Hours pass by and the cash deficit increases. How can a person expect to embrace a system designed to leave the common man behind? It’s no secret that we have to spend money to make money. To get the job, a person needs the qualifications. The qualifications come at a cost. The time elapsed to achieve the qualifications comes at its own additional cost, and by the time the person achieves the qualifications, the job salary is inadequate, or the job is no longer relevant.

What’s a man to do?

Do I reject the doctrines of, “We all need a place to live?” Because I, for one (among many I’m sure), have made many sacrifices of health and integrity in the name of “paying the bills.” Rejecting the social narrative certainly does shift the motives of what a person is working for.

“The value of a man resides in what he gives.” -Einstein

It is also not a secret to discover fulfillment does not correlate to financial prosperity. The years I spent years working in socially active causes and direct service to people have taught me that. It’s been said, “money goes where it wants.” Money doesn’t care if it goes to a “good” person. In my own observations, I’ve seen money tend to go straight to the holes in our souls before it goes to church. Which could lead to the false conclusion- a spiritual life of fulfillment and rejection of western social narratives equate to a life of poverty.

There’s a cleaning man I met at this hotel where I work. The topic of conversation was, “I’ll give you one chance and that’s it. If you fuck that up, you’re done.” With the statement in regard, the cleaning man said, “I’m not Jesus, I’m Tony.” The conversation steered to why we are both gun owners. Simply put, I take no joy in owning a gun. It’s akin to owning a hammer or any other tool. Alas, there are many people whom I have no trust in, who do enjoy owning guns, and that is beyond my control. The long list of crazy gun owners has been going on long since before I was born, I control the way it is, but I certainly can minimize the risk by owning one. The cleaning man replied, “All you need is a 40 cal. You don’t even have to be a good shot.”

A wise man indeed.

Is money the bottom line? Or is money the result of hard honest work?

Up until now, I’ve viewed money as the bottom line. The mentality of, “I need to make x amount this month I have this much time in a day to earn it, let’s maximize it.” The saboteurs of procrastination, apathy, and escapism have always rearranged the schedule but as long as the ends meet, the ends justify the means.

In no way have I done anything illegal for money, but perhaps I probably should have. I may have broken laws or practiced heavy self-seeking behaviors on the clock, but a criminal I am not.

This approach has cost me so much health-wise, I must be doing something wrong. To illustrate my question of is money the bottom line a bit further:

My mind goes to the trope of the man who may have shown talent or passion at something as a child, but it wasn’t nurtured by his family and wasn’t encouraged by his friends. As a result he allowed self-limiting beliefs and a comfort-driven mentality to push him into the highest paying job he could find that he didn’t absolutely despise. 40 years and two wives later he’s discovering he wasted the gift of life on a job that left him nowhere and he’s frenetically trying to taste the fruits of a tree he did not plant.

Perhaps the woman who was a high school athlete who excelled so well she was recruited by a college, but became injured beyond repair and was unable to go pro. Subject to choose a life of coaching behind the scenes, forever forced to sit on the sidelines, or change careers something arbitrary as she transitions to a fan of the sport that she gave a third of her life to. Somebody has to pay those medical bills.

Or what about the young up and coming guitar student in the university masters’ program? He’s studied with the greats, he’s given his recital, written songs, recorded and performed only to find out that after his Master’s degree he’s going to spend the next 30 years teaching guitar. He’ll play at a local church, bounce around teaching from institution to institution, play at some local restaurants, slowly building resentment towards the thing which used to bring him joy because the path he chose didn’t turn out the way he thought it was going to, but he still has to pay the bills somehow.

And we’re all connected. I’ve met the retired repressed man exhausting himself in a heartwarming and pathetic way, just as I’ve met the “could have been” athlete but her medical bills had to get covered somehow. I’ve also met that last guy, and he was not a pleasure to be around, but these are the people we meet in everyday life and this is what they bring to the table. Now I can’t speak on how their brains work to choose their attitudes, but I can question- if money wasn’t such an influence on the course of their lives, what would their story sound like? What would interacting with them be like?

Furthermore is there an alternative? I’ll use me as an example, instead of prostituting my skillset out for money in an effort to make ends meet if I were to follow my bliss and not force a situation, would the money still come? There’s so much guilt in constantly having to take cash advances and asking people for money. I’m living in a state where my bank account is routinely negative (I’m currently at -$150 as you read this) and having to give Lyft rides to zero that out while the next bill is right around the corner has been no way to live. But I’ve been using the old formula “I need to make x amount this month I have this much time in a day to earn it, let’s maximize it.”

I think my outlook came from a spiteful rejection of the capitalist system we live in and the social narrative of “go to school, get a good job, have a wife, a car, and kids, and a nice house, go on vacations, and die.” But it sounds like there could be a more embracing and loving angle to go about it from.

This also shall pass away.