Moderate Living

To finish up this topic (I can’t wait to go back to photography and simple stuff), I’ve compiled things that I learned. It’s not necessarily applicable to yourself.

These are things that, I think are the most important strategies to take – when, not if – Fortune comes your way. Of course, this stuff is applicable too at whatever point your are in life but I’m just saying that this starts to get critical when the word gets out among your social circle that you’ve been blessed significantly.

Grab Hold Of The Power, IMMEDIATELY! And Don’t Let Go : Power abhors a vacuum – it must find someone/something to attach itself to and it doesn’t care if that someone/something is good or evil. People think that power is something evil but it can also be a positive force. If you already established good & principled living, gaining the trust of people around you – good! – keep it up and adjust with this newfound power. But if you’re a degenerate piece of sh*t that lucked into this privilege, you MUST articulate some type of baseline moral standard and abide by it. Because having lotto type money will amplify whatever cosmic karma is coming for you.

Give less thought to being a force for “good” with your new influence – and more to being a force for fairness. That will sustain you for the long term and remove the unnecessary social scrutiny that besets you if you concern yourself with moral binaries.

Nevertheless, for both living approaches you have to grab hold and wield that sword of power, you don’t have a choice. You can’t let anyone else create your narrative for you. You can’t delegate your reputation/responsibilities to someone else. It’s important enough to guard your reputation when you don’t have money, but it becomes an existential imperative when you do. Money can help grease the wheels of your life or it can end up weighing your movements down. I’ll talk about this more in my final point.

Be Nice, Live Moderately, Live Hidden: You may think that I may have shown people that I became advantaged by big ticket purchases or something of the matter, like a yacht or a Lamborghini car. However, there’s only a handful of people in the world that knew what I did with my bigger bank account. Unfortunately, some of those handful of people indirectly told other people about my situation and it took a life of its own from there onward. It’s impossible to keep stuff like this under wraps especially when some type of progress is necessary – but what is possible is that moving forward, you keep yourself as normal looking as possible – at least in the public sphere. And this is where my mentality of living moderately comes from. Live comfortably but don’t overdo it, have goals and challenges, things that demand your creativity and care. Make sure you articulate what matters in your life, what makes your life joyful – and protect that joy at all costs. But just know that the more people know what you are, you’ll consequently have people that want you to fail and they’ll ogle at every small difficulty that snares you, every small obstacle you encounter. I think it was the poet Ovid that said it best: “he lives well who conceals himself well“. By all means, if your plumage shines, it shines – but recognize that there’s points where you have to dull it so you’re not labeled as uncourteous or unprofessional. Keep your ego in check, you’re already blessed: if someone cuts you off in the highway, tell them (to yourself) – “cool! enjoy your cool driver victory!” Your job is to get home to your beautiful family and live the rest of your life in peace. Inconsequential disputes are wealth/wellness killers. Pick your fights carefully as no matter what, you will be doing a considerable amount of fighting on behalf of your interests – and that’s the God honest truth about privilege. Additionally, don’t be insufferable – no one likes an insufferable person, but a financially well off insufferable ass will eventually catch the gaze of really nasty people who don’t have anything to lose and, most importantly, everything to gain from hijacking your ship-o-treasures. Yikes! (by the way, I don’t have a Lamborghini….or do I? lol jk I really don’t have one).

Friends, The Difference Maker: Before I go to my final point, I want to highlight the most consequential positive you must have. You have to have good friends, and that only comes from being respectful and not being an insufferable degenerate. You can be a degenerate but if you’re insufferable, that’s a different story. But you have to have friends. I have two friends, Carolyn & Matthew that I have known for more than a decade and they have seen me through my ups and downs. You need friends like them, who have real life experience, who have integrity, especially when you navigate the uncharted waters of privilege. Friends will pick you up when you feel like crap, but most importantly, they will rein you in when you’re approaching an extreme point whether it’s in anger or joy. They’ll remind you of what’s important and what your long term goal should be. And, in the event where it’s needed, they will hold you accountable for your actions. I can’t overstate their importance. They are the noble parts of your character that balance out your shadows.

A Final Controversial Word: I’m going to say something controversial, but it shouldn’t be controversial. It’s only controversial because we largely aren’t taught about it. But first, a primer: Ancient Sparta had their own thing going on. Training their young men to be warriors, living hard and reveling in work, overall just enjoying leather sandal life in the Greek peninsula. But once their neighbors on the other side of the hill, Athens, started raking in the massive buckeroos (and, to be objective, unfairly projecting power with their navy), something switched inside Sparta’s – and everyone else’s – mind. The resulting distrust escalated into the devastating Peloponnesian War which put EVERYONE in Greece on permanent welfare status. From then on, if you were a guy, it was either a.) starve/live off of meager earnings/food or b.) be a mercenary for money and go wherever the newest, biggest foreign general wanted to go i.e. Alexander The Great from Macedonia.

I make this point because the tension between Athens and all the other Greek city states arose from an imbalance of power. And if that type of tension can arise from these massive population entities, it can certainly arise when you are suddenly touched by fortune – and the people around you aren’t.

This is a very unpalatable truth, I know.

*Controversy Alert*: If you have been selected by Fortune to be the agent of a rising tide, you almost have to (just to avoid those hidden resentment traps) lift up as many boats near you as much as you can, in any way, to stave off the effects of inequality. I’m not talking about everybody, I’m talking about people that matter and that have material effect on your life. Family is one thing, you can pick and choose at your discretion – and even then, you have to choose wisely.

But when I say people that have a material effect on your life, I’m also talking about the people that do things for you. The men that work with me, the women I work with – they all get paid. And they get paid well. It’s not just about recognizing the value of their services, it’s also about you becoming a pillar of interdependence. I think interdependence should be mixed in with independence because if you’re independent, yeah you’re free – but when the wolves come to your door no one is gonna help you out. Whereas, if you’re interdependent – showing people that you have a vested interest in their lives, in turn people will have a vested interest in keeping you stress free or even…alive. Incentive is a powerful thing and it takes on an even deeper meaning when there’s money to go around. Trying to hide that secret wealth is a tough venture, it’s better and more productive to launder it (in a tightly controlled way) through incentive/self-interest. If not, then for the purpose of simply making your life a lot easier – after all, that’s the point of lotto money.

Controversial? Let me show you it’s not.

This was essentially ancient Rome’s “foreign policy”. Establish common economic jump points in different territories so people can have a shot at their own prosperity. In exchange? Taxes that go back to the capital. It’s a positive loop and a system that will help you grow. But more importantly, it preserves everyone in a veil of standardized peace. Of course, this is a VERY simplistic explanation but the principle is there.

Rome did this, Great Britain did this and now…surprise! The United States established this with the global maritime order in 1949-ish. They said to the entire world: “Hey we’ve got money, we’ve got a navy, we can fund your post WWII rebuilding efforts & protect shipping routes for products you want to make and sell. Go and trade with all the countries all over the world, but just keep it peaceful and give us a little cut from what you make”. Everyone (or almost everyone) makes money, there’s peace, and here we are 75 years later……liking each other’s posts on WordPress without the worry of foreign soldiers outside who want to stab or shoot us.

That’s the power of enlightened self interest. The economic incentive to keep the peace – the most powerful incentive of all.

But this is easier said than done. Like I said in my prior post, I know…in fact, I guarantee that Fortune will touch your life to some extent. But the learning curve is steep, unfairly steep and you hear about many other people falling off those high perches of advantage because they didn’t manage their blessings. As you can see from many privileged unhappy people, it’s easy to get angry and bitter and cynical at the world as a result of this. But there are ways that you can avoid this and while it shouldn’t consume you, you have to be acutely aware of these factors. Because Fortune will touch you; and when she touches you, the meter will already be running even before you’re aware of it.

My hope is that this won’t happen for you, or that you don’t get punished as severely as I did if someone or some set of circumstances sabotages your blessing. The sooner you’re aware of the good happening around you, the sooner you can take the steps to protect it.