Why I Don’t Want To Make More Money

Grind in your 20’s.

Build in your 30’s.

Chill in your 40’s.

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Every once in a while, my actual profession will come up during a conversation, which leads into the same scripted interaction. “Wouldn’t you be making more money in what you’re trained in?” My reply is always the same. “Yes. And I would also have to work between 60 to 80 hours a week, including weekends. Last time I did it, I missed out on my family, all the while thinking I was providing for my family. I don’t think being able to buy more stuff I don’t really need and filling my professional ego isn’t worth losing my family. Do you?”

Awkward silence.

Almost every Personal Empowerment site and program can be broken down into two focuses. On one side, they promote the idea that “Become a better man” automatically leads to “make more money.” On the other side “Become a better man” will lead to get more women. There is a third camp out there, the one that I have tried to keep in mind when posting on Caballero. “Become a better man” will lead you to become a better man; for yourself and your family.

Let’s be absolutely clear here, I’m not talking about leading a hermit’s life of austerity. If you need to work 80 hours a week to make ends meet, do so. And I also believe that even through money doesn’t buy happiness, not having enough to survive is pretty miserable. With that said, if you’re well enough to survive, your well enough to spend time on what matters.

A man must be defined by his priorities, not by his desires.

Sure, you might lie to yourself, as you justify working all those hours with the excuse to go on that family vacation, or buy that gift, or provide a bigger home or a fancy car. If you believe that your worth is only measured by how much material gain you can provide, you should seriously reconsider what you have to offer those around you. If those around you only appreciate what material gains you have to offer, you should reconsider the kind of people around you.

Way too many men end up with dead souls by the time they are 40, and many of them end up actually taking their lives because of it. This isn’t about just making a living, but about saving your life. Work enough to make enough. Then start working on what matters. Spend time on yourself, on your family, and on your friends. Your boss isn’t willing to understand that you have no intention on killing yourself for him to make profit? Consider a new job. Your professional obligations won’t let you spend time with your spouse and kids? Consider a career change.

Always keep in mind that money can’t buy back time lost and you can’t buy your way out of regret.

PS.

To the younger guys getting started in the daily grind. Before you  think of this post as proof that you don’t need an education nor to pay your dues on your way up…remember that I can take these kind of decisions because I already racked up enough of a resume to let me pick and choose my future.

The Question We Need To Start Asking Men

The love of family and the admiration of friends is much more important than wealth and privilege.

Charles Kuralt

One of the big issues brought up constantly about gender inequality is the fact that professional women are asked how they plan to balanced their professional life with their family life, yet men where never asked this. Corporate society expects women to prioritize their role as a wife or a mother above their professional ambitions, yet this kind of expectation isn’t placed on men. After so many years of men expected to neglect their family life, maybe it’s time asking them the same question and expect them to have an answer.

There is a social assumption that the role of the man is simply to be a good provider. The harder he works, the more he demonstrates how dedicated he is to his family. If this is true, why do so many men feel guilty about neglecting their family because of work? Why do so many spouses or kids feel neglected by an absentee father whose only role within the family is that of a the guy who pays the bills? Why do so many men made to feel that their role in society is to be little more than a credit card holder?

This needs to change. Too often men assume that the only way to be a real man is to be a good provider, even if this means sacrificing their family life. They are told to equate professional success with their success as a husband or father, never wanting to realize the damage we do to men and their families when creating that relationship. We need to start asking men to balance their professional life with their personal life.

Keep in mind that I am not talking about not providing for your family. What I am talking about is to keep priorities about what’s important in life. We need to open our eyes before we damage ourselves and those around us beyond repair.

Ambitious and competitive professional behavior has been ingrained so deeply within our mind that we end up assuming that the only way to succeed within our modern corporate world is to neglect our family. “I am providing my family a better life” has become the mantra that most use to justify their actions, without realizing how a truly better life for your family doesn’t come from a bigger TV or even a bigger home. It comes from having a bigger heart and the time to share it.

Yet that neglect of our family is viewed by so many bosses as a sign of disloyalty to the employment. They will try to blackmail and shame you into submission under the threat of someone else getting a promotion, the raise, or simply the risk of losing your job. Honestly? If your boss is making you choose between your work and your family, it’s time to find a new job. Changing jobs is a lot easier than getting a divorce or the guilt of neglecting a child.

Don’t turn your role within your family into simply a walking wallet and then complain that they don’t view you as anything else. By the same token, don’t let anyone in your family turn you into a walking wallet. Get involved and become an actual part of the family and the home. Spend time with your spouse and have fun with your kids. Getting to know what does on in their lives is a lot more important than covering the bill for their lives. In the case of divorce, covering your financial obligations DOES NOT excuse you from your familial obligations. In reality, your familial obligation to your kids far exceeds any child support agreement you have.

With all this in mind, don’t let anyone reduce your role in life to a bank account. The first person that needs to stop doing this is you. Work shouldn’t be the reason to live, but a tool to get a life. Learn to value yourself and those around you. Jobs come and go, so does money. At the end, you are simply left with the smiles and laughter you shared with those close to you. 

The Soulful Gentleman

(Note: This post will deal with spirituality and soulfulness from a creative point of view. I am not going to deal with actual religions or faith, but rather mention the soul as the core of the creative process and beauty as a source of inspiration to the soul. With that clear, let’s start.)

Beauty awakens the soul to act.

Dante Alighieri

We have heard time and time again about the importance of having a balance between the mind and the body. You strengthen your body and educate your mind, pretty simple. Yet some other philosophies add a third element to the equation, the spirit. Yet this is a topic most people would rather avoid to avoid the dangerous waters of a conversation about religion or having your beliefs questioned when considering the aspects of spirituality in a world that prizes “practicality.” Yet, by avoiding this important conversation and by prizing practicality we set ourselves up for an unfulfilling and soulless existence that we simply can’t understand.

We can’t understand it simply because we forgot to learn that beauty is the food for the soul. Men are told to be practical, to the point of almost vulgar. Since our birth, we are told over and over how being inspired, being creative, or simply being in awe of the world we live in is a weakness that must be purged from our body.

Be strong, be tough. Art? That’s for wimps. Delicate beauty? You’re tough and you must only like tough things. Sit down, have a drink and wait till that shit passes.

This makes no sense when you consider how every warrior of old would balance his ability to destroy with his ability to create. He would balance all the horrors he saw in the battle field with all the beauty he found in the world. A samurai would spend hours on end simply searching for the perfect blossom. The knight would spend days searching for the right words to express his emotions in a prose. So at what point was being inspired by greatness an unmanly thing? How this came about, I have yet to figure it out.

Since ancient times, creativity was when man would let his gods speak through him and beauty was his gods speaking to him. Even if you don’t believe in a spiritual being, beauty has the ability to stir even the sternest of men, rattle their emotions and remind them they are alive!

At some moment during our lives we forgot to be alive. We work hard, make money, have a family, have success, yet there is an overwhelming sense of hopelessness and emptiness that eats you from your core. Why do you think the starving artist wouldn’t give up his art for that steady paycheck? Why do you think the misunderstood musician spends so many hours polishing his craft? They might not be able to pay your rent with art, but you can feed your soul with it.

So what do you do? Do you have to pick one or the other? No. That’s why balance is so important. It’s amusing how many older gentlemen pick up art, or develop their music, or start writing, or simply head out to find explore the world after they retire. They realized how their lives were missing a very important aspect, the ability to see beauty.

What can you to avoid having to wait so long? What can you do to fill that gaping hole within yourself? Learn to view beauty and learn to speak beauty. Look at the world and how wondrous it actually is. Be in awe, not only of nature, but of everything. Amaze at the intricacies of an engine just as you would of a blossom. Listen to music and all its levels and harmonies. Learn to look at a person and see how all their imperfections simply add to their beauty. Because beauty is imperfection. It’s those imperfections that make every experience unique.

Here’s the secret. Force to look at what the beauty within the world. Force yourself to write, to paint, to draw, to pick up that guitar you gave up so long ago when you went to work. Force yourself to be inspired, to feel, to express. Dive head first into that pool of unbridled emotions and learn to sail that storm. Dare to be inspired and tell someone they are beautiful. Gentlemen, never give up an opportunity to see beauty and create beauty, as that is your soul talking to you.

 

Kill The Groundhog Before Heading Out.

I believe I can see the future

Cause I repeat the same routine

I think I used to have a purpose

But then again

That might have been a dream

I think I used to have a voice

Now I never make a sound

I just do what I've been told

Every Day Is Exactly The Same, by Nine Inch Nails.

A few years ago, the movie GroundhogDay came out. It’s a wonderful movie about a man who was doomed to relive the same day over and over until he got it right. Not so long ago Edge ofTomorrow dealt with a similar subject. Theorists call this a temporal loop or a glitch in the continuum of time. Most people just call this their ‘everyday’ life.

We have all dealt with this, a life where every day is just a repeat of the day before and tomorrow will be a repeat of today. After a while you just default into an automata state where you simply go through the motions of living, while you slowly stop being alive. Sure, you might realize the horrible spiral you are going down into, yet do nothing to actually change it. At this point you are staring into Einstein’s Insanity, expecting your life to change while doing the same things, day in and day out.

The reality is that you are constantly on a path, a journey, whether you like it or not. It’s not determined by what happens to you or even by your surroundings. It’s defined by how you react to what’s around you and defined by every step you take, willing to take them or not. When you understand this, you understand that you are in life where you have chosen to be.

You feel you are in a rut? You are stuck in an unfulfilling job or a bad relationship? It’s your choices that have led you down those paths. Yes, this means your life is your fault up to a point. And sitting on your ass on a sofa flipping channels wishing for a better life while whining about the one you have, won’t make it happen. This is not something most people want to admit or confront, because it’s a horrible realization.

But with this realization does come some comfort. The same way your actions got you to where you are now, they can get you out of it. It’s you who controls the path you walk, the only person who can get you out of where you are now. Yes, it’s scary to step out to the unknown, to challenge what people expect from you, to get off your ass and stand up from that sofa.

It’s scare to kill that Groundhog so you never have to repeat that day again.

But you know what you gain when you change your ‘everyday’ life? A life!