One of the great tragedies of modern people is their contact with the popular portrayal of romance in movies, television, and literature. The standard view on what out relationships and marriages are supposed to be like are shaped by romantic comedies and situational drama shows. All the problems you could possibly experience fit neatly into a 30 minute window - even leaving time for commercials! When we grow up surrounded by this portrayal of romance it’s no wonder that many people find themselves disillusioned in their marriages. Over 50% of marriages end in divorce now, and that’s not even counting the people who are miserable but feel stuck in the marriage and condemn themselves to eternal suffering.

Think of the plot of any popular romantic comedy you’ve seen recently. Usually there is a standard formula known as the MLG plot structure. That stands for meets, loses, gets. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl. That sums up every romantic comedy I can think of off the top of my head. At the end of the movie after working out their differences through an amusing series of coincidences they live happily ever after and with big smiles on their faces they ride off into the sunset. That’s how marriage works right? Once you put the ring on your finger all the little problems you used to have to deal with go away right?

The truth is that there is no perfect partnership. It’s always going to take work. Often at the start of a relationship it can seem like two people are perfect for each other and alike in every way. That’s normal to think that. It’s called New Relationship Energy and it’s the excitement that comes along with having a new partner in your life. It’s normal to paint a picture of them as your ideal and to minimize differences you might have and to take more notice of real or perceived similarities. It’s what we as humans do. However as time goes on that New Relationship Energy starts to wear off, and unlike in the movies it’s going to take work to keep the relationship alive. That doesn’t mean the relationship is bad or flawed… it’s just how things are in the real world.

Take a look at the second part of that classic romantic literature formula again. “Boy lose girl”. To weave a good yarn there has to be some element of conflict. Some unlikely coincidence, misunderstanding, or temporary set backs cause the future happy couple to have troubles and likely split. However soon to come along is the finale of “boy gets girl” to fix everything. However in real life this isn’t always the case. Sometimes there are problems, and then it’s the end. No fixing, no making up, no happily ever after. It’s unfortunate but not every relationship is built to last. The key lies in knowing that and knowing when to end something. I often have friends tell me, “well I’ve put so much time in already I don’t want to throw it all away”.  This is foolish. Think about what it is really saying. “Well I’ve spent years being unhappy…. why stop now?” Sometimes relationships have unreconcilable problems and in ending it you are not giving up anything. In deed at that point there is nothing left to give up. Unhappiness is not something to cling too.

The unrealistic expectations that modern society has leads to a lot of discord and paucity of happiness in our romantic lives. Not every relationship has to end in marriage for it to have been a good experience. The best advice I ever had was that relationships will seek their own level. Do the things you enjoy together and fun and when you are no longer happy with each other have the courage to put and end to it. Life isn’t a Disney movie, but it doesn’t have to be - having fun along the way beats a happy ending any day in my book.

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We live in a society that is enamoured with the idea of shortcuts. If there is a quicker, easier way to do something then that’s what people want. Lose 10 pounds in a week! Make $10,000 a month from your home! Meet the spouse of your dreams in 5 easy steps! The headlines of our instant gratification society call out and pander to the desire for the easy solution. Even when something is not obviously a sales pitch, it often ends up making some out as being easier than it really is. Take blogging for example. I’ve read tons of articles on how easy it is to blog and make a living through it. Now I’m not interested in making a living from blogging, but I do enjoy refining my writing skill and from hearing my readers thoughts and learning from them. However there is no way that blogging is easy. Writing one article is no problem, but continually writing interesting posts as well as all the web site skills takes a lot of work. There is no simple quick fix to it. It’s not an easy solution.

This is how all things in life are. If you want something then you are going to have to work hard for it. A minimum of effort usually ends up leading to a minimum of results. And as for those easy solutions that people are always trying to sell us… if there was one that really worked don’t you think that everyone would already be doing it? The hair replacement ads are my favorite… if someone came up with an effective way to regrow hair then that person would be a multi-millionaire and everyone would want that product. But the easy solution is again just smoke, mirrors, and marketing.

So what does this mean if there is no easy solution? It means that we have to be prepared to give our all if we really want to accomplish a goal. If you want to excel at a sport then be prepared to practice for hours and hours. If you want to start you own business then be prepared for the hard work you’ll need to put in. If you want to meet new and exciting people you have to be ready to step outside of your comfort zone. It also means that in life it is difficult to be a jack of all trades. If you do everything reasonably well then you’ll be faced with a large amount of competition that can do it better than you. However if you avoid looking for easy solutions and pick one thing about which you are truly passionate, then you can put in the hard work needed to excel. It’s through excellence that we gain happiness and achieve our goals.

There is always going to be another quick way to better yourself that someone is pushing. But next time you see one of these, think back on other easy solutions you’ve tried. How did it go? How did you feel? I always felt frustrated when I didn’t get the results I was promised and that had seemed to simple. That’s the truth about what we get by taking the easy way out - frustration. So do some soul searching and pick a few things to be great at and start the hard work of doing what is necessary to be your best self.

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I  have never owned a record label, nor directed a successful merchandise company, so I don’t pretend to be an expert on marketing. I have evolved through my craft as a songwriter, but others have labeled it and marketed it and made it neat for consumption.

Although I have made money from Punk, it is a modest amount when one considers the bounty that has been bestowed on the companies that promote Punk as some sort of a product to be ingested. It has always been my way to de-value the fashionable, light-hearted, impulsive traits that people associate with Punk, because Punk is more than that, so much more that those elements become trivial in the light of human experience that all punkers share.

Since it has been a part of me for over half of my life, I think the time has come to attempt a definition, and in the process defend, this persistent social phenomenon known as Punk. It is astounding that something with so much emotional and trans- cultural depth has gone without definition for so long, for the roots of Punk run deeper, and go back in history farther than imagined.

Even in the last two decades, it is difficult to find any analysis of the influential effect that Punk Rock had on Pop Music and youth culture. And rarer still are essays detailing the emotional and intellectual undercurrents that drive the more overt fashion statements that most people attribute to Punk. These are some of the wants that compelled me to write this. If my attempt offends the purists, collapses the secrecy of a closed society, promotes confidence in skeptical inquiry, provokes deeper thought, and decodes irony, then I have done my job and those who feel slighted might recognize the triviality of their position. For I have nothing to promote but my observations on a sub-culture that has grown to global proportions, and through visiting much of it, I have found threads of common thought everywhere.

Common thought processes are what determine the ideology that binds people together into a community. There is desire among Punks to be a community, but there needs to be some shape imparted on the foundations of the punk ideology, and where it comes from. The current Punk stereotype is scarred by mass-marketing and an unfortunate emphasis on style over substance.

But these ills don’t destroy the Punk sentiment, they merely confound the education of the new generations of people who know they are punk, but don’t know what it means. It is a long road to understand what it means. This essay is part of the process.

PUNKS ARE NOT BEASTS Punk is a reflection of what it means to be human. What separates us from other animals? Our ability to recognize ourselves and express our own genetic uniqueness. Ironically, the commonly held view, among the marketeers and publicity engines, stresses the “animalistic”, “primitive” nature of punks and their music.

They assume that violence is a key ingredient in punk music, and this assumption is easily perpetuated because it is easy to market violence and news items about violence always get column space. This focus on violence misses a key element of what Punk is all about:

PUNK IS: the personal expression of uniqueness that comes from the experiences of growing up in touch with our human ability to reason and ask questions.

Violence is neither common in, nor unique to punk. When it does manifest itself it is due to things unrelated to the punk ideal. Consider for example the common story of a fight at a high school between a punk and a jock football player. The football player and his cohort do not accept or value the punk as a real person. Rather, they use him as a vitriol receptacle, daily taunting, provoking, and embarrassing him, which of course is no more than a reflection of their own insecurities. One day, the punk has had enough and he clobbers the football captain in the hallway. The teachers of course expell the punk and cite his poor hairstyle and shabby clothing as evidence that he is a violent, uncontrollable no-good. The community newspaper reads “Hallway Beating Re-affirms that Violence is a Way of Life Among Punk Rockers”.

Spontaneous anger at not being accepted as a real person is not unique to punkers. This reaction is due to being human, and anybody would react in anger regardless of their sub- cultural, or social affiliation if they felt de- valued and useless. Sadly, there are plenty of examples of violence among punks. There are glaring examples of misguided people who call themselves punks too. But anger and violence are not punk traits, in fact, they have no place in the punk ideal. Anger and violence are not the glue that holds the punk community together.

IN UNIQUENESS IS THE PRESERVATION OF MANKIND Nature bestowed on us the genetic backbone of what punk is all about. There are roughly 80,000 genes in the human genome, and there are roughly 6 billion people carrying that genetic compliment. The chances of two people carrying the same genome are so small as to be almost beyond comprehension (the odds are essentially ? 80,000 times the number of possible people you can meet and mate with in a lifetime! A practical impossibility)

The genes we carry play a major role in determining our behavior and outlook on life. That is why we have the gift of uniqueness, because no one else has the same set of genes controlling their view of the world. Of course cultural factors play the other major role, and these can have a more homogenizing effect on behavior and world-view.

For example, an entire working-class town might have 15,000 residents who are raised with the same ideals, work at the same factories, go to the same schools, shop at the same stores, and like the same sports teams. As their children develop, there is a constant interaction of opposite forces between the social imprinting their culture imparts and the genetic expression of uniqueness.

Those who lose touch with their nature become society’s robots, whereas those who denounce their social development become vagrant animals. Punk stands for a desire to walk the line in between these two extremes with masterful precision. Punks want to express their own unique nature, while at the same time want to embrace the communal aspects of their cookie-cutter upbringing. The social connection they have is based on a desire to understand each other’s unique view of the world. Punk “scenes” are social places where those views are accepted, sometimes adopted, sometimes discarded, but always tolerated and respected.

PUNK IS: a movement that serves to refute social attitudes that have been perpetuated through willful ignorance of human nature.

Because it depends on tolerance and shuns denial, Punk is open to all humans. There is an elegant parallel between Punk’s dependence on unique views and behaviors and our own natural genetic predisposition toward uniqueness.

THE BATTLE OF FEAR AND RATIONALITY

The compulsion to conform is a powerful side-effect of civilized life. We are all taught to respect the views of our elders, and later when we realize that they are just dogmatic opinions, we are taught not to make a commotion by asking difficult questions. Many just go along with the prevailing notions and never express their own views, which is analogous to a premature death of the individual. Our species is unique in the ability to recognize and express the self, and not exercising this biological function goes against the natural selection gradient that created it in the first place. This complacency combats a fear of failure. It is easy to assume that if everyone else is doing something, then there is no way to fail if you just go along with it. Cattle and flocks of geese can probably recognize this advantage. But the entire human race could fail because of this mentality. Thinking and acting in a direction against the current of popular opinion is critical to human advancement, and a potent manifestation of Punk. If an issue or phenomenon is found to be true only because other people say it is so, then it is a Punk’s job to look for a better solution, or at least find an independent variable that confirms the held view (sometimes the popular view is just a reflection of human nature, Punks don’t live in denial of this).

This ability to go against the grain was a major part of the greatest advances in human thinking throughout history. The entire Enlightenment period was characterized by ideas that shunned the dogma of the time, only to reveal truths in nature and human existence that all people can observe, and that are still with us today.

Galileo fought the church, the church won the battle, by putting him in jail for life, but ultimately lost the war; few people today believe that the sun orbits around the earth, and thus God didn’t create the earth as the center of the universe. Francis Bacon insisted that human destiny is equal to understanding. If we deny this fundamental principle of what it means to be human, he reasoned, then we descend into the depths of mere barbarism.

Charles Darwin, wrote after the heyday of the Enlightenment, he nonetheless was directly influenced by its tradition, was trained as a theologian and yet still was driven to understand the underlying order that connected biological species he observed in his travels. His views threw into question many of the Bible’s tenets, yet his reasoning was sound, and through a process of self-improvement (the struggle in his own mind to understand) he improved mankind by establishing a new benchmark of human knowledge.

The dogma of the church was further marginalized. The fear of repercussion from the church was overshadowed by the wave of understanding that his views created in people, and by the truth to his observations.

The modern-day Punk thought process, driven by this desire to understand, is a carbon-copy of the Enlightenment tradition. The fact that so many historical examples exist that reveal a will to destroy dogma leads to a powerful tenet: It is a natural trait of civilized humans to be original. The fact that uniqueness is so rare reveals that our nature is stifled by an equally potent opposing force: fear.

PUNK IS: a process of questioning and commitment to understanding that results in self-progress, and by extrapolation, could lead to social progress.

If enough people feel free, and are encouraged to use their skills of observation and reason, grand truths will emerge. These truths are acknowledged and accepted not because they were force-fed by some totalitarian entity, but because everyone has a similar experience when observing them. The fact that Punks can relate to one another on issues of prejudice comes from a shared experience of being treated poorly by people who don’t want them around. Each has his/her own experience of being shunned, and each can relate to another’s story of alienation without some kind of adherence to a code of behavior.

The truth of prejudice is derived from the experience they all share, not from a written formula or constitution they have to abide by. Punks learn from this experience that prejudice is wrong, it is a principle they live by; they didn’t learn it from a textbook. Without striving to understand, and provoking the held beliefs, the truth remains shrouded behind custom, inactivity, and prescriptive ideology.

WHAT IS TRUTH?

Philosophers distinguish between capital “T” truth and truth with a small “t”. Punks deny the former.

Truth with a capital “T” assumes that there is an order prescribed by some transcendental being. That is to say that truth comes ultimately from God, who had a plan for everything when he created the universe.

Little “t” truth is that which we figure out for ourselves, and which we all can agree upon due to similar experience and observations of the world. It is also known as objective truth, from within ourselves, revealed here on this earth; as opposed to big T truth, which comes from outside and is projected down to us, specifically for us to follow. Morality need not be thought of as a product only of big “T” truth. Objective truth lends itself just as readily to a moralistic, spiritual culture.

PUNK IS: a belief that this world is what we make of it, truth comes from our understanding of the way things are, not from the blind adherence to prescriptions about the way things should be.

Punk’s dependence on objective truth comes from the shared experience of going against the grain. Anyone who has stood out in a crowd feels the truth of the experience. No one had to write a doctrine in order for the outcast to understand what it meant to be different. The truth was plain enough, and that truth could be understood and agreed upon by all those who shared a common experience.

WHAT IS FEAR?

The fears that drive people to conform have caused dismal periods in human history. The so-called Dark Ages, were tranquil and without upheaval, but also dismally quiet and pestilent, nary a contrasting view to be found. The pseudo-comfort and tranquility that the people of the Dark Ages experienced, by conforming to a rigidly enforced bureaucracy enforced by the king and church, was masked entirely by the misery they had to endure in their day to day life. Life is easy as a peasant, no direction, no purpose, just produce more goods and offspring for the benefit of the king. But using fear to control peasants (or modern-day blue-collar workers for that matter) is just a short-term foul exercise, because peasants have the same mental equipment as the royalty.

The deeply ingrained biological traits of self-recognition and the desire to express the self cannot be quashed for long. Eventually peasants realize that life without the practice of reason is as good as being a farm animal. Being controlled by fear is the same as being biologically inert, unable to take part in the human drama, merely wasting away. The fear that controls human behavior is learned. It is different from the immediate, reflexive, run-away-from-the- nasty-stimulus response that other creatures employ to stay alive. We have motor reflexes like these as well, but fear of failure, and fear of speaking out come from the limbic system.

The limbic system is a network of neurons in our brain that control our most deep-seated emotions. It connects two parts of the brain together: the midbrain, where sensory information is sent (i.e. sight and hearing stimuli) and the forebrain, where that information is processed. Although the forebrain has been around for at least 480 million years (it was present in the earliest vertebrates), it evolved special functions with the advent of humankind.

A specialized portion of the forebrain, called the cerebral cortex, is highly developed in humans. 95% of our cerebral cortex is responsible for associative mental activities like contemplation and planning. The other 5% is responsible for processing motor and sensory information.

By comparison, a mouse (also considered a higher vertebrate), has a cerebral cortex with only 5% of its neurons devoted to associative functions, while 95% are devoted to motor and sensory fuctions.

The highly developed limbic system is at the core of what it means to be human. We differ from other animals in the amount of time we spend planning, contemplating, and expressing ourselves. Our limbic system is very powerful. It can over-ride primitive emotions, and suppress deep desires. Anyone who has ever seen a sad movie with friends, and willfully held back tears because they didn’t want their friends to see them crying, employed the power of their limbic system. They contemplated the repercussions of their friends reaction to crying, and shut off the emotional cascade that would have brought the tears.

In the same way that rationality is the product of the limbic system, fear is also centered in the same neurons of the limbic system. Fear is usually rational behavior, based on irrational thoughts, and it can freeze the processing power of the cerebral cortex. Denial and fear go hand in hand, and both are examples of how our limbic system can suppress obvious stimuli and promote behavior that is safe and conforming.

The limbic system is like any other organ in the sense that it can operate unchecked to produce detrimental results. Being in touch with our bodies leads to overall general health, and the limbic system needs constant attention in order to master it. To overcome fear, one needs to be in touch with their limbic system, and recognize when it is suppressing the obvious.

Etiquette and “being nice” are forms of limbic-system repression, necessary at times, but ultimately demeaning of human originality. Lying is the ultimate form of limbic-system repression. It is a denial of the obvious. Truth-tellers, those who are authentic and trustworthy, have learned to master their limbic system. They recognize the desire to lie, but rationalize the futility of advocating something that is not true. Liars, on the other hand, are slaves to their limbic system, out of touch with their most basic mental capacities. Their behavior is guarded and shifty because they let their flawed reasoning, to cover up the obvious, control their entire makeup. They eventually have to give in to the truth and concede defeat, but only after every possible avenue of deception and twisted logic has been advocated in the interest of hiding their fear.

Politicians, Clergymen, Business leaders, and Judges are masters of twisted logic and promotion of fear. They make good intellectual targets for Punkers because they don’t respect people who have learned to master their limbic systems. And Punkers are not afraid to point out that which is obvious, even if it means their social status might be jeopardized.

PUNK IS: the constant struggle against fear of social repercussions.

THE PUNK MOVEMENT

I have tried to enumerate some of the factors that make Punk a movement, in the cultural sense. The typical stereotype of a feeble-minded ruffian vandalizing, destroying, stealing, fighting, or arguing in the name of some empty, short-lived cause is no more punk than the pretty-face-empty-head image of today’s pop stars.

Because it is so easy for record companies to sell images of violence, sex, and self-importance, many bands have taken the bait and portrayed themselves as Punks, without realizing that they were actually perpetuating a stereotype of conformity that is wholly un-punk.

The “come join us” attitude that seeks to attract followers, usually results in a rabble of weak people who think that their power lies in the large numbers of like-minded clones they have compiled. There is no strength in numbers however, if the people are glued together by a short-sighted, self-serving, fear-induced mantra that promotes factions and exclusionary principles.

Strong ideologies don’t require a mob, they persist through time, and never go away, because they are intimately connected to our biology. They are part of what it means to exist as Homo sapiens. Punk typifies that tradition. It is a movement of epic proportions, that transcends the immediacy of the here-and- now, because it is, was, and always will be there-and-forever, as long as humans walk the earth.

As we enter a new era in the voracious march of culture, Punks will have their day. The internet has allowed people to communicate directly once again. On the web, human behavior is interactive, like it was before the advent of mass-media.

People now focus on ideological discussions and lifestyle issues, as opposed to the classic 20th century behavior of closing oneself off from cohorts, and adhering to a network’s, or commercial’s prescriptive code of acceptable behavior. The lies, and mysteries of elitism will erode quickly as the global conversation that transpires daily on the web invades more people’s lives.

The world population will be more receptive to alternative ideologies because they will be creating them. People will be less receptive to ideologies of out- dated institutions because the holes and flaws in their logic will be ever more amplified when they are broadcast instantly around the world as they become revealed.

The “Strength-In-Understanding”, and “Knowledge-Is-Power” ethics that Punks maintain will become the norm. The rigidity, brutishness, and futility of secret agendas will be made obvious, paving the way to an appreciation of human uniqueness, and a new era of originality.

WHO IS PUNK?

Everyone has the potential to be punk. It is much harder for someone who comes from a placid, un-challenging, ignorant upbringing, because they don’t see the value in questioning or provoking the institutions that gave them such tranquility. But such examples of carefree existence are rare in today’s shrinking world.

Eternal questions still burn in the minds of most people. What it means to be human is becoming more clear every decade. Sometimes, people are trained to follow the safe path to an early grave by consuming and repeating the dogma of a fearful aristocracy.

On the other hand, the human spirit is hard to kill. Punk is a microcosm of the human spirit. Punks succeed with their minds, not their brute force. They advance society by their diversity, not their conformity. They motivate others by inclusion, not domination.

They are at the front lines of self-betterment and by extrapolation can improve the complexion of the human race. They adhere to unwritten universal principles of human emotion, obvious to anyone, and shun elitist codes of behavior, or secret agendas. They embody the hope of the future, and reveal the flaws of the past. Don’t tell them what to do, they are already leading you.

PUNK IS: the personal expression of uniqueness that comes from the experiences of growing up in touch with our human ability to reason and ask questions.

PUNK IS: a movement that serves to refute social attitudes that have been perpetuated through willful ignorance of human nature.

PUNK IS: a process of questioning and commitment to understanding that results in self-progress, and through repetition, flowers into social evolution.

PUNK IS: a belief that this world is what we make of it, truth comes from our understanding of the way things are, not from the blind adherence to prescriptions about the way things should be.

PUNK IS: the constant struggle against fear of social repercussions.

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I’ve never been much of a gambler. For me the pleasure of winning a hundred dollars is nothing compared to the intense suffering of loosing a single penny. As a result the only time I gamble is when it is with someone else’s money (no I don’t steal it… they get to keep any winnings I make). My personality isn’t geared for playing games in a casino when I know the house is going to have an edge against me.

The only game I will play at all (even with other’s money) is poker, because that’s the one time I feel like I can have a better than 50% chance at winning. If I feel that I’m up against better players at the table and don’t have a chance beyond just luck, then I stand up and leave the table. Playing to win for me involves having an edge over all the competition. Why compete at something where you know you’re already at a disadvantage? I wouldn’t challenge Lance Armstrong to a cycling race with money on the line - that would be stupid.

The same advice of only playing when you have an advantage can apply to career as well. Why do something if you know there are many people who can do it better than you? If you want a business to suceed you need to provide a material perceivable advantage over your competition. If you’re going to open the 30th coffee shop in town then you better have a coffee shop that is somehow different and more desirable than all the others. If you don’t, then one of them will make the changes and leave you in the dust. The same goes for picking a career working for others too. Recently a friend of mine asked me why I didn’t get a job working in the wine industry. Wine is my hobby and I like to think I’m reasonably knowledgable about it. I certainly enjoy it! However I know there are thousands of people out there who are far far more knowledgable about wine than I am, and if I went into the wine industry I would be relegated to the ranks of the mediocre. That’s not something I am willing to ever be. I don’t have an edge, so I’m better off finding an area where I have that material percievable advantage over the masses of competitors.

Play to win. When you’re looking for careers, first think about what you enjoy doing…. but then make sure you think about your own skills. Find that overlap between what you love and what you’re good at - that’s what you should be doing.

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“Time is money”. There is a quote that I hear just about every day. Constantly folks are telling me how time is money. When they are waiting in lines they give an exasperated sigh - “Time is money”. Leaving a meeting to go to another - “Time is money”. Speeding down the freeway 30 mph over the limit - “Time is money.”

You know what? Time is not money. This is an idea that needs to be stopped. And unfortunately not only are most people deluded into thinking that this is true, but there entire careers reflect the same idea.

Steve Pavlina describes trading time for money as being “income for dummies”. That’s about the best I’ve ever heard it put. Think about it… what really has value. Me sitting at a desk and keeping my chair warm for 8 hours? Or is it what I can accomplish? It’s not the time itself that is valuable but rather the product of your time. Let’s say I spend the next year writing and book and when I’m done I charge $8 for it. Now what if I took me two years to write it instead of one? Would you pay $16 for the same book in that case? Of course not.

It’s not your time that has any value. It’s your ability to produce something that has value to others. Yet I see people every day who haven’t grasped this concept and instead are stuck in a job somewhere trading their time for money. I used to joke about my 40 hours a week sitting at a desk. I felt that I spent 1 hour a week being brilliant and 39 hours a week doing mindless tasks. I’ve seen this to an even greater extent in others who are “working” by playing solitaire or reading wikipedia entries (or lifeisyourcareer!) all day. And they are getting paid the same either way and all along they are telling themselves, “Time is money”.

Well that idea sucks and I want no part in it. I want to be paid for my ability not my time. If I can do as good a job as someone else in half the time then I still want to be paid the same thing. Don’t be deluded into thinking we’re all equal… we’re not. If you’re a better worker and can accomplish more faster then you should be making more money. When I do consulting work I always charge by the project and never by the hour of my time. My time isn’t valuable… it’s the change I can help people make that is valuable.

Another great thing about decoupling time from money is that you no longer have to be working to make money. Why just get paid when you’re working? I like getting paid while I eat dinner, while I ski, and while I’m sleeping. When you look at people who successful entrepreneurial businesses they have started they are making money all the time. The business they have created keeps on giving them more and more income. Same goes for authors and many other careers as well.

Plus you’re money is no longer limited to a pre-defined amount. Let’s say you run a great marketing campaign for the company you work for and their profits increase by $5 million dollars. What do you earn for this great campaign? $20 dollars an hour for however long you worked. What would you have earned playing minesweeper all day at the same job? $20 dollars an hour. On the other hand when you are working for yourself and no longer buying into the idea that time is money… you get to keep everything you make. As well it should be. If you have the ability to create something wonderful, then you should benefit from the financial windfall your hard work produces.

Time is not money. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise. Keep looking towards the entrepreneurial path and stop pursuing “income for dummies”.

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“More money, more problems” is probably a phrase you’ve heard before. It’s used a lot in popular culture but it’s one of those sayings few people seem to believe. Most people assume that if they had enough money then they wouldn’t have to worry about anything. Well in some ways it certainly helps to have more money, but it definitely isn’t the solution to all a person’s problems.

There is some truth in more money more problems. The issue is that as a person starts to acquire more money they also start spending more money. When that big promotion or new job comes through it usually is accompanied by new expenditures as a celebration. A new car, a bigger house, a new wardrobe. And since one is making more money, they feel free to spend more as well. Their needs rise to meet their means. Instead of being happy with the $10 meal out once a week now its $30 and its a few times. It’s not that there are more problems with more money, it’s just the same problems that haven’t gone away.

A little math to illustrate the problem:

A person makes $40,000 per year and they have a home with a mortgage payment of $1,000 per month.

Now when they get that big new job and are making $60,000 and have bought a new house which they are paying $1,500 for. Their new style of life suits their new means.

The percentage of money going to rent is staying the same. And the extra dollars are likely going to nicer food, clothing, and entertainment. A person’s lifestyle seeks its own level of balance when not focused on. I’m guilty of that myself - when I got a large raise I ended up spending a third of it on my wine cellar (one of my hobbies). So in reality I didn’t get any more money… I just got one more expense to keep up with.

It’s not great to be increasing expenses like this, but along with the increase in money it’s not terrible. The issue comes when for some reason the money is cut off. It could be anything - layoffs, medical expenses, economy shifts (hello housing market), or retirement. But once a person becomes used to a standard of living it’s very difficult to move backwards. I would have trouble going back to my top ramen days myself. Now all that money a person had been making really is leading to more problems as the expenses stay the same. Trying to keep up a lifestyle without the means is what leads so many people into the whole of debt.

The trick to avoiding “more money, more problems” is to know that we all seek a balance between our desires and our means. The solution isn’t to increase our means… that will never end up satisfying us. We can always want something more and would always want more means to bring those wants into our grasp. The trick is to lower our level of wants to that which is easily attainable or free. Enjoying things like reading, being outdoors, and the company of friends are all things that we can have at any income level. Also those things can’t be taken away. That’s a solid balance of wants vs means instead of a precarious one.

If we can make more money then that’s great. But to avoid having more problems as well we have to be focused on our own internal personality. Don’t let things that were once just a “want” become a “need”.

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TV is addicting no way around it. In my previous article I talked a bit about some of the negative aspects of watching television. I’ve been thinking of more and more reasons over the past week or so, but instead of listing more reasons to stop watching (or at least cut back) let’s look at some ways that might help us give up TV.

Stop reading TV guides or magazines related to TV shows. If you don’t know when the show is on then you can’t watch it. And if you don’t know when the show is on then you can’t feel the lure of the TV. In addition the less you’re reading about the shows the less time you’re spending thinking about them in general. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but that’s only true in the short term. After awhile of not following a show closely you begin to lose interest. I was like that when I was in the process of giving up television - I’d absolutely love a show (heck I named my cat Jack after the main character in the show 24) but after missing it for a month or so… I no longer had a desire to get back into it. At least the desire to watch the show wasn’t as strong as the desire to keep up with the new activities I’d taken up in my new found free time.

Don’t talk about TV with your friends and co-workers. Like the above point the less you know about the false realities in TV shows the better. We’re all interesting people with great stories to tell - we don’t need to resort to discussing television with our friends. And if you’re watching less and less TV you’re going to be having much more interesting things to talk about. While the other co-workers discuss American Idol you can talk about the new mountain biking trail you found.

Out of sight, out of mind. If you can get that TV somewhere that you aren’t always around it then that’s a big step. I know a lot of people have families and that other members will like to watch TV, but even in that case you can make steps in this direction. Only have one TV and keep it in a place like the living room. There is no need to have a TV in the living room, a TV in the bedroom, and a TV in the kitchen. If you can’t escape it then of course you can’t give it up. If you can get the TV out of the house all the better, but if not at least get yourself in another part of your place when possible.

Don’t go right home after work. This is a big one. Going right back to your home after a day of work when you have nothing to do at home but watch TV is a baaaad idea. That’s like someone who is trying to give up drinking going straight to the bar to “just hang out”. Ya… good luck. Start doing other activities that replace the time you spent sitting in front of your television. A personal favorite is going to the bookstore and using it as a library. Go to the park. Take a class. But until you’re used to not watching TV don’t tempt yourself by being around them when you have nothing better to do.

Replace the time. The last point included this idea, but let me re-state it here because not only does it help you in giving up TV but it’s also the biggest benefit. You have so much time that will no longer be spent watching television, so think of all the things you’ve always said, “I don’t have time for that” and start trying them out. Nothing makes you forget TV faster than having something better to be doing.

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Like most people in our society I was taught at an early age there is a path to follow. Work hard in high school so you can get into a good college. Decide on a major and work hard to get the grades needed to secure a good job in your field. Work your way up in the field to make more and more money and prestige. It’s the standard path that is laid out before us by influences such as our parents, what we see on TV, successful people, and teachers.

The big question: How can you know at 12 or 18 or 20 years old what the right career path is for you? That’s crazy to think that a decision made at that age can shape the rest of your working life which may very well be 50 more years! But that’s what is expected of us. Just think about the questions you get about college. First question is usually, “where did you go to school?” and that is followed by the second question, “what did you major in?” And people who major in something like History or English are bound to get asked what they plan do with their “useless” major. And if you studied one thing but want to work in another field…. good luck explaining that one!

I know people who are 2 years into college and don’t know what they want to be. That isn’t weird. That’s normal. After finishing both college and graduate school and being in the working world I still don’t know what I want to be. I know people who are 50 who don’t know what they want to be. And the truth is that’s fine. “The future you had yesterday is not the same as the future you will have tomorrow”. Just because you chose one path when you were 16 years old doesn’t mean you have to follow that forever. People change. When someone breaks up with their boyfriend/girlfriend we don’t think that is strange… they changed and grew apart. The same is true of career path.

I saw a study that said people who test as being “fully content” in their career have gone through 5 to 8 different jobs on average before finding the right fit for them. That makes perfect sense. You can’t know exactly what you’re getting yourself into with any given career until your actually trying it out. And if you don’t like it then you’ve learned something and it’s on to the next opportunity. Just like with ice cream favors it’s good to sample before picking a favorite.

Society looks at people changing their careers as rebels and as going against the grain. There will be a lot of naysayers who will point at the “successful people” and show how they followed The Path. But so what? Just because it worked for someone else doesn’t mean it will work for you. All the ideas of, “but maybe I won’t be successful”, “I might not make as much money”, or “people will think I’m crazy” are flawed. The one thing that matters in your career is that it’s something you can enjoy doing for 20+ years. If you only do it grudgingly and are just giving your time and not your interests then you are going to be in for a long painful road.

Just because you wanted something in the past doesn’t mean you’re required to want it forever. It’s perfectly normal to change career path and to sample different jobs until you find the one that fits you best. Next time someone asks you what you want to be, give them a sly wink and tell them “Whatever strikes my fancy”.

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However, not all of life is objective. The person you are, the qualities you espouse, what you make of yourself - all these things are components of a subjective reality. You can will yourself to change. The phrase “fake it until you make it” can be used but it’s not quite all inclusive of this powerful concept. If you truly believe something then you will subconsciously start to manifest that and in turn the rest of the so called “objective” world will reflect it back to you. Ever notice how it is the most confident guys who seem to do the best in dating? It’s not because they are using some secret trick… they just fully expect that they will have success because in their minds, “why wouldn’t they?” They are creating a subjective reality and the world is reflecting back that which they already know to be true.

So how do you start using this subject reality idea to be your best self? Well first and foremost you have to be congruent with what you want. Your idea of what you want to become has to be something you really really want. Not just a, “well maybe I could be” or a “I think I might kinda want this….” Your image of your best self have to be something that you know deep inside is your essential character and deeply important to you. With that congruent idea of what you want to be you can start consciously thinking about it while you perform tasks and deal with people. Ask yourself, “how would the ideal me handle this?” At first it can feel weird to be thinking through all your actions, but in time it becomes second nature and you begin to manifest your own subjective reality. You have your concept of who you want to be and by force of will you make it happen.

When you are congruent and manifesting your desires in your own actions, the rest of the world will start to reflect your own beliefs about your self back to you. When you perform the actions of a confident person people will treat you as such. It’s a cycle and by working hard at starting it, the world will reinforce it and it will be true in both subjective and objective reality.

It’s a continuous process and I’m always thinking about how I can move towards my ideal self. I take a bit of time to myself and think what qualities I’m manifesting right now. What do I want to keep? What do I want to remove? What would I like to add? For instance I want to be a person who is a person of action rather than one who is just all talk. I focus on that and work towards that goal in the choices I make, in time this will become more and more a part of me. It’s a weird feeling to have the power to change yourself and while it can be hard at the start (we all slip up from time to time) it gets to be a great feeling. When you start naturally behaving like your best self it’s very rewarding.

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There are always going to be naysayers out there who tell you something can’t be done or that you’re making a mistake. If you try to start your own business they are going to tell you how most new businesses fail. If you are going to move they will question you about how are you going to manage to find a place to live and how will you work. If your going to cut your hair they will say, “are you sure that will look good?” These naysayers are everywhere are at times it can be hard to follow your own path and keep your own council when there are voices of skepticism and doubt coming from all corners.

You are responsible for your own happiness. If you know that you want something out of your life that only you can do it. If other people doubt you then to hell with them… just because they say it’s a bad idea doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go for it anyways. Learning to live our own lives requires us to be able to set our own ideas and desires aside from those of society and the people around us. In the end only we know what is truly best for ourselves. If I feel being in a rock band (if only I could sing!) is the fulfillment of my dreams then there is no reason anyone else can give me that would outweigh my own desires. The worst feeling of all is wanting something, but not going for it because you’re too scared of what other people will think.

The naysayers will always be there. I like to call that group of people “The Sucks”. Just because they suck at something and can’t do it themselves, they don’t want to admit that anyone else could do it. Just because they are too scared to try and make a drastic change in their lives, they feel no one else should either. They don’t just suck at individual things… they suck at life. The people you want to surround yourself with are not these naysayers but instead the people you’ve seen have dreams, make plans, and then accomplish what they set out to do. We want to be surrounded by enablers.

A lot of people do weird stuff with their lives that we can never understand. I went to a rock quarry about a year ago to help a friend build a path in her garden. While at the quarry we asked for help from this 60 year old man who owned the place and we ended up with a two hour long lecture on slate and all the little tiny details you never would have thought about it. This guy had dedicated his whole life to rocks… I think it’s weird, but I also think that guy is awesome for going after what he was into. My own hobby is mountaineering and to many people that seems ridiculous and horribly dangerous. Why do I climb mountains? The flip answer would be, “if you have to ask then you couldn’t understand”, but the truer one would be “because it makes me feel alive.” I love it and when I’m on the mountain all the rest of the world goes away. I don’t think about work. I don’t think about getting an oil change for my car. I don’t think about paying the bills. I don’t think about ties. It all goes away and I’m completely in the moment and terribly alive. It’s amazing, and even though I get to hear that I’m crazy on a weekly basis, I won’t give it up - because it matters to me and in the end that’s what counts.

So ignore the naysayers. Do what you love. Take up a new hobby. Move to a new city. Start your own business. Keep your own council and don’t wait to hear the advice of others before making your choice. Know what you want and go for it.

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