What's your motivation to do things if you don't need to make money.

[biophase]

I've been thinking about this alot lately because I'm now at the point where I truly think that I have enough. But I'm not 100% certain yet. And it's also not as much as people may think. I know that is weird to say, but as you get older, you actually need less and less money. It's an odd place to be in, where your motivation for doing things ever since you were a teenager suddenly disappears.

I made this post in July 2020 (HOT TOPIC - How would you spend $1 million dollars and get no sellable value from it?). As you can see, this idea of spending money and having enough has been on my mind for a while now.

Then, someone recommended this book to me a month ago, (BOOK - Book discussion: Die With Zero) and it basically reinforced what I had already been thinking.

Getting back to how much is enough. That's a tough question. I'm going to be 50 this year and if I estimate that I'll live till 90, that's 40 more years of spending money. However, let's do some math here. If I had $4M, I could spend $100k a year. Many of you may think that $100k a year is not enough. However, if you factor in investments, real estate appreciating, rent increases, it's pretty clear that one could spend alot more than $100k a year and still have a substantial amount at age 90. So in reality, I could probably spend $150k a year on $4M. Now let's assume that I had $6M. Well now it's truly a no brainer. I mean $200k a year for the next 40 years with no living expense?

Now imagine if I continue to work 5 years. During this time I will increase my net worth and then have only 35 years to go. So now my yearly spend number increases to $250k-$300k? It's sort of going in the wrong direction. This is why I'm pondering all this right now. Just before I turn 50, and not 55 or 60.

So where is this going? Well, the funny thing is that alot of the things I have wanted to do was money motivated. And without the money part, I wonder if I still want to do them.

For example, I've always wanted to buy land and build tiny homes on them. Buy why did I want to do this? Well, the building part was cool and the finished product is cool too. But the last part is where you put them on Airbnb and make $200/night x 350 nights = $70,000. Multiply that by 5 tiny homes and you got $350,000/yr coming in. Again the dream was money based. What else would I do with them? Leave them empty? Sell them?

So I'm wondering if I should still but land and build Airbnb tiny homes, IF I don't care about what they can bring in. What is the purpose of this project then? Is it a hobby that I'd do regardless of monetary consequences? That's a question I haven't answered yet.

People tell me, you should buy bitcoin... but why?
You should buy XXX stock, but why?
You should buy real estate in XXX, but why?

Why should I if there is no money motivation?

This past week me and @snowbank went around Sedona looking at lots and new construction. I am trying to look at things without a money lens, but it is so hard. When you stand on a lot that is asking $300k. You look at the beautiful views. But then you ask, how much does it cost to build, how much does the next house over sell for? Then you do the calculations in your head. Hmmm, if I buy this and build this, it will be worth this and I can sell it for this. But should any of that really matter if you want a house of your dreams on this lot?

I guess I'm trying to get to the point where I don't make decisions based on money. And I don't mean I waste money. But the potential profits or future value of things really shouldn't come into play anymore, if I truly have enough net worth today.

I'm curious to know so I ask @MJ DeMarco, what is the purpose of your day trading? Is it a fun game you play? Is it something you do to keep your mind sharp? I assume that the day trading returns are a small percentage of your net worth/cash flow?

Interested to hear everyone's thoughts.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Great post Kenric, I'll add some thoughts later, but to answer your questions below...

I'm curious to know so I ask @MJ DeMarco, what is the purpose of your day trading? Is it a fun game you play? Is it something you do to keep your mind sharp? I assume that the day trading returns are a small percentage of your net worth/cash flow?

I love the challenge. It's like a big puzzle. I look at it as a form of a time-based rental, instead of real estate, I'm renting capital and selling insurance. Yes, it helps keep my mind sharp and I will likely do it until I'm physically or cognitively unable.

I assume that the day trading returns are a small percentage of your net worth/cash flow?

Relatively speaking, yes -- but the amount I earn on it is significant enough to continue, especially when I hear people spending $300K on real estate to earn a positive cash flow of $300 bucks monthly. For me, that just seems so absolutely ridiculous, especially because that 300K is not liquid.

I can take that $300K and make $5K - $20K/mo trading options. And I'm always liquid, even in a bad trade. For me, that's freedom knowing I can sell everything (my publishing business, the forum, etc.) and still generate significant cash flow. BTW, I have a paycheck pot as well that pays monthly dividends, but that account RARELY, I repeat, RARELY beats my active trading on the monthly basis, and it is subject to 10X the risk.

 

[JunkBoxJoey_JBJ]

@biophase ... I would say respectfully, remember and refer to page 42.

 

[biophase]

@biophase ... I would say respectfully, remember and refer to page 42.

I must be missing the reference here?

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

BTW, I have a paycheck pot as well that pays monthly dividends, but that account RARELY, I repeat, RARELY beats my active trading on the monthly basis, and it is subject to 10X the risk.

Just to give an example of this...

Today the market had a huge drop.

My Paycheck Pot decreased in value by $4,000 -- which actually was pretty good considering some of the broader action, some of my positions had profits too.

On the flip side, my Option Account was up $1,000 today .... and has 1/5 the risk.

I must be missing the reference here?

Maybe the book Die at Zero?

 

[biophase]

Relatively speaking, yes -- but the amount I earn on it is significant enough to continue

I can take that $300K and make $5K - $20K/mo trading options. And I'm always liquid, even in a bad trade.

But my question is why do you need to make $5k-$20k/mo. Would you be options trading if the reward for being right was just kudos?

Because I would assume that if you took your net worth today and divided it by the number of years left, the amount you would have to spend a month would be massive to even draw it down 50%-75%.

 

[biophase]

@biophase ... I would say respectfully, remember and refer to page 42.

I just looked at page 42. But I'm still having trouble understanding your reply because page 42 is exactly what I talked about in my original post. Can you clarify?

 

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[BizyDad]

Would you be options trading if the reward for being right was just kudos?

I think that's really it. What do you want to spend your time doing?

I love what I do. I don't feel the pressure of building a massive nest egg because I see myself continuing to work for as long as I am capable. I like stats, I like numbers, I like people, I like figuring out new things, I like building businesses. Imight not always be running an agency, but I imagine I'll always be marketing and growing my marketing skill set. I asked myself a long time ago how I want to spend my days, and on any given day, I'm living 85% of my dream. And I'm happy with that.

When I was younger, I thought I wanted to be rich. But once I got into the real world, I learned I'm not terribly money motivated. I always wanted something more, something that challenges my brain. That's what keeps me engaged and that's why I do what I do.

It sounds like somewhere you lost the focus on "bringing value" and got stuck seeing everything through the lens of money. I know in a certain frame of reference those are the same thing, especially on this forum, but I hear you asking a basic "why am I here?" type questions that money often can't answer but value still can.

What do you value?
What are you willing to lay it all on the line for?
What is the legacy you want to leave behind?
How do you want to spend your days? Your minutes?

Because honestly, your dream home sounds more like a box you want to check as opposed to, you know, an actual life-affirming dream. There's nothing wrong with that, especially considering how many people build that supposed life affirming edifice only to be disappointed and ask themselves, is this all there is?

But I'm hearing a general mid-life successful guy malaise in these threads. Am I on the right track? Are these the kinds of questions you are asking?

 

[WJK]

I've been thinking about this alot lately because I'm now at the point where I truly think that I have enough. But I'm not 100% certain yet. And it's also not as much as people may think. I know that is weird to say, but as you get older, you actually need less and less money. It's an odd place to be in, where your motivation for doing things ever since you were a teenager suddenly disappears.

I made this post in July 2020 (HOT TOPIC - How would you spend $1 million dollars and get no sellable value from it?). As you can see, this idea of spending money and having enough has been on my mind for a while now.

Then, someone recommended this book to me a month ago, (BOOK - Book discussion: Die With Zero) and it basically reinforced what I had already been thinking.

Getting back to how much is enough. That's a tough question. I'm going to be 50 this year and if I estimate that I'll live till 90, that's 40 more years of spending money. However, let's do some math here. If I had $4M, I could spend $100k a year. Many of you may think that $100k a year is not enough. However, if you factor in investments, real estate appreciating, rent increases, it's pretty clear that one could spend alot more than $100k a year and still have a substantial amount at age 90. So in reality, I could probably spend $150k a year on $4M. Now let's assume that I had $6M. Well now it's truly a no brainer. I mean $200k a year for the next 40 years with no living expense?

Now imagine if I continue to work 5 years. During this time I will increase my net worth and then have only 35 years to go. So now my yearly spend number increases to $250k-$300k? It's sort of going in the wrong direction. This is why I'm pondering all this right now. Just before I turn 50, and not 55 or 60.

So where is this going? Well, the funny thing is that alot of the things I have wanted to do was money motivated. And without the money part, I wonder if I still want to do them.

For example, I've always wanted to buy land and build tiny homes on them. Buy why did I want to do this? Well, the building part was cool and the finished product is cool too. But the last part is where you put them on Airbnb and make $200/night x 350 nights = $70,000. Multiply that by 5 tiny homes and you got $350,000/yr coming in. Again the dream was money based. What else would I do with them? Leave them empty? Sell them?

So I'm wondering if I should still but land and build Airbnb tiny homes, IF I don't care about what they can bring in. What is the purpose of this project then? Is it a hobby that I'd do regardless of monetary consequences? That's a question I haven't answered yet.

People tell me, you should buy bitcoin... but why?
You should buy XXX stock, but why?
You should buy real estate in XXX, but why?

Why should I if there is no money motivation?

This past week me and @snowbank went around Sedona looking at lots and new construction. I am trying to look at things without a money lens, but it is so hard. When you stand on a lot that is asking $300k. You look at the beautiful views. But then you ask, how much does it cost to build, how much does the next house over sell for? Then you do the calculations in your head. Hmmm, if I buy this and build this, it will be worth this and I can sell it for this. But should any of that really matter if you want a I house of your dreams on this lot?

I guess I'm trying to get to the point where I don't make decisions based on money. And I don't mean I waste money. But the potential profits or future value of things really shouldn't come into play anymore, if I truly have enough net worth today.

I'm curious to know so I ask @MJ DeMarco, what is the purpose of your day trading? Is it a fun game you play? Is it something you do to keep your mind sharp? I assume that the day trading returns are a small percentage of your net worth/cash flow?

Interested to hear everyone's thoughts.

I have found that I'm really not good at being retired. It sounded good. The reality is NOT what I thought it would be. Boring... The fun was quickly over...

 

[Fox]

I guess I'm trying to get to the point where I don't make decisions based on money. And I don't mean I waste money. But the potential profits or future value of things really shouldn't come into play anymore, if I truly have enough net worth today.

I don't know you too well but it already seems like you do make lots of non-money choices all the time.
- You are big into looking after dogs
- You bike and hike a lot
- Where you live and how you live

This is a really interesting thread and I can't wait till see what others will post too.

I have been struggling a lot with this same topic this year. I read about some squirrel who went nuts (literally) and just kept collecting more and more nuts. Eventually some human found his stash and it was like a hundreds of thousands of nuts stored up ha. He literally had enough food for several squirrel lifetimes but was still collecting more.

I think we all have this same mechanism inside us - the constant need (maybe fear) to always have more.
What if x happens or what if I want y. It can be a lot easier to focus on making more money than to answer the bigger deeper questions about what we are really here for and where it will all end.

Something that helped me was to list out everything I would really want if money was no issue. I tried to imagine I had a lot of money and what I would do after the initial buzz went away.

It was things like:
- get in great shape
- learn a combat sport to a high level
- read 100s of books
- learn a foreign language
- stretch and mediate
- get outside more in the wild, hike, swim, climb etc
- more time with close friends and family
- surf / snowboard / skydive

The funny thing is most of this list really requires very little in terms of money. It is more about freedom and facing the fear inside me that prevent me from doing this - the inner squirrel who wants to just get more nuts.

Of course I am not saying we all go live in the woods and catch wild fish but I think at the same time a lot of what we really want doesn't require too much money. Just more that we step away from our fear and towards what we really want.

It sounds to me you already have all you need in life to really enjoy the pursuit of these other bigger goals.
What do you feel you would regret not doing more of now when you are 80, 90, 100 years old?

 

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[MTF]

Great question. I appreciate you posting about it as this topic has been on my mind for a long time.

And just to be clear, I'm dealing with the same problem. I'm not judging you at all in this post.

Also, I apologize if my post is a little scatterbrained as it's a big topic to tackle and I'm still developing an understanding of it.

First, I wanted to quote Michael A. Singer:

Why would I get out of bed if I'm already happy? Because love wants to express itself. Enthusiasm wants to create and do something. Now you're not acting out of need, pain, problems. You're acting out of joy, beauty. You're driven by a whole another choice.

According to him, this state can be achieved only if we let go of all preferences (if we surrender). If the world needs to unfold according to your likes/dislikes, then you'll be busy manipulating the world and never actually interacting with it as it is. It'll be all self-serving, not serving the world as it is.

For example, imagine you pass a homeless person and give them money. They don't even acknowledge you. Next time you pass a homeless person, will you still give them money or decide it's not worth it? If it's the latter, it means you're giving money as a transaction ("here's 5 bucks, now make me feel good I helped you"). You're not acting out of your higher self (love/joy/enthusiasm/contribution) but out of your lower self (expecting the homeless person to make you feel better which is manipulative and disrespectful).

One of the fundamental concepts of what Michael A. Singer is teaching is letting go of your preferences (likes/dislikes, wants/things you want to avoid) which are built when you create patterns called "samskaras". These samskaras are created when you can't handle the situation unfolding in front of you. For example (another quote):

I'm driving behind a car that's driving slow. My mind is noticing and causing me a hard time. What good is that? The answer is: zero. You're getting aggravated, uptight, you're not enjoying your drive, you're being negative about the person in front of you, etc. In three weeks when you see a similar car you'll avoid it again. You created a samskara. Then you see the person of a certain gender, age, race, and you create a prejudice. You just made the situation make you worse. How about we use this moment as a learning experience? As a trial? I'm gonna use this experience to not do this. I'm going to use this experience to let go of whatever is inside of me that's causing my mind to think like that.

So in this example you can condition yourself to feel anger each time you see, say, a red convertible because THESE DICKHEADS ALWAYS CUT ME OFF. Based on what happened in the past, now you avoid every red convertible and hate every owner of such a car. You create a new reality in which every red convertible is out to get you.

I don't want to go too deep into it as I'm nearing 100 pages of notes of Singer's teachings. It all relates to each other, explaining all the concepts in great detail. But the example above is a good simple explanation of creating patterns and how they affect our life.

In your case, you're conditioned to enjoy the act of creation (in the area of business/investments) only if it stimulates the stuff you've stored inside you, namely, making money.

You created a pattern in which you want to act only if you can get something specific back. If you couldn't make money on your Airbnb tiny homes idea, you don't want to do it. You made it conditional. You live in a reality in which it makes sense to contribute only if you can make money, even if you don't need it. In other words, you're only happy to create something if the world unfolds according to your preferences.

I have no idea when and how you created this conditioning, but for me it was probably out of growing up in a relatively poor household with a lot of uncertainty. As a kid, I couldn't handle it. I saw my parents struggling financially and I decided that the only reason to do anything is to make money as this solves the most pressing problems. This is why I still crave security which I believe money will give me. Note that it doesn't matter how much money you make. Because of this stored pattern from childhood you ALWAYS need more. The solution isn't the outer world, but changing the inner world (letting go of this pattern).

Michael A. Singer prescribes noticing this resistance and letting it go. It's good that you're asking yourself this question because you're becoming aware that something doesn't make sense here. If you can observe this urge and not let it dictate your life, you can start freeing yourself of it.

In the example of the red convertible, each time you now see one and start feeling angry, you observe the feeling but don't act on it. Eventually, you'll retrain yourself and start seeing red convertibles as something neutral, in the same way, as, say, white SUVs are to you now.

So coming back to that first quote, if you get rid of your patterns, you're going to act out of love, contribution and enthusiasm, without any expectations or conditions. You want to act on your Airbnb tiny homes idea because it'll be fun and it'll contribute positively to other people. You DON'T do it under the condition that it makes x amount of money. You start serving the world which is infinitely more satisfying than trying to get something out of it.

I like to compare it to being in a relationship. If you feel lonely single, you CAN'T have a good relationship. The reason is that you'll look for another person (the outer world) to solve a problem you have inside (feeling lonely). The relationship you'll have, no matter how great it'll make you feel initially, is NOT the solution because it'll be conditional ("as long as you make me feel not lonely, I enjoy the relationship").

One more quote:

I'm looking for something or looking to avoid something - then I can't interact with you. I'm interacting with me. My consciousness is buried in me. And I'm going to look at you in relation to me. Are you giving me what I want? Are you being the way I want? Are you making sure you're not giving me what I don't want?

While you have it inside of you (the blockages), you cannot be you. You have to be it. It's owning you.

The spiritual path is about liberation. You free yourself from these patterns inside of you, therefore you free yourself to be okay. You free yourself to be open all the time. You free yourself to enjoy the moment that's unfolding in front of you instead of defining the moment that has to be unfolding in front of you for you to enjoy it.

This is what essentially we're dealing with now when we look at business. We're owned by the pattern that a business needs to give us x money back, even if we no longer need it. We aren't free to just do what is fun and would contribute to the world. We're prisoners to our own conditioning.

So what's the solution? The solution is to let go of this pattern. Obviously this is easier said than done. We've spent our entire lives conditioned to believe that business needs to be all about money. But look at guys like Elon Musk or Richard Branson. I'd venture to say that neither of them create new businesses to get anything out of it.

Elon Musk wants to solve big problems (you can argue he's in it for the challenge but I think he just wants to contribute) and Richard Branson starts new businesses when he sees industries where customer experience sucks (so he's all about creating a positive change).

I read biographies of both of these guys and what's interesting is that neither of them, even when they were young, seemed to be motivated by money. They were both in it for pretty much the same reasons they are today. So perhaps they didn't build patterns around this specific area of life?

So I think that a good exercise is to be aware and let go each time you feel resistance to the idea of building something without getting a (determined by you) amount of money from it. Slowly, you can get rid of this blockage and start acting out of pure motives rather than have a transactional approach.

And maybe you'll discover you don't want to do it anymore—and that's fine as well. Nobody says you have to keep building businesses or investing just because you've been doing it all your life.

As an everyday example of how to let go, I was recently in a barbershop with some incredible art on the walls. I asked the owner about it and it turned out she actually created the pieces. I was blown away. This was SPECTACULAR work.

In my head, I was like "Why the hell are you working in a barbershop if you have such a talent? Why don't you become a professional artist?" But I didn't tell her that. It was my problem, based on the patterns I have.

For her, art is something fun she often does with her friends. She told me they meet up every week and just chill out as they create art. I still find it hard to believe that people do this just for fun, without any expectation or financial motives. But this is a great example of how everyone can teach us something. She approaches art from a very pure place. She doesn't have any patterns stored related to art.

Meanwhile, I don't want to write any more books if I can't make money off them. And to be honest, I would do very little creative work without proper compensation. And here we're back to the work of letting go. Until I fully let go of it, I'll continue looking at the world in a distorted, self-serving, and ultimately not really satisfying way - all because of what I have stored in my head.

This is why I'm retired at the moment. I don't think it's a good idea to keep investing money, time, and effort into something I delude myself will give me something I should find in myself.

 

[Andy Black]

Great thread. A few like this popped up lately.

It’s back to that favourite question I was asked years ago:

“If money was no object, what work would you be doing?”

 

[JunkBoxJoey_JBJ]

I just looked at page 42. But I'm still having trouble understanding your reply because page 42 is exactly what I talked about in my original post. Can you clarify?

Understood.

And that was my point too, it sounded to me like you are “there” and may not need to “work” just for the sake of working.

It may have been lost in translation, but I certainly wish you the best in your decisions, I can see how the book could have an impact after reading it. It was an interesting read.

 

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[ljean]

I suppose I'm at the point where I dont need to make any more money. But I enjoy the challenge and will continue to do so as long as it doesnt create any onerous liabilities/obligations/hassles for me.

I dont mind spending money either, again, as long as it doesnt come with any obligations.

 

[Guest-5ty5s4]

I'm not there yet. I still need to make a lot more money to reach "financial freedom" or whatever.

But if I had it, I'd be pursuing goals that don't pay off so well, things like developing skills as an artist or musician, playing with a band (I kind of do this now but just as a hobby every once in awhile) and really putting myself out there creatively.

I've always been into game development, modeling and animation too, but mostly as a hobby. If I had the free time to do a "deep dive" into this stuff, it would be very fun to me.

I'd try to learn golf and I'd get a lot more serious about my fitness instead of just trying to fit it around work.

But the other motivator for having money is to provide for family and to stave off suffering of loved ones (medical bills, weathering economic downturns, being able to eat well etc), because without production, that is what happens.

 

[biophase]

I think that's really it. What do you want to spend your time doing?

It sounds like somewhere you lost the focus on "bringing value" and got stuck seeing everything through the lens of money. I know in a certain frame of reference those are the same thing, especially on this forum, but I hear you asking a basic "why am I here?" type questions that money often can't answer but value still can.

What do you value?
What are you willing to lay it all on the line for?
What is the legacy you want to leave behind?
How do you want to spend your days? Your minutes?

Because honestly, your dream home sounds more like a box you want to check as opposed to, you know, an actual life-affirming dream. There's nothing wrong with that, especially considering how many people build that supposed life affirming edifice only to be disappointed and ask themselves, is this all there is?

But I'm hearing a general mid-life successful guy malaise in these threads. Am I on the right track? Are these the kinds of questions you are asking?

There's an episode on a TV show where the Asian kid gets a hobby. The mom asks what a hobby is. The kid explains it to the mom and she says, "I don't understand, it doesn't make money and it doesn't help you get into a better college. Why would you waste your time on something like that."

Regarding the dream house, I'm not looking to build a dream home now. I was visiting lots with my friend who wants to build his. I used it as an example because even though he wanted to build a dream home, dollars and ROI came into the conversation. My thought is that for your dream home, none of that should matter because it's your dream.

I actually already have my dream home in Colorado (although I do wish it had 1-2 more bedrooms). I have a really nice home in Sedona and am at the point where I can't figure out where I would buy my 3rd "dream" house which led me to realize that I don't need any more homes and thus without the allure of buying real estate, it is very hard to spend money.

As for how I want to spend my days, I don't know. This morning, I'm here on the forum and plan to go hiking at 1pm. The last 4 days, I had nothing on my schedule. This is not to say that I'm bored. My go to activity if I have nothing to do is to work on my business, or start a new one. However, I have now realize that I like those tasks only because they potentially bring me more money. So I'm trying to not do things like that for a while and see how it goes.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Great question. I appreciate you posting about it as this topic has been on my mind for a long time.

And just to be clear, I'm dealing with the same problem. I'm not judging you at all in this post.

Also, I apologize if my post is a little scatterbrained as it's a big topic to tackle and I'm still developing an understanding of it.

First, I wanted to quote Michael A. Singer:

Why would I get out of bed if I'm already happy? Because love wants to express itself. Enthusiasm wants to create and do something. Now you're not acting out of need, pain, problems. You're acting out of joy, beauty. You're driven by a whole another choice.

According to him, this state can be achieved only if we let go of all preferences (if we surrender). If the world needs to unfold according to your likes/dislikes, then you'll be busy manipulating the world and never actually interacting with it as it is. It'll be all self-serving, not serving the world as it is.

For example, imagine you pass a homeless person and give them money. They don't even acknowledge you. Next time you pass a homeless person, will you still give them money or decide it's not worth it? If it's the latter, it means you're giving money as a transaction ("here's 5 bucks, now make me feel good I helped you"). You're not acting out of your higher self (love/joy/enthusiasm/contribution) but out of your lower self (expecting the homeless person to make you feel better which is manipulative and disrespectful).

One of the fundamental concepts of what Michael A. Singer is teaching is letting go of your preferences (likes/dislikes, wants/things you want to avoid) which are built when you create patterns called "samskaras". These samskaras are created when you can't handle the situation unfolding in front of you. For example (another quote):

I'm driving behind a car that's driving slow. My mind is noticing and causing me a hard time. What good is that? The answer is: zero. You're getting aggravated, uptight, you're not enjoying your drive, you're being negative about the person in front of you, etc. In three weeks when you see a similar car you'll avoid it again. You created a samskara. Then you see the person of a certain gender, age, race, and you create a prejudice. You just made the situation make you worse. How about we use this moment as a learning experience? As a trial? I'm gonna use this experience to not do this. I'm going to use this experience to let go of whatever is inside of me that's causing my mind to think like that.

So in this example you can condition yourself to feel anger each time you see, say, a red convertible because THESE DICKHEADS ALWAYS CUT ME OFF. Based on what happened in the past, now you avoid every red convertible and hate every owner of such a car. You create a new reality in which every red convertible is out to get you.

I don't want to go too deep into it as I'm nearing 100 pages of notes of Singer's teachings. It all relates to each other, explaining all the concepts in great detail. But the example above is a good simple explanation of creating patterns and how they affect our life.

In your case, you're conditioned to enjoy the act of creation (in the area of business/investments) only if it stimulates the stuff you've stored inside you, namely, making money.

You created a pattern in which you want to act only if you can get something specific back. If you couldn't make money on your Airbnb tiny homes idea, you don't want to do it. You made it conditional. You live in a reality in which it makes sense to contribute only if you can make money, even if you don't need it. In other words, you're only happy to create something if the world unfolds according to your preferences.

I have no idea when and how you created this conditioning, but for me it was probably out of growing up in a relatively poor household with a lot of uncertainty. As a kid, I couldn't handle it. I saw my parents struggling financially and I decided that the only reason to do anything is to make money as this solves the most pressing problems. This is why I still crave security which I believe money will give me. Note that it doesn't matter how much money you make. Because of this stored pattern from childhood you ALWAYS need more. The solution isn't the outer world, but changing the inner world (letting go of this pattern).

Michael A. Singer prescribes noticing this resistance and letting it go. It's good that you're asking yourself this question because you're becoming aware that something doesn't make sense here. If you can observe this urge and not let it dictate your life, you can start freeing yourself of it.

In the example of the red convertible, each time you now see one and start feeling angry, you observe the feeling but don't act on it. Eventually, you'll retrain yourself and start seeing red convertibles as something neutral, in the same way, as, say, white SUVs are to you now.

So coming back to that first quote, if you get rid of your patterns, you're going to act out of love, contribution and enthusiasm, without any expectations or conditions. You want to act on your Airbnb tiny homes idea because it'll be fun and it'll contribute positively to other people. You DON'T do it under the condition that it makes x amount of money. You start serving the world which is infinitely more satisfying than trying to get something out of it.

I like to compare it to being in a relationship. If you feel lonely single, you CAN'T have a good relationship. The reason is that you'll look for another person (the outer world) to solve a problem you have inside (feeling lonely). The relationship you'll have, no matter how great it'll make you feel initially, is NOT the solution because it'll be conditional ("as long as you make me feel not lonely, I enjoy the relationship").

One more quote:

I'm looking for something or looking to avoid something - then I can't interact with you. I'm interacting with me. My consciousness is buried in me. And I'm going to look at you in relation to me. Are you giving me what I want? Are you being the way I want? Are you making sure you're not giving me what I don't want?

While you have it inside of you (the blockages), you cannot be you. You have to be it. It's owning you.

The spiritual path is about liberation. You free yourself from these patterns inside of you, therefore you free yourself to be okay. You free yourself to be open all the time. You free yourself to enjoy the moment that's unfolding in front of you instead of defining the moment that has to be unfolding in front of you for you to enjoy it.

This is what essentially we're dealing with now when we look at business. We're owned by the pattern that a business needs to give us x money back, even if we no longer need it. We aren't free to just do what is fun and would contribute to the world. We're prisoners to our own conditioning.

So what's the solution? The solution is to let go of this pattern. Obviously this is easier said than done. We've spent our entire lives conditioned to believe that business needs to be all about money. But look at guys like Elon Musk or Richard Branson. I'd venture to say that neither of them create new businesses to get anything out of it.

Elon Musk wants to solve big problems (you can argue he's in it for the challenge but I think he just wants to contribute) and Richard Branson starts new businesses when he sees industries where customer experience sucks (so he's all about creating a positive change).

I read biographies of both of these guys and what's interesting is that neither of them, even when they were young, seemed to be motivated by money. They were both in it for pretty much the same reasons they are today. So perhaps they didn't build patterns around this specific area of life?

So I think that a good exercise is to be aware and let go each time you feel resistance to the idea of building something without getting a (determined by you) amount of money from it. Slowly, you can get rid of this blockage and start acting out of pure motives rather than have a transactional approach.

And maybe you'll discover you don't want to do it anymore—and that's fine as well. Nobody says you have to keep building businesses or investing just because you've been doing it all your life.

As an everyday example of how to let go, I was recently in a barbershop with some incredible art on the walls. I asked the owner about it and it turned out she actually created the pieces. I was blown away. This was SPECTACULAR work.

In my head, I was like "Why the hell are you working in a barbershop if you have such a talent? Why don't you become a professional artist?" But I didn't tell her that. It was my problem, based on the patterns I have.

For her, art is something fun she often does with her friends. She told me they meet up every week and just chill out as they create art. I still find it hard to believe that people do this just for fun, without any expectation or financial motives. But this is a great example of how everyone can teach us something. She approaches art from a very pure place. She doesn't have any patterns stored related to art.

Meanwhile, I don't want to write any more books if I can't make money off them. And to be honest, I would do very little creative work without proper compensation. And here we're back to the work of letting go. Until I fully let go of it, I'll continue looking at the world in a distorted, self-serving, and ultimately not really satisfying way - all because of what I have stored in my head.

This is why I'm retired at the moment. I don't think it's a good idea to keep investing money, time, and effort into something I delude myself will give me something I should find in myself.

Dude, awesome take. I see that his work has changed your life like it has mine.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Would you be options trading if the reward for being right was just kudos?

No, for me the money is just a conduit to a greater sense of control and security.

Like I said, I could shut down every business venture I own and still have peace of mind knowing that I built myself this skill, a skill that would keep the bills paid, without having to dig into what I've already earned years ago.

Ultimately, it comes down to security. With poor health insurance, a 6 week stay in the hospital would cost millions, so for me, I have no false sense of "too much" --- too much for personal trinkets maybe, but not too much when it comes for contingency planning.

 

[AceVentures]

I think many of us, whether we've got F*ck you money or not, have come face to face with this question.

There is an existential crisis at play - and I believe the bulk of our suffering comes from it.

I say embrace love, laughter, togetherness, dance, movement, nature, music and art. In the practice of something that only holds intrinsic value - you will get a chance to surrender that angst.

I recommend EVERYBODY listen to Ram Dass' commentary on the Bhagavad Gita. There is a beautiful audiobook called Love, Service, Devotion, and the Ultimate Surrender on audible, which is a collection of these speeches given by Ram Dass on the Bhagavad Gita.

You might find some answers there.

 

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[Andy Black]

Great question. I appreciate you posting about it as this topic has been on my mind for a long time.

And just to be clear, I'm dealing with the same problem. I'm not judging you at all in this post.

Also, I apologize if my post is a little scatterbrained as it's a big topic to tackle and I'm still developing an understanding of it.

First, I wanted to quote Michael A. Singer:

Why would I get out of bed if I'm already happy? Because love wants to express itself. Enthusiasm wants to create and do something. Now you're not acting out of need, pain, problems. You're acting out of joy, beauty. You're driven by a whole another choice.

According to him, this state can be achieved only if we let go of all preferences (if we surrender). If the world needs to unfold according to your likes/dislikes, then you'll be busy manipulating the world and never actually interacting with it as it is. It'll be all self-serving, not serving the world as it is.

For example, imagine you pass a homeless person and give them money. They don't even acknowledge you. Next time you pass a homeless person, will you still give them money or decide it's not worth it? If it's the latter, it means you're giving money as a transaction ("here's 5 bucks, now make me feel good I helped you"). You're not acting out of your higher self (love/joy/enthusiasm/contribution) but out of your lower self (expecting the homeless person to make you feel better which is manipulative and disrespectful).

One of the fundamental concepts of what Michael A. Singer is teaching is letting go of your preferences (likes/dislikes, wants/things you want to avoid) which are built when you create patterns called "samskaras". These samskaras are created when you can't handle the situation unfolding in front of you. For example (another quote):

I'm driving behind a car that's driving slow. My mind is noticing and causing me a hard time. What good is that? The answer is: zero. You're getting aggravated, uptight, you're not enjoying your drive, you're being negative about the person in front of you, etc. In three weeks when you see a similar car you'll avoid it again. You created a samskara. Then you see the person of a certain gender, age, race, and you create a prejudice. You just made the situation make you worse. How about we use this moment as a learning experience? As a trial? I'm gonna use this experience to not do this. I'm going to use this experience to let go of whatever is inside of me that's causing my mind to think like that.

So in this example you can condition yourself to feel anger each time you see, say, a red convertible because THESE DICKHEADS ALWAYS CUT ME OFF. Based on what happened in the past, now you avoid every red convertible and hate every owner of such a car. You create a new reality in which every red convertible is out to get you.

I don't want to go too deep into it as I'm nearing 100 pages of notes of Singer's teachings. It all relates to each other, explaining all the concepts in great detail. But the example above is a good simple explanation of creating patterns and how they affect our life.

In your case, you're conditioned to enjoy the act of creation (in the area of business/investments) only if it stimulates the stuff you've stored inside you, namely, making money.

You created a pattern in which you want to act only if you can get something specific back. If you couldn't make money on your Airbnb tiny homes idea, you don't want to do it. You made it conditional. You live in a reality in which it makes sense to contribute only if you can make money, even if you don't need it. In other words, you're only happy to create something if the world unfolds according to your preferences.

I have no idea when and how you created this conditioning, but for me it was probably out of growing up in a relatively poor household with a lot of uncertainty. As a kid, I couldn't handle it. I saw my parents struggling financially and I decided that the only reason to do anything is to make money as this solves the most pressing problems. This is why I still crave security which I believe money will give me. Note that it doesn't matter how much money you make. Because of this stored pattern from childhood you ALWAYS need more. The solution isn't the outer world, but changing the inner world (letting go of this pattern).

Michael A. Singer prescribes noticing this resistance and letting it go. It's good that you're asking yourself this question because you're becoming aware that something doesn't make sense here. If you can observe this urge and not let it dictate your life, you can start freeing yourself of it.

In the example of the red convertible, each time you now see one and start feeling angry, you observe the feeling but don't act on it. Eventually, you'll retrain yourself and start seeing red convertibles as something neutral, in the same way, as, say, white SUVs are to you now.

So coming back to that first quote, if you get rid of your patterns, you're going to act out of love, contribution and enthusiasm, without any expectations or conditions. You want to act on your Airbnb tiny homes idea because it'll be fun and it'll contribute positively to other people. You DON'T do it under the condition that it makes x amount of money. You start serving the world which is infinitely more satisfying than trying to get something out of it.

I like to compare it to being in a relationship. If you feel lonely single, you CAN'T have a good relationship. The reason is that you'll look for another person (the outer world) to solve a problem you have inside (feeling lonely). The relationship you'll have, no matter how great it'll make you feel initially, is NOT the solution because it'll be conditional ("as long as you make me feel not lonely, I enjoy the relationship").

One more quote:

I'm looking for something or looking to avoid something - then I can't interact with you. I'm interacting with me. My consciousness is buried in me. And I'm going to look at you in relation to me. Are you giving me what I want? Are you being the way I want? Are you making sure you're not giving me what I don't want?

While you have it inside of you (the blockages), you cannot be you. You have to be it. It's owning you.

The spiritual path is about liberation. You free yourself from these patterns inside of you, therefore you free yourself to be okay. You free yourself to be open all the time. You free yourself to enjoy the moment that's unfolding in front of you instead of defining the moment that has to be unfolding in front of you for you to enjoy it.

This is what essentially we're dealing with now when we look at business. We're owned by the pattern that a business needs to give us x money back, even if we no longer need it. We aren't free to just do what is fun and would contribute to the world. We're prisoners to our own conditioning.

So what's the solution? The solution is to let go of this pattern. Obviously this is easier said than done. We've spent our entire lives conditioned to believe that business needs to be all about money. But look at guys like Elon Musk or Richard Branson. I'd venture to say that neither of them create new businesses to get anything out of it.

Elon Musk wants to solve big problems (you can argue he's in it for the challenge but I think he just wants to contribute) and Richard Branson starts new businesses when he sees industries where customer experience sucks (so he's all about creating a positive change).

I read biographies of both of these guys and what's interesting is that neither of them, even when they were young, seemed to be motivated by money. They were both in it for pretty much the same reasons they are today. So perhaps they didn't build patterns around this specific area of life?

So I think that a good exercise is to be aware and let go each time you feel resistance to the idea of building something without getting a (determined by you) amount of money from it. Slowly, you can get rid of this blockage and start acting out of pure motives rather than have a transactional approach.

And maybe you'll discover you don't want to do it anymore—and that's fine as well. Nobody says you have to keep building businesses or investing just because you've been doing it all your life.

As an everyday example of how to let go, I was recently in a barbershop with some incredible art on the walls. I asked the owner about it and it turned out she actually created the pieces. I was blown away. This was SPECTACULAR work.

In my head, I was like "Why the hell are you working in a barbershop if you have such a talent? Why don't you become a professional artist?" But I didn't tell her that. It was my problem, based on the patterns I have.

For her, art is something fun she often does with her friends. She told me they meet up every week and just chill out as they create art. I still find it hard to believe that people do this just for fun, without any expectation or financial motives. But this is a great example of how everyone can teach us something. She approaches art from a very pure place. She doesn't have any patterns stored related to art.

Meanwhile, I don't want to write any more books if I can't make money off them. And to be honest, I would do very little creative work without proper compensation. And here we're back to the work of letting go. Until I fully let go of it, I'll continue looking at the world in a distorted, self-serving, and ultimately not really satisfying way - all because of what I have stored in my head.

This is why I'm retired at the moment. I don't think it's a good idea to keep investing money, time, and effort into something I delude myself will give me something I should find in myself.

Blimey. I’m going to have to reread this a few times.

I already enjoy what I do, and it pays my bills. I get satisfaction just out of doing it.

Years ago I used to run track. Everything was timed. Back then our performance, and happiness, was defined by the time on a stopwatch. Now when I look back at my favourite memories running on the track they were *not* when I was timed. They were during a training session coming off a bend and catching my (much faster) training partner. Or the last leg of a 4x400m relay with the club screaming themselves hoarse and where the time for each leg was irrelevant anyway.

I remember going for a bike ride and my speedometer telling me I was only doing X miles an hour. I ripped it off and threw it into the undergrowth and enjoyed the countryside instead.

I was obsessed with “getting my knee down” when I started riding motorbikes. That obsession nearly killed me multiple times. One day an older biker asked “Are you smoooth Andy? Are you smoooooth?” Huh? When did I stop enjoying a 4 hour bike ride because I couldn’t find a bend I could get my knee down round?

I’m not sure where I’m going with this, and had to scroll back up to remind myself of the question in the thread title again.

I’m *not* in a position that money is no object. If I stopped working now then I’d know about it in a few short months.

It doesn’t really matter to me though. I don’t make decisions based on how much money it will make me. I can’t stand SMART goals and what they stand for. I’m not into numbers (odd for a mathematician and given what I do for a living).

I like my current lifestyle (apart from the lockdown which gives me hardly any time in the day to work on my own stuff as the kids are home schooling and I’ve not figured out how to combine the both yet).

Like I think I mentioned above, I was asked years ago “If money was no object then what work would you be doing?” and then “What’s stopping you?”

Since then I’ve been very conscious of building a business that suits me and what I want to do and not to conform to anyone else’s model.

I’m 50 this year too. I don’t want to build FU money to leave to my kids. I want to leave them with FU Unscripted mindsets and the ability to eat what they kill. I want them to retain their childlike delight at the world and not have to put up with the negative nancies and complaining charlies because they can walk away and make their own sunny little worlds. That would be my greatest achievement: Be the man I want my sons to grow up to be.

My wife recently asked our 12 year old who his hero was. He looked at me and said: “That’s easy. Dad.” Dayum, that’s powerful stuff.

I’ve no idea if any of that rambling helps.

 

[WJK]

Blimey. I’m going to have to reread this a few times.

I already enjoy what I do, and it pays my bills. I get satisfaction just out of doing it.

Years ago I used to run track. Everything was timed. Back then our performance, and happiness, was defined by the time on a stopwatch. Now when I look back at my favourite memories running on the track they were *not* when I was timed. They were during a training session coming off a bend and catching my (much faster) training partner. Or the last leg of a 4x400m relay with the club screaming themselves hoarse and where the time for each leg was irrelevant anyway.

I remember going for a bike ride and my speedometer telling me I was only doing X miles an hour. I ripped it off and threw it into the undergrowth and enjoyed the countryside instead.

I was obsessed with “getting my knee down” when I started riding motorbikes. That obsession nearly killed me multiple times. One day an older biker asked “Are you smoooth Andy? Are you smoooooth?” Huh? When did I stop enjoying a 4 hour bike ride because I couldn’t find a bend I could get my knee down round?

I’m not sure where I’m going with this, and had to scroll back up to remind myself of the question in the thread title again.

I’m *not* in a position that money is no object. If I stopped working now then I’d know about it in a few short months.

It doesn’t really matter to me though. I don’t make decisions based on how much money it will make me. I can’t stand SMART goals and what they stand for. I’m not into numbers (odd for a mathematician and given what I do for a living).

I like my current lifestyle (apart from the lockdown which gives me hardly any time in the day to work on my own stuff as the kids are home schooling and I’ve not figured out how to combine the both yet).

Like I think I mentioned above, I was asked years ago “If money was no object then what work would you be doing?” and then “What’s stopping you?”

Since then I’ve been very conscious of building a business that suits me and what I want to do and not to conform to anyone else’s model.

I’m 50 this year too. I don’t want to build FU money to leave to my kids. I want to leave them with FU Unscripted mindsets and the ability to eat what they kill. I want them to retain their childlike delight at the world and not have to put up with the negative nancies and complaining charlies because they can walk away and make their own sunny little worlds. That would be my greatest achievement: Be the man I want my sons to grow up to be.

My wife asked my 12 year old who his hero was. He said: “That’s easy. Dad.” Dayum, that’s powerful stuff.

I’ve no idea if any of that rambling helps.

I have had the same type of experiences. I most enjoy the moments that are not tabulated nor measured. I love to be in the "flow" and not watching the clock. That doesn't mean that I'm not working -- just that it's a personal, private moment where I'm excelling for the pure pleasure of doing the task. And my work is really making a difference.
I've raised two families over the years. All the kids are grown and gone. And they are doing well for themselves. We applaud their independence and we don't second guess their choices. As adults, they have the right to both succeed and to fail without us being their armchair quarterbacks.

 

[biophase]

I have found that I'm really not good at being retired. It sounded good. The reality is NOT what I thought it would be. Boring... The fun was quickly over...

I did a "temporary" retirement in 2004. It only took 2 months before I was bored. I think that "temp" retirement really shaped how I thought about money afterwards. But in 2004, my retirement was based on the spend very little and make it last method, whereas my new retirement will be more of spend as much as I can. Problem is I don't know how to spend it anymore.

 

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[biophase]

I don't know you too well but it already seems like you do make lots of non-money choices all the time.
- You are big into looking after dogs
- You bike and hike a lot
- Where you live and how you live

This is a really interesting thread and I can't wait till see what others will post too.

I have been struggling a lot with this same topic this year. I read about some squirrel who went nuts (literally) and just kept collecting more and more nuts. Eventually some human found his stash and it was like a hundreds of thousands of nuts stored up ha. He literally had enough food for several squirrel lifetimes but was still collecting more.

I think we all have this same mechanism inside us - the constant need (maybe fear) to always have more.
What if x happens or what if I want y. It can be a lot easier to focus on making more money than to answer the bigger deeper questions about what we are really here for and where it will all end.

Something that helped me was to list out everything I would really want if money was no issue. I tried to imagine I had a lot of money and what I would do after the initial buzz went away.

It was things like:
- get in great shape
- learn a combat sport to a high level
- read 100s of books
- learn a foreign language
- stretch and mediate
- get outside more in the wild, hike, swim, climb etc
- more time with close friends and family
- surf / snowboard / skydive

The funny thing is most of this list really requires very little in terms of money. It is more about freedom and facing the fear inside me that prevent me from doing this - the inner squirrel who wants to just get more nuts.

Of course I am not saying we all go live in the woods and catch wild fish but I think at the same time a lot of what we really want doesn't require too much money. Just more that we step away from our fear and towards what we really want.

It sounds to me you already have all you need in life to really enjoy the pursuit of these other bigger goals.
What do you feel you would regret not doing more of now when you are 80, 90, 100 years old?

You are correct, I've been living a very non money prioritized life for a few years now. However, making money was still the fuel that kept everything churning and going. I understand that most things that people want to do with freedom require little money like all the things you've listed above. But those things are daily to dos.

I'm looking for something long term to do where the decision making isn't based on money. But I also know that doing something that is profitable or break even allows it to be done over and over again.

As for your question, "What do you feel you would regret not doing more of now when you are 80, 90, 100 years old?", I don't know. I think if I had an answer I would be trying to do it now.

 

[biophase]

I'm driving behind a car that's driving slow. My mind is noticing and causing me a hard time. What good is that? The answer is: zero. You're getting aggravated, uptight, you're not enjoying your drive, you're being negative about the person in front of you, etc. In three weeks when you see a similar car you'll avoid it again. You created a samskara. Then you see the person of a certain gender, age, race, and you create a prejudice. You just made the situation make you worse. How about we use this moment as a learning experience? As a trial? I'm gonna use this experience to not do this. I'm going to use this experience to let go of whatever is inside of me that's causing my mind to think like that.

Meanwhile, I don't want to write any more books if I can't make money off them. And to be honest, I would do very little creative work without proper compensation. And here we're back to the work of letting go. Until I fully let go of it, I'll continue looking at the world in a distorted, self-serving, and ultimately not really satisfying way - all because of what I have stored in my head.

This is why I'm retired at the moment. I don't think it's a good idea to keep investing money, time, and effort into something I delude myself will give me something I should find in myself.

I just read past that chapter in the book. And the funny thing is that I already do this most of the time. When someone cuts me off, I'll pay it no mind at all. I'll just think to myself, he's in a huge hurry and I have nowhere to be. Things happen and they flow into the past.

One time, on a plane the lady sitting next to me spilled her drink on my lap. I don't think the lady apologized. If she did it was just a simple sorry. It was orange juice or mixed drink. All I did was get up and grab my carry on, go to the bathroom and change my pants and sat back down. I didn't even say anything to her the rest of the flight nor did I think about it the rest of the flight. At the end of the flight, I told my friend who was sitting 10 rows behind me what happens. He was shocked that I wasn't even mad.

Sometimes I look back at things that happen to me and think "damn I should have been pissed at that". I wonder if going too far this way is bad also.

 

[MTF]

Dude, awesome take. I see that his work has changed your life like it has mine.

Thank you. Your work was my first "awakening." Michael A. Singer's is my second.

There is an existential crisis at play - and I believe the bulk of our suffering comes from it.

I'll eventually bore you all with Michael A. Singer's quotes but anyway, this is relevant here:

#1:

The first Buddhist noble truth: all of life is suffering. The second noble truth: the cause of suffering is preference. The cause of suffering is deciding how you want it to be. The cause of suffering is desire. The cause of suffering is not the way things are, the cause of suffering is that you decide how you want them to be and they're not the way you want them to be. Otherwise they are the way they are.

#2:

The great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. When the thing can no longer offend you, it ceases to exist in the old way. The old way is personal. It's like and dislike. It's "I need to do something about it." When it ceases to exist in the old way, it is what it is.

The existential crisis is when your life isn't the way you thought it would be at a specific age. This is often something superficial you decided needs to be present in your life for you to be okay just because society considers it a sign of success: a nice house, a nice car, etc.

Or alternatively, you're just not okay with the passage of time. You don't want to look older or you don't feel comfortable that more than a half of your life is gone already.

Either way, it's deciding how you feel based on stuff you can't control (aging) or stuff that is a reaction to your stored patterns ("a successful person has a Lambo in his garage by the time he's 50").

If you're cool with everything, life's cool all the time.

Note that it doesn't mean you won't feel grief, sadness, etc. It means that you'll be okay feeling these emotions, accepting that they're part of reality and part of experience of life.

Obviously this is beautiful in theory but very hard to attain in real life.

To me, it's the final layer of freedom. Experiencing the life as it unfolds and being fine all the time.

 

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[Ravens_Shadow]

Being on the younger side of the equation (27), I'm already having the same questions arise and I'm not at the point where I have millions in my personal bank account yet. I love my business and the work that we do and I realize that we need to make money so that we can fully carry out my dreams for this business. I used to be so bunched up and stressed about the business that I couldn't stop thinking about it, ever. I seem to have broken myself away from this and now I'm looking to solve inner issues with myself and figure out what I really want my life to be like.

If money was no object:

• Where would I want to live?
• What do I want to do with my free time?
• Are there any philanthropic things that I want to do to better the world?
• What hobbies do I want to take up and actually commit to?
• What problems can I solve for people with lesser fortunes?
• What do I actually value with relationships? (Family/SO's etc)

These are hard questions for me to answer still. Working on my business brings me a lot of joy and of course the "best" reward is money. Happy customers and clients are great too and the side effect of that is money.

Though at what point do I have enough money? At what point do I stop needing more? At what point do I focus my energy somewhere else? My current number that I'm aiming for and it's a dream that I'm working hard to fulfill is $10 million in the bank. At that amount, I can do pretty much whatever I want and feel "very secure".

Security is all I'm after at my current point in life. A proper place to live in a location that I want, a great team helping me build my business, a very healthy buffer in my personal bank, etc kind of encompasses what I consider "security".

When re-reading the TMF I realized that you could pay yourself $250k/yr for over 40 years if you had $10 million in the bank. That is more than enough in my eyes and seeing it as *that much money* kind of blew my mind. I would certainly feel secure.

Despite working hard towards security in my life, I also want to be happy right now with what I have and I'm working on releasing the stressors that cause me to be sad or disappointed and also change my living situation to a place where I actually want to be. The great thing about being unscripted or in the fastlane is that you can literally do anything that you want to.. but the curse of that is now that every option is available, what option are you actually going to pick?

I have enough money to go live anywhere I want in the world (barring a mansion or something) and determining where I want to plant my roots is a really hard thing for me to decide on and it's currently my biggest source of inner turmoil.

 

[redshift]

Another way to look at this is to flip the equation, one way goes like this - achieve something first, be happy second. The opposite would be - be happy first, achieve something second. In the first case, you'll have a never ending quest of trying to get somewhere and never be satisfied; but in the second, regardless of whatever happens, you'll always be happy and as a side effect, end up achieving way more as you'll be coming from a place of abundance.

For me the fastlane was never about the money, but mainly a path to freedom. I had too many things I wanted to do and not enough time. And my way of defining a meaningful life would be to go through each moment while trying to evolve to my highest potential in whatever it is I am doing. MJ said it best in unscripted and I always have this playing at the back of my head when I start focusing too much on the end goal:

"What these fools can’t see is that pursuing the dream is the dream itself. It’s the process. The failures, trials, and tribulations. It’s the self-growth, the self-awareness, and the self-discovery that occur during a dream pursuit. To sell the dream is to awaken the dream—and once it’s alive, you become alive."

What might not be obvious is that the dream doesn't have to end. The process is eternal and for me its going to be finding areas which I have always been interested in or wanted to learn more about (eg: writing, acting, directing, heck even trading the markets) but have been too afraid or busy to pursue and spend my life going deep in these subjects and do the best work I can. The interests themselves might change along the way of course. In short, its too repeat the cycle of "Live, Grow, Give" for the rest of my life.

The best way to be "happy in the moment" I found is to take up a meditation practice. There are several options - TM, Zen, Mindfulness / Surrender, Vipasana etc. They all lead to same path and make you realize the beauty of the present moment. I find this Zen story about the 10 bulls path a good example of what I meant above:




As above, this cycle never ends. It's about the process, not the goal, with each successive cycle, becoming more meaningful than the last

 

[MJ DeMarco]

I'll eventually bore you all with Michael A. Singer's quotes

Not me, keep 'em coming.

To me, it's the final layer of freedom. Experiencing the life as it unfolds and being fine all the time.

Yes, what struck me in Singer's work was the simple phrase, "Unconditional happiness."

The stories he used to exemplify that process really made that phrase come alive ... that you ALWAYS have the ability to be happy, no matter what the world is throwing at you. The world will be the world. Life will go on, the earth will continue to spin, not matter how much you resist.

The example he used was the guy who had his girlfriend leave him. He was miserable for months, until she came back and regretted the decision. Then he was happy. In other words, he's letting external stimuli dictate happiness when in fact, the happiness is always there. Nothing physical occurred, it was purely mental.

We've become accustomed to letting external factors dictate our happiness ... when this, when that...

Even my step son...

He said this other day as he was in a bad mood.

I'll be happy when I'm ripped. (He's in decent shape, but not ripped.)

In other words, I'm going to be miserable in my youth every single day until I reach some external vanity goal. And then when he reaches it, it will be another distant goal... I'll be happy when I get that hot girlfriend, that awesome job...

Lost is happiness.

Lost is the now.

One day, we wake up and realize life has past us by reaching for transient happiness, when the pure happiness was there all along.

 

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[BizyDad]

One day, we wake up and realize life has past us by reaching for transient happiness, when the pure happiness was there all along.

This.

Hopefully people wake up sooner rather than later.

 

[WJK]

Not me, keep 'em coming.



Yes, what struck me in Singer's work was the simple phrase, "Unconditional happiness."

The stories he used to exemplify that process really made that phrase come alive ... that you ALWAYS have the ability to be happy, no matter what the world is throwing at you. The world will be the world. Life will go on, the earth will continue to spin, not matter how much you resist.

The example he used was the guy who had his girlfriend leave him. He was miserable for months, until she came back and regretted the decision. Then he was happy. In other words, he's letting external stimuli dictate happiness when in fact, the happiness is always there. Nothing physical occurred, it was purely mental.

We've become accustomed to letting external factors dictate our happiness ... when this, when that...

Even my step son...

He said this other day as he was in a bad mood.

I'll be happy when I'm ripped. (He's in decent shape, but not ripped.)

In other words, I'm going to be miserable in my youth every single day until I reach some external vanity goal. And then when he reaches it, it will be another distant goal... I'll be happy when I get that hot girlfriend, that awesome job...

Lost is happiness.

Lost is the now.

One day, we wake up and realize life has past us by reaching for transient happiness, when the pure happiness was there all along.

When I was young, I was always gonna be happy when ______ happened. It was just around the corner. When it finally came, I found that most of the time, I had already sucked the happiness out of that event or accomplishment. All I had was an empty, sick feeling. I landed with a dull thud rather than being lifted up with elation. Those moments just didn't live up to the anticipation.

And then my world totally changed. It was 1980 and I was a kidney patient at the clinic at UCLA in Los Angeles. I had always had problems, so it was during one of my regular Wednesday visits that a young doctor told me. I had 2 weeks to 2 months to live IF I didn't go on a kidney dialysis machine. And if I did, they could "give" me around 5 years.

No, I didn't let them put me on the machine. Yes, I did tell the doctor what he could do with his machine in some pretty graphic language -- without using one cuss word. Then I told him that he could die first. Today, he could walk out in front of the clinic and be hit by a Mac Truck. I finished by telling him that he didn't know anything about my life. If I was going to die, I would at least do it at home in my nice warm bed -- not on his cold steel table. You should have seen his jaw drop at my reply to his news. He gulped a couple of times. Then he wrote in my chart that I was uncooperative. He walked me to the door and told the guard not to let me back in. After that, the clinic refused to see or treat me. Yes, I had some very bad days where I almost didn't make it. The EMTs had to bring me back a couple of times. BUT, I'm still here 41 years later.

That doctor's visit was the moment that changed my life. I ask myself when I was going to be happy since I might not wake up tomorrow. I evaluated everything. I looked for what was wrong with my life and vowed to change it. And I'm still doing that today. I have learned that dying is easy. It's the living day-to-day that is hard. And I'm not going to willing waste a minute of it on being unhappy!