C is for freedom
All too regularly, my wife and I have to go over our budget - it isn't just because of the house, it has been this way for about the last five years. Before that, we had no child and lived a pretty simple life, but were still able to enjoy life a bit and travel from time to time. Post-childbirth, things changed markedly and we have been chasing ever since.
I think that one of the motivations for working is that it not only provides income for living, but it also alludes to a future where things are financially a little better, life a little easier. It doesn't really matter that it is largely a pipe dream for most of us and the best we can generally hope for is not having to eat canned dog food in retirement. We keep working anyway, as pipe dream or not, we tend to hold onto our dreams.
One dream is of course financial freedom, as at least for most of us, the idea brings the sense that things will be better if we just had a little more. They say, money doesn't buy happiness - but I am pretty sure being depressed and broke is worse than being depressed and not having to worry about paying the electricity bill. In my own experience where I have had periods where I had enough to be comfortable in the life I led, I can attest that it is better than living hand to mouth - where sometimes the hands are empty, so the mouth is too.
I think that this idea of working toward freedom is also why I have had a great deal of trouble using crypto for anything, as it has been a lot of work (mostly enjoyable) that has taken a great deal of time and effort and foregoing other luxuries, but it has had the "promise" of financial freedom - with promise meaning potential. There is no guarantee that it will actually be realized, but one thing is for certain, not having crypto means that there is no opportunity.
It is like that idea of, you miss all of the shots that you do not take where the biggest failure is not even trying, not throwing the hat in the ring. In crypto this means taking some risks but it sometimes feels like a game of chicken, where it is a test of who will be the last holder. Along the way, many people will veer off course so as not to become a casualty, so they get something out of it, rather than watch it all go to zero.
I don't think most of us are cut out for this game as in general, humans are risk averse and many see financial failure in the same way as death itself, the worst thing imaginable. But is it? I wonder what was running through the minds of the people from those rare comeback stories, where they have lost everything, yet persevered across the bottom and managed to climb back up the slippery slope. Is it tenacity - or ignorance that drives them?
I wonder if given the real odds of success, how many would willingly invest themselves into anything. I think the lottery is a good example of this where the odds are definitely against players, yet everyone who plays takes the "Someone has to win" approach and are disappointed weekly when it isn't them - but they saw someone win and perhaps next week is their turn.
Disappointment.
Not expectation.
I think that this is one of the differences in the framework of many people, as when they don't win the lottery they think that it is just down to luck, there is no skill - which is true. However, when they do the work they get the sense that they deserve something for their effort - and discount the part luck plays in the equation.
All of life is blind dumb luck.
Sometimes we are in the right place at the right time, sometimes we are in the wrong place at the right time. It all comes down to luck and a billion factors that were outside of our control but led us directly into the moment we found ourselves. When the fortune is ours, we ascribe success to our skill and intelligence - when it isn't - we look for some other excuse. Even when we acknowledge that we didn't have the right skill at the right time, that in itself is largely down to luck and opportunity that we had or didn't have once upon a time and knew nothing about.
Just think, how many of the early Bitcoin miners believed that bitcoin was going to make them millionairs or billionaires? Do you think that if Pizza guy knew what 10,000 Bitcoin would be worth today he would have lived "mine to mouth"? Those that held, did they have foresight of the potential or were they just too lazy to sell until one day it was suddenly worth something?
People should remember this because it took non-believers who couldn't see the potential to sell and create a market and at each rise, it took more non-believers to take part in the selling until an industry was born. In some ways, it is like that tribe in Africa that gave uncut diamonds to their children to play with as they were just useless rocks - until someone with a little more knowledge (and a lot of cruelty) saw them for what they were and built an empire.
But, it is not always the way it goes and likely, a lot of the people who sell out of any "new" industry are doing a wise thing for getting something out of it. But, occasionally they will be caught out as they are creating an industry by selling to people who believe enough to build the industry itself - from mine to customer, so to speak. Once the industry has roots, it starts to grow branches and leaves that drive those roots to seek for more resources, more water, more space and, the cycle repeats.
This is at least how I see it, my own narrative that I continually rework and rewrite in various ways, as my own understanding and story evolves along side it. My wife sees all the ours I spend doing this daily as the way I entertain myself, which it is, but it is also me working toward a new chapter in the book, new branches and leaves that have started from the seeds I have planted.
A lot of the future success is going to hinge on luck and alignment, but one of the things that keeps me walking the path toward that future as a believer is that unlike the lottery, if one of us truly wins - we all do, as we are all hodling part of the same ticket. We may never truly be free - but we all have the freedom to work toward it.
*Perhaps we'll get lucky, perhaps not.
Taraz [ Gen1: Hive ]
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