I once heard a story from a guy who worked for a large cellphone and mobile service provider. He was in sales and he hated the job. He made lots of money doing it but the work itself felt meaningless to him. By pairing his lifestyle down and focusing on keeping what was truly beneficial to his life, he was able to walk away from that job and pursue writing and other creative endeavors.
It was about 8-10 years ago that I heard this story but the thing that truly sticks out to me is the behavior of his manager at his old company. He said the manager used to see salespeople pull up in the parking lot in brand new sports cars or big trucks and the manager would say something to the effect of, “He’s trapped here now!!” The manager knew that once a salesperson’s lifestyle inflated, the freedom to leave the company and do something else became increasingly limited. Add to that, the courage to actually say what’s on their mind when at work probably diminishes significantly.
This was a story I heard from a blogger on the internet whom I can’t remember but it’s stuck with me because I’ve had conversations like this with people at least 50 times over the last 10 years. Basically, I’m sitting with someone I care about trying to counsel them not to make a choice based on social norms, but instead spend some time working on themselves and their own lives. However, because we as a culture don’t spend time establishing what the fundamental tasks of life are, people make poor strategic choices all the time assuming they know the basics.
“I’ve got to get a house!”
“I need a car and everybody lives on debt now!”
“I know he smokes a lot of weed but deep down he’s a good guy.”
These are actions that come from beliefs hidden in our cultural stories about what makes a good and successful life. People want to have nice things and, even if it’s killing you, people want to be in a relationship. It’s not the things or relationships or jobs themselves that are bad, it’s being chained to those things because we haven’t done the fundamental tasks of life well. What are the fundamentals you ask?
Health – Exercise regularly, eat real food, and get good sleep.
Personal Finances – We need money to live and being disciplined with money means we don’t have to live to work (at a job anyway – side note, I didn’t learn a single thing about personal finance in public school or college. What might be the most important practical life skill, I learned nothing about in my primary education. And I ended up in debt with a repo’d car. We assume we know these things.)
Relationships – Pursuing relationships of all kinds where there is empathy, honesty, and accountability and not being afraid to let go if things turn toxic.
Work – Most of us will need a job but you also have to work to find what you’re passionate about and make time to work at it. Even if it’s a hobby we all need ‘soul food’.
Simple stuff. But not easy stuff. However, if you work on them, suddenly you are no longer forced to put up with things you don’t want to. When you are confident in yourself from working on yourself, you don’t need external affirmations. This means you are less likely to buy things so that you can have the appearance of success. Specifically, when you work on your financial discipline and awareness, you are more likely to buy things because they will add personal value to you and you have the financial capacity to handle them well. As opposed to buying things because you’re ‘supposed to’ or because ‘everybody does it’. This also leads to the courage to tell people in your life the truth (personal relationships or work) because you’re self assured and financially stable. When you’re not scared of being single or alone, it’s a lot easier to hold romantic partners and friends to higher standards of behavior. When you’ve got 3-6 months income saved and you’re debt free, it’s a lot less scary to tell your supervisor the truth.
Get your life together so you can tell the truth.
Travis Daigle 