Be Rich Without Money

I tend to think a bit differently, probably much to the puzzlement of those who ‘know’ me. I’m pretty sure the things I do or don’t do cause quite a bit of head-scratching and raised eyebrows. I have the annoying habit of taking expected life scripts and throwing them straight out the window. People are too polite to say it, but I see that “Are you crazy?!” thought bubble hovering over them frequently.

Disclaimer: Is my way easy? No. I could get run under fairly easily. I hover on that threshold probably far more than many would be comfortable with. I’m not ‘comfortable’ with that, per say, but I didn’t come here to follow scripts. Nothing changes that way. If I fail, well…I went down trying.

Sometimes we’re led to believe that if we ‘possess’ (which we usually actually don’t for a long time because you must pay the bank first over many years) a great or diminutive McMansion and we drive a Terra Wheels All Terrain SUV and we’ve kept up with the Joneses…and the Smiths…and we look better than the Johnsons, we’ve made it. But have we, really?

I’d say, “Welllll…not so much.”

So, what if the ideals you’ve had all your life weren’t really your own?

We have the TV and constant, incessant advertising pollution to tell us what we should want to buy, do and become. We have shows to tell us how to look and act and to helpfully program us with what to think about, in case we were in danger of thinking on our own. We have numerous religious and political programs to divide, inflame and covertly shape thoughts. We now have ‘social media’ to hold up the yardsticks with which people can measure themselves against each other, and to air dirty laundry and quarrels in a most public manner. How ‘popular’ can you be? How many superficial ‘friends’ can you accumulate to look impressive on the surface? (Who cares?!) Private information and demographics are willingly handed over to the machine to be able to ply you with more advertising pollution. Hidden and subconscious messages are pushed from every direction while being yet also in plain view. Re-read the first initials of the vehicle described in the third full paragraph down from the top. Did you catch that the first time around? If I can hide things, so can many others – with far more sophistication.

It’s almost like a computer virus has infested the planet. The money malware program (just one among many) is bogging down society from industry to medicine. It’s all about money, and it’s effects are hard to eradicate. You are expected to spend 1/2 of your waking hours ‘working’ to achieve ‘success’ as it’s typically defined for you via the outlets (more malware) that subconsciously program you on what to think.

People want to keep their homes, their vehicles and be able to pay the bills and buy groceries. The program made it difficult to achieve this any other way but its own programmed way, especially being that basic needs are priced beyond what many of the lower-wage jobs even pay and those that hold them are villainized for not doing better, which is simply misdirection to take focus off the money malware program itself, along with its creators. Some people define upper-end possessions as ‘success’ but are still not happy. Some people work very hard, but are looked down upon because they don’t have prestigious ‘things’. These are all just yet more ‘malware’ side-effects. It’s a rogue program, run out of control.

Having been a person that’s been called to troubleshoot and remove computer virus/malware/worm infestations, the process begins with searching for, identifying and shutting down illicit running processes. Be warned, the function of some viruses is to make shutting them down and then eradicating them quite difficult via a number of different malicious programming methods. They can use up all your memory, make keyboards non-responsive and disable your antivirus among other things.

“Goals” today can be like a Trojan Horse: an object or program which appears as something desirable at first, then unleashes destruction after being accepted and executed. A Trojan might be that $400,000 house (meaning its whopping mortgage) that the bank (malware delivery outlet) says you can afford, but you find ultimately that you can’t and now are trapped into slavish jobs you maybe don’t like to try and keep your home. A Trojan might be that job that seemed great but then turns sour but you are stuck with now in some daily 8 hour hell trying to maintain life as you know it. A Trojan might be that college tuition bill, which will hover overhead for years, demanding repayment though you can’t find work in your field in spite of your degree. Some would say that a Trojan is a condom brand. I’d say you might want to grab a few and offer them to those in the above scenarios so you have some measure of protection from the screwing they provide.

One popular but subtle message is that the monetarily rich, especially those that are in the top 1% of the population, are truly the rich; that those are the ones to be envied. They have money and things, thus they are called ‘successful’. It’s the supposedly noble pinnacle humans should strive for. And if you haven’t made it there, you should struggle or work yourself to death to try and achieve ‘success’. That’s because while you work yourself to death, who you’re actually making ‘rich’ (from only a monetary standpoint) isn’t you, but them.

And most of that top 1%? Well they didn’t necessarily work themselves to death to get where they are. It was the luck of the draw and genetics from a hidden-in-plain-sight puppet show. And where are they really anyhow? What is…rich? Do you catch yourself defining the word like they do?

I think, in desiring more money, that what most people would rather do is eliminate the stress from being overrun and compromised by the money malware program. But it’s very hard. People wish to be ‘rich’ to stop the stress and to stop feeling like little more than slaves performing tricks for the right to stay in their cages – so they push harder and work more trying to keep up. It becomes a self-defeating cycle.

Many define ‘rich’ by money-content only. Viruses have definitions. Maybe we can change those. Start identifying any questionable running processes that may have snuck into your brain/hard-drive and shut them down one by one as you can.

Rich, despite the widespread belief that it must be all about money, isn’t really found in phantom papers and metal bits. Rich isn’t to be found in blips of ‘cash’ in a computerized bank account. That’s all a game of nothing.

Rich is the smell of coffee or hot chocolate on a cool day.

Rich is leaves skittering across a path and a campfire to toast marshmallows over.

Rich is having the time and freedom to stop for awhile and smell the clear air.

Rich is taking a leisurely walk in the woods.

Rich is not being owned by that 1% of rich others.

Rich is having the time that you never did before to spend with your family, friends or however you like.

Rich is being free from not having your ‘success’ defined by possessions and false status.

Rich is being happy.

Rich is cutting through all the ‘messages’ and chatter to think for yourself.

Rich doesn’t really lie at all in having lots of ‘money’.

The solution at its root isn’t really in acquiring more and more money to remove the obstacles to achieving the above things, but is to recognize the fact that money shouldn’t be necessary in removing the barricades to such things at all.