Lately one has been through a whirl of emotions. More accurately, a whirl of stress. Pure stress. Type of stress that stains your face. And naturally, as a way out of this stress, my mind always gravitates to the fact that to exit this stress-laden state, I need to acquire more money. Why is that the case? Why is that natural for me to think that money will solve my problems?
Because on face value that’s the case. A little bit more money flowing into my pocket will definitely ease the load resting on my shoulders. This is without a shadow of a doubt the honest truth. Tony Robbins states that wealth is one of the pillars of success. Yes, there are people who find happiness without money but for us who grew up in a capitalist, material world, money becomes one of the concrete blocks that form the foundation of our happiness.
Perhaps this is what gave rise to retail therapy. Perhaps this is why consumerism is prevalent. Perhaps this is why an adult when given a bonus or a financial reward at work smiles like a child getting a lolly from a doctor who gave him bitter cough medicine. Money is integrated into the fabric of our existence. Money is integrated into the functioning of the modern world. Money is important and to undermine its importance is ignorance at best.
You see, that’s the capitalist me speaking. That’s the ‘make money by any means necessary’ me speaking. Recently I discovered this YouTuber, Tee Noir. Her channel is pretty dope. She’s a feminist and most of her topics are based on feminism. What I like most about her content is that it’s palatable. It’s not overwhelming. It’s not hatred towards men masked as feminism. In the same breath, it is not weak. It doesn’t lack the potency of a staunch feminist. Her content is the type that you watch as a man and it will make you think. Some points she’ll bring up and as a man will disagree but she doesn’t have this air of ‘you wrong if you disagree’. But anyway, she said something rather interesting.
She said that it seems that for a man to be self-made, men like Kevin Samuels advocate that a man has to follow the 12-12 rule. I made that term up but it does not deter from what she said. Basically, this is what the 12-12 rule is. The 12-12 rule is that for a man to succeed he must work 12 hours a day for 12 years of his life. This relentless drive to succeed will enable a man to achieve more in his life than if he let the wheel of fate decide for him.
When she said this, the message resonated with me instantly. Instinctively I agreed with the notion. Instinctively the 12-12 rule made sense to me as a man pursuing success. Because, besides work, for me, what else do I have going on? I don’t go out or plan trips or weekend gateways. I don’t have friends in Umhlanga to call up and hang with. Even back home the same narrative followed suit save a few Sundays here and there. My girl lives in another town and she works Monday to Monday. Our relationship literally hangs off the lines of Vodacom. I don’t have much going on for me except work. Therefore, I ask myself, what else should I be doing except working towards my dreams?
As a man, the 12-12 rule makes sense because this society we live in praises the man who has money in the bank account. Yes, some will disagree. I understand the ideologies that people profess to change the system. I understand that there are fundamental flaws in society that obscure what reality and what life should be. But I’m one of those people who can be identified as being a realist. It is easy to get lost in theory of how life should be when the reality is contradictory to that theory.
The reality, as it is right now, it still glorifies the self-made man. The self-made man is an example of greatness. The story of how a man (or woman) was able to gather rags and knit them into riches remains one of life’s greatest testimonies of greatness. And as such, we listen and learn from those who are self-made and try to emulate them as well.
Hence the lure of the 12-12 rule. For someone like myself who really has anything going on in his life, the 12-12 rule is easy to follow. It simply requires discipline to follow through. It requires the focus to follow through. But at what expense?
This expense I noticed when I took my woman to work this one Sunday. She works close to the beach. We were early that day so we had time on our hands. So, to pass the time, we decided to walk along the beach until her time to work clocked. While walking, I realised something rather subtle but powerful. At that moment, I realised how much of life I’m actually missing out on in the name of abiding by the 12-12 rule. The way I kept talking (even whilst trying to remain composed), the way I kept pointing out the waves, the way I kept kicking the soft beach sand, all these behaviours were reminiscent of an excited child. Even though I tried to maintain a calm and poised demeanour, the truth of the matter is that the child in me was out of his mind excited and happy.
When driving back, it dawned on me that I am missing out on life in the pursuit to be a self-made man. It’s those moments that make one appreciate the philosophies and theories of individuals like Tee Noir who remind a person that there’s more to life than the pursuit of money. And indeed, the older one gets, the less special a Ferrari becomes. Instead, hearing my father or mother over the phone becomes more special. The things that do not cost so much money begin to glimmer brighter than the things that do.
However, the realist in me remembered that I’d rather cry in a BMW than in a Tazz. On a daily basis, I hear people confess to lifestyles that are beyond me. I once heard this one lady advocating that one should finish their money before the new paycheck kicks in. How often do we hear expressions such as ‘money is meant to be spent’? And most cases, the ones saying these statements are the ones who are bad with money or actively take loans for annual events such as Macufe or Durban July.
I am one of those who understand the 12-12 rule. I am of those who advocate for the 12-12 rule. I am one of those who believe that sacrificing half of your life for 12 years to live like a king for the rest of it is worth it. How many retirees after retirement get back to work? They work 40, 50 years only to be met with scraps that cannot even sustain the fraction of life they have left. Yes, unlike me who bets half of their time to their success, they only bet a third of it. They did not work 12 hours a day, they probably worked only 8 hours. The 4-hour trade-off to early retirement (true retirement to that) for someone like me makes absolute sense.
I guess the balance is the key. The balance to live life while understanding that life is what you make it is the essential balance that is difficult to attain. But the fact that most of my stress is financial, or so I believe it is, I rest comfortably knowing that I spent a great deal of my life learning entrepreneurship. I rest comfortably knowing that I spent a great deal of my life studying many self-made men and women. I rest comfortably that they left clues about how they did it and the decision rests with me to use those clues or not.
The 12-12 rule is one that embeds success into the real world we live in. Inasmuch as that there are theories that show us the true costs of attaining success this way, the realist in me understands that’s the price to pay for it. I’d honestly would rather cry in the backseat of a Bentley than in a beat-up taxi. I’d have rich man stresses than struggling with a young broke man ones. I’d rather have too much money problems than too little money ones. The grass looks greener and I am sure it is. Because that grass is well fed with A-grade fertiliser. Unlike a poor man’s grass that is only watered with dry tears.
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