of the humans in the world of The Matrix, we all spend the majority of our lives working basically like slaves. What am I talking about? One-third of almost every day of our lives, we work to make a few bucks to provide the necessities of life and just a bit extra. For some this comes way easier than others. Wherever we fall on the spectrum, there are influences pulling us in separate directions, vying for those few extra bucks we have lying around.

Many of us seem to want much more possession-wise than those few extra bucks can buy, so we take on debt to get things we don’t need, but which provide a degree of comfort, leisure, and diversion from the painful reality of our meager existence (i.e., we take the blue pill). In fact, it’s what basically everyone does. Life is one endless cycle of debt.

By taking on debt, we end up even worse off, working even more just to pay for this extra stuff, and then wonder why our life still sucks and why we aren’t any better off than we were yesterday.

Then there are the Neo’s of this life. They took the Red Pill long ago. They’re painfully aware (through experience, maybe? Or was it just proper upbringing?) that those taking on extra debt, not saving and investing their money, and frilling their time away on useless activities, or spending their lives in jobs they hate, are basically slaves to money and work. They might even be in debt themselves for now, but they’ve got a plan to get out. They know the truth—the truth about what can be. They know financial freedom from all this is out there, they can even smell it. It just takes a few painful whiffs to get there.

Along the way, they realize that the pain and extra work they put in is actually making them stronger, more fit, and more able to get around. They realize that every red cent they put into the bank is making them more free. Therefore, they minimize the number they waste, maximize the number they keep, and put every one of them to work as soon as possible, as smartly as possible.

Then one day these Neo’s wake up, and the machines are dead. They can walk out in the open air, free of their once-tyrannical masters, and decide their own fate.

Time To Wake Up to Reality

Now back to you and me.

It’s time to wake up and take the Red Pill. That freaking Blue Pill, the wool over our eyes that is keeping us from freedom, is making us flabby, weak, and addicted to Suckiness. It’s time to rise up and inflict some much-needed financial pain and suffering on ourselves in the interest of our long-term welfare.

But the pain we’re inflicting is nothing more than a little saving and investing. It’s also about shunning things that complicate our lives, and fill us with temporary diversion instead of lasting peace and satisfaction. It's about learning to say 'no' to ourselves and those around us more often. The “pain” we experience in the process is actually quite nice. You should try it.

So what’s standing in your way? Unhook yourselves from the life-support monitors and lifeforce-sucking dependence on a job… I’ve got a plan for you, and an offer you can’t resist.

Are you ready to denounce denialism (the blue pill) and banish it from your life? Are you ready to wake up and smell the freedom?

You’re here (I hope) because you’re ready to down the red pill, face real life, and move on to bigger and better things. A better life, a more full, complete, and satisfying existence.

This is what the Village is all about. So let’s rock it like any self-respecting Villager and find out what’s next. Let's talk about ways that your financial freedom is melting away before your very eyes.

Money? Torch It. Freedom? Flush It.