The tides are changing, bringing a freshness to the beaches that coast the edges of our dreams. In our dreams, we find solace and joy that we sometimes wish they become true. The hope of the dream coming true is what makes the dream exciting. Hope is the emotion that evokes the human spirit to act. Hope is what religious figures teach in churches and temples. Hope is the long-lost cousin of fear.
Fear also has the power to evoke the human spirit to act. If someone holds your life at the tips of their fingers, the fear that if they snap their fingers, your life will come to an end, this fear will prompt someone to act. The fear of not being able to care for your family will prompt them to remain in the world of employment until they die.
There are very few individuals who love their work. I once saw two very insightful videos about the idea of missing out on life because of the concept that one must work to survive. In the first video, the man recited a poem about how he wishes to be fishing all day long and not worry about reporting and checking in. It was a moving poem that this man recited about being free to enjoy every waking moment of his existence. But because he was to work, he misses out on living his life.
The other video showed how he raises with the sun in the morning, to go work for a minimum job, and comes back to his place with the setting of the sun. The money he receives, he says that it is enough to afford his one-room apartment, basic food, and basic clothes. That is all that the minimum job can offer him.
Discussing this video, another video came to mind. This was a video that had rich people sitting in a roundtable with financially struggling people. There was one person from the latter who said that all he ever wanted was to make music. But because he needs to pay for his apartment, buy food, and buy clothes, he does not have the luxury of time to pursue his musical ambitions. Close to the end of the video, he said that all he ever wanted was to play his guitar and generate enough income to live from that. Growing up he believed that his talents and passion will help him find success with his guitar. Now that he is an adult, he realises that it takes money to make money. Even to make money from his passion for his guitar.
It leads me to wonder, how many of our dreams have we resigned to our childhood? One adult once told me that it was time, I buried my dreams and embraced that this is the way of life. This waking up, working for a corporation that knows you by number, getting paid, getting into credit to live up to work-life expectations, and dying with nothing to you, is the way of life. This is not living. This is not life.
With age, one has learned that the material goods that we idolised are not true successes. Material goods that glimmer and shimmer on social media are not true successes. With age, one learns that success is being with your loved ones. With age, one learns taking care of your parents is true success. One learns taking care of your children is true success. This is a true success that does not require money to live. However, to assume that even this simple definition of success does not need money is naivety at its best.
The system we live in forces money to be a quintessential essence of living. The system we live in has integrated money into every aspect of our lives. To take care of your loved ones, you need money to buy food and feed those loved ones. You need to maintain your house and ensure that they are safe. However, the system is designed to ensure that it is upheld and maintained. The system does not care about your love for your family.
To flow against the system will result in a catastrophic breakage of your spirit and soul. Like water, one learns that one needs to flow with the system. Find those loopholes that enable others to leak out and find freedom. However, it is not as simple as it sounds. The rich claim to save first and spend after. However, someone earning paycheck to paycheck does not have the privilege to save first. Someone who is living on the R350 relief fund from the government does not have the privilege to save first.
To a great extent, most of the bits of advice about financial freedoms stem from those that had wealth already. It is easy for Warren Buffet to say that it is financially wise to invest first and spend after. This logic cannot apply to a mother who is head over hills in debt. Debt for that student loan to get her children to school. That debt to pay for her children’s accommodation and clothes. It was a debt the parent took for the advancement of their children’s lives. Perhaps that is why many of our Black parents expect to be compensated for their sacrifices in the form of the infamous black tax.
And the cycle seems to continue. The cycle seems to continue to enslave new blood. Through the old school rhetoric that one should go to school, get an education, and get a job rhetoric. A broken rhetoric. There’s a trend I saw on TikTok where creators show their degrees and their jobs. It is interesting and sad, that there are individuals in our country who are educated but not in the profession of their education. There are citizens in our country who are educated and qualified in various fields. And yet, a majority of these citizens are working dead-end jobs. They are working low-skill jobs that do not require their education. It is also interesting to note that there are those who are in the field that they studied for but engage in a side hustle to sustain their lives.
The system isn’t designed according to that rhetoric that is told to us. The people who are alive and have the opportunity to live are the ones who have not traded time for their livelihood. They are the ones who have found the means to trade value for money. And with their time, they live their lives.
The thing that makes time such an important entity of life is that time is the measurement of one’s life’s moments. In memories, we captured precious moments that we relive in the quiet states of introspection. How many of these precious moments do we miss because we cannot create them? Because the time to create them is spent behind a desk? Within the confines of a cubicle?
Employment is a trap and there’s nothing under God’s green Earth that can convince me otherwise. Understanding the dynamics of our country, employment for some is the means to put food on the table. Understanding the dynamics of our country, not everyone can afford to dream a dream of financial freedom.
There’s another video where a podcaster walks up to people and asks them what their dream was growing up. He asked this question to a black man. The man said that he never really had the time to dream a dream. He grew up with the understanding that he had to find means to put food on the table. There simply wasn’t time to dream.
Thus, with that example, one understands that indeed employment for some is their saving grace to live better. However, if you have the luxury to dream, employment should be the stepping stone to financial freedom. Not the chief cornerstone.
Employment must not and it simply cannot be the foundation for financial freedom. The way that employment is structured, it is impossible to attain financial freedom through employment. The idea of growing in the organisation and waiting for that day when you are CEO or in an executive position is a story sold in Hollywood blockbusters. It is a myth. And there is nothing under God’s green Earth that will ever convince me otherwise.
Thus as the tides change, they should take with it the fear of finding freedom. They should wash away the sands that clog the cogs of the mind. As the tides change, let's remember the boat of hope that sails to the horizon. For beyond the horizon, there we'll find our lives.
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