Let that sink for a moment. She hit the nail right in the head about personal development. One of the key things we have to do to change is to be willing to let go of those parts of us which do not serve us any longer. It’s one of the reasons I believe that true change only happens when you’ve hit rock bottom and have become utterly frustrated. That’s when you have nothing else to lose and you’re willing to let go of something you consider to be a part of yourself. We have a tendency to try to protect our own sense of identities, even if those identities are hurting us. Sometimes letting go of that part of ourselves, or even our whole self is violent and we have to step up and kill that part of ourselves. In stories, this is often represented by the hero character having to fight an evil version of themself (as in Scott Pilgrim fighting Nega-Scott) or a part of themself often conjured up to fight them, such as a monster from their own dreams. By killing those parts of yourself, you become stronger.

You can see this mythically and in stories, where the hero often loses the first confrontation against the villain and runs away. He learns and is reborn and wins the second round soundly. A perfect example of this is the Matrix. Neo becomes the One AFTER being shot and dying. Trinity then spells out his transformation as she stands over his dead body by saying, “I’m not afraid any more”. Pretty classic resurrection story, based on the Gnostic Bible, and thus the story of Jesus, who also, if you’ll remember, was killed and reborn.

Mythically, further, the snake tends to represent change and death and rebirth, by being able to shed its skin and become a “new” snake, in a way. You may have to do the same and shed your skin and become a new version of yourself. Sometimes the people around you aren’t comfortable killing their idea of your old self and exchanging it for your new one and that’s a part of life. People change.

There’s a few ways out of this for those of us who do not want to change only when things get truly horrible. The first is to change what you identify with as yourself. Are you the same person as you were ten years ago? How about when you were ten years old? How about when you were five? When you were just born? Physically speaking there’s almost nothing that’s the same as when you were that young. Mentally either. Personality-wise, there were significant differences. So what ties you to that child, and makes you think you’re the same person? A name? It can be argued that it is a narrative. It is a story that you tell yourself that starts with, “I was born” and “here I am”. We make up stories in order to make sense of everything around us (including us) and these stories are often incorrect. But we cling to these stories like a drowning man to a life-saving device.

Steve Pavlina/Ekhart Tolle/Buddhism makes the point that you should identify not with the things you consider you identity (your memories, personality, past, future, body, emotions, thoughts, etc.) but with the consciousness on which all of these things play out. The awareness of awareness that you develop in mindfulness practice.

Another related way is to reduce clinging attachment, a la Buddhism, again. Try mindfulness meditation and notice how you cling to things, unwilling to let go because of fear.

Another example is that I’m not “naturally” an entrepreneur but I am becoming one. I read books like Howard Shultz’s Pour Your Heart Into It (story of Starbucks) and he writes as if he never had any doubts or periods of thinking, “Am I crazy? Maybe I should just give up.” I reckon I’ll get to a place where I have that much confidence in myself (or the ability to edit my memory of low confidence moments :p), but I won’t have gotten there “naturally”. For some reason, I feel that being naturally calibrated is better than to have to that calibration through conscious hard work. I don’t really know why. It just feels less genuine and less real. Perhaps this is a consequence of our society’s awe and deification of natural ability over hard work, though it seems like both are necessary for success. To be fair though when I’m feeling down on myself, I’m not appreciating the things I AM naturally calibrated to do, such as pursue improvement, or being naturally happy.

I don’t really have a resolution for this yet. Just throwing this out there in case you feel similarly.

Edit: Perhaps this is just the feeling before a quantum leap.

The first point assumes that all of the other roles we play as friends, partners, parents, lovers, children, siblings, human beings and many others go up against the one role of being an EMPLOYEE. My life includes work, but is not going to be balanced out with work, because “work-life balance” implies there is some sort of balance to be achieved. Balance usually refers to somin being equal. If I was to do that, out of every 24 hour day, I should spend 12 hours working and try to cram the rest of my life such as sleeping, working on personal projects, and hanging out in the other 12 hours. That just seems idiotic.

I prefer Tim Ferriss‘ take on the idea of work-life balance. He says there should be “work-life separation”. I still have some qualms about this term, but this at least gives the possibility of reducing the time and attention you give to work, possibly working less than the fabled 40-hour week.

BTW, I’m using “work” in the sense of a job and being an employee. I personally use the broadest sense of word “work” in my life: that of anything that I’d like to do, including job stuff, personal stuff, relationship stuff, humour stuff, personal projects for love not money, etc.

Let’s say you have a goal to make more money. Now, since you’re a hardworking productive person you start thinking of ways to get more money. After a bit you start to feel disconnected from the goal and from yourself because you don’t like the greedy person you feel yourself becoming. Perhaps you’ll also find that you haven’t made much money at all or improved your financial situation. Perhaps it’s gotten worse. Pretty common experience, it seems like.

Now, let’s say you decide that instead of trying to get money (the production), you try to improve the thing that gets you money (production capacity)–the value you deliver. Getting money is a consequence of value given/created for another person.

Here’s why you don’t wanna focus on getting money: 1. In the experience of a number of people (Steve Pavlina and myself included), it doesn’t work. 2. Extrinsic motivation reduces intrinsic motivation. Like playing guitar? If I start paying you for it, you’ll start liking it less and will likely play it on your own time less. It’s gotten bound up with the money, and if there’s no money, there’s no incentive to play for yourself.

Focusing on value creation and delivery, on the other hand, feels a helluva lot better. And here’s the thing: it works better by miles, too. My theory is that it works better because as you improve your production capacity, you get a bigger hammer to drive in this small nail. You can keep developing until a small tap crushes the nail right into the wood.

Grades are the same thing: you can try to focus on getting grades, or you can focus on becoming a better student. The second will work a lot better and you’ll have a lot less anxiety. And as you improve your ability to be a student, your grades will improve as a natural consequence. This is related to the idea that you don’t just get a certain goal (ie a certain amount of money or grades), you become the kind of person that gets that goal (ie a productive value-creating person, or a conscientious and effective strategy-using student).

BTW, if you’ve noticed the lack of posting lately, it’s because I’ve had the worst month of my life. Worse than the time I failed all my courses and worse than the time our house burned down…so it was bad. Good news though is that things are better but I’ll be very busy going forward, so posting will be spotty. Sorry.

THIP is where you decide you’ve had enough and make a real committment to change the way you’ve been doing things. You may say or think, “I dunno what’s on the other side of this change, but there’s gotta be a better way”. It’s a sort of faith that there is a better way. And motivation is strong, and you can tell by your actions. Commitment is measured in action, not in the strength of your words or how often you say you’re committed. Even before you hit your THIP you may make the motions of change and perhaps even try hard, but you’re not really committed to giving up your old ways and seeking something new.

This means that sometimes you have to let the people around you fall and hurt themselves a bit before they themselves want to improve things. If you keep them artificially above from their THIP point, that can sometimes work out worse in the long run. However, there is the possibility that they won’t ever reach their THIP, even if they’re in the worst possible condition. Rock bottom is still above their THIP. It’s unfortunate, but sometimes you have to let go of relationships with love and compassion, but let them go.

This is also hard because we tend to think of ourselves as good people who wouldn’t let someone suffer around them without doing something. It attacks our very identity as a good person. And we may feel guilty about it. But you have to trust that this is the best thing for them at this time, and that sometimes to be a good person, it means to let people you love to suffer a little. It hurts and your sense of compassion may be screaming at you, but you have to let people live their lives, otherwise they won’t learn for themselves.

You can clean a child’s room to have a clean room, but the real point is for the child to clean the room itself. Ideally the child will have intrinsic motivation to clean the room and do it happily. Sometimes people need to suffer for a bit, hit their THIP and find their own motivation and make their own decision about change. You can push them to change, and they might change, but it won’t be because they want to, and soon as you’re gone, they’ll just revert back. They need to become sick of it. Keeping people above their THIP artificially is a bit like cleaning the child’s room yourself. Then the child learns nothing. Perhaps the child needs to stay in its mess for a little while before it says, “To hell with this, I’m cleaning my room and keeping it clean from now on”. That “little while” may take a long time depending on the situation. Years sometimes.

Not everyone reaches the THIP, of course. To successfully transition from a bad situation into a good one, people need to take responsibility and recognize that they are the ones that will fix things. You. Likely alone. If you need help, there will be plenty available, but that you have to do it. But taking responsibility isn’t easy. Accepting that your current life is largely a matter of the decisions you made or the decisions to do nothing you made is hard. That’s where the distinction between responsibility and guilt comes in. But, there is power, too. You still have that power of decision and you can decide differently now.

If I told you I wanted to sell you an old piece of cloth on a wooden frame with some oils on it for a “measly” $100 million dollars, you’d look at me like I was crazy. The materials cost of this thing would probably be less than $20. If I gave it to a goat, it’d just eat it and probably get no nutrition from it. However, if I told you that it was a canvas, 500 years old, drawn by the legendary Leonardo da Vinci, the oils depicted the Lisa de Giocondo and was called the Mona Lisa, you’d probably wonder what the catch was because that painting is “worth” or “valued at” at least $670 million dollars and I’m offering it to you for “only” $100 million. My previous description of the Mona Lisa is still accurate; it is still some old oils on a cloth on a wooden frame and its material value is no more than about $20, however its other value is so much more as a great work of art, as a milestone in the history of art, as a work of the great Leonardo da Vinci and as an accomplishment for all of humanity, as well as an object of intense curiosity and study.

This should suggest something important to you: Not only are there many different kinds of value, all value is within our heads not in the world out “there”. The Mona Lisa has no value to a goat beyond being able to eat it. A bear would not notice it, and people who do not know about it would probably consider it a weird painting and not give it a second look if it wasn’t hanging in the Louvre. Honestly, I only know about its value because other people have told me its valuable. Different people can have different understanding of the same object.

Let me illustrate this with another example: if I told you that I wanted you to spend your valuable time doing something unejoyable for me and in return I will give you some pieces of a (perhaps) shiny metal and some pieces of paper. Or, better yet, I’ll simply just bump up some numbers on a computer somewhere, would you look at me like I was crazy? You might, but remember that that’s what money is. The value of money is entirely in our collective heads. It’s a little more complicated than that, obviously, however that’s an accurate (though not very useful) way to think about it. As Steve Pavlina and Warren Buffett say, money is a claims cheque for withdrawing from “society” value that is worth the agreed upon value of that money.

Value is usually not so obviously conscious. Often times, things just “stick out” in the environment for you. When you focus your attention on something, you are indicating it is relevant in some way. Relevance, salience, importance are all very important, related concepts but they’re tricky to nail down. For example, say you walked into your room and found two things that are different: a very attractive person on your bed and that the walls have gotten one shade lighter. Which would you pay more attention to? What would you drawn to pay attention to immediately? Odds are high you wouldn’t even notice your walls have gotten lighter. You wouldn’t have the thought, “Attractive person, walls slightly lighter. I think I will pay attention to the attractive person.” It’s usually not a conscious choice: you simply pay more attention to the attractive person. The attractive person…attracts your attention. Further, you probably wouldn’t pay attention to the things that did not change, such as your bed, desk or closet. You wouldn’t ignore the attractive person and look at your books.

What “sticks out” in the environment for you is a result of perceptual filters. If you know about the Reticular Activating System (RAS), then that’s what I’m talking about. Things in the environment just jump out at you. Generally, attractive people in the environment stick out and cause you to look at them. That filter on your perception is set by evolution. If you come up with a new goal, such as to stop smoking, you’ll suddenly find yourself noticing ads that advertise stop smoking, or randomly overhear conversations people are having about not smoking. Another example: ever notice how even if you’re in a crowded, noisy room and you hear your name, it comes across clearly even across the room? Your perceptual filters are set to bring your name to your attention.

So, to make money, you have to convince enough people to give you their money. You can do this by begging, of course; convince others that you “deserve” or “need” the money, and you can, of course, steal it. However, the best way is to give enough value–that they consider valuable–so that they will give you money in exchange for it, or to own a system or structure that delivers value for you and you can enjoy the profits. A good rule of thumb is that anything people want is valuable for them. I want and value convenience or mobility and I’m willing to exchange one form of value (money) for it, when I buy a laptop rather than a desktop.

The value mindset understands that value is being created all the time, simply because other people perceive it as such. For example, if I have made someone laugh, I have created value because they perceive it as such. If I said or did the same thing and another person did not even smile, then I have not created value for them because they did not perceive it as such. Not everyone reacts to the same object the same way, nor in the same location or the same time. What value is exchanged for money is largely a matter of convention and need. For example, even if you go to a professional masseuse and get a nice relaxing massage, they created value because you feel that was a valuable experience and you expect to exchange value in the form of dollars or favours for it. If, however, your girlfriend or boyfriend who happens to be a professional masseuse gave you a nice relaxing massage which was also full of love, they have created greater value than going to a spa, but if they asked you for money, it would be really strange.

This is the big difference between a “scarcity” or “cost/expense mindset” and the abundance or “value mindset”. The cost/expense mindset has a very narrow definition of what is valuable to other people and it is generally based on what is valuable to you. We often don’t know a whole lot about other people, so we fill in our understanding of other people with liberal helpings of our understanding of ourselves. A mistaken understanding of what is “valuable” enough to be exchanged for money is what is at the core of the difference between the two mindsets.

The cost/expense mindset, however, has a much narrower definition of what “value” is that can be exchanged for money. Here are some definitions I have believed and discarded:

• If I work hard, I am creating value for other people. “Hard work” meant long hours, personal stress, being constantly on call and doing something I disliked. This is unsustainable. You can read more about it here.
• If I am the best or at the top, only then I am creating value and deserve money in exchange for it.
• If I am good enough, I am creating value. The value I am creating to others is being able to have ME and my time. This was largely egotistic.
• Value is objective and everyone agrees on what value is, rather than each person having their own idea of what’s valuable to them.
• Only the material cost of something is valuable. So, if a pair of shoes costs $5 to make and someone wants me to pay them $60 for it, they’re being greedy and unfair. The real “value” of that thing is whatever the cost is.
• Only the “function” is valuable. For example, an $100,000 Aston Martin and a used $10,000 Honda both perform the same function: transportation. So, an Aston Martin seems extravagant when a Honda will do, however the function is not the only kind of value of the Aston. Its fast, its the most beautiful car in the world. But only some people care about that stuff, many people just care that a car get them from point A to B. Don’t project your values onto other people.
• Value is created only by my personal effort and its all about me being good enough.
• Only my own original ideas create value.
• Only things with definite physical price has value. Things that give me a fluffy “emotion” or experience do not.
• Only things that last have value. Something transitory such as a massage does not have very much value.
• If I’m smart enough, or good enough, I am creating value or I can create value.

People in the cost/expense mindset tend to pursue money rather than attempting to give value. I’ve been there and during that time I did worse than I did otherwise and generally did not enjoy how I felt every day and about myself. I felt a bit like a cheat desperately trying to grab what he can. I do not recommend this path. Steve Pavlina has also experienced it and recommends against it. That said, you’re free to try out both and see which one works.

Value created is when someone else acknowledges that you have done something they value. They may return the favour in money, in other favours or in something else you may find valuable. They may do this implicitly by simply putting their attention on it.

This view transforms money into something to be valued rather than a scarce resource. Some people think there’s only a limited amount of money and it’s just wrong. Money represents psychological value, which is basically infinite. While before it would seem noble to not take a whole lot because others would not have enough, now you can have as much money as you’d like as long as you’re creating value. If there’s greater value than the amount of money out there, they can print money. It sounds pretty noble to me to create something people value. You’re helping other people in a way that may well not take anything away from you. Does that sound noble to you?

Footnote:

The “redefine it ’till its absurd” is a game I love to play. See what else you can apply it to? Movie theatres are places where we get to sit in the dark quietly listening to some sounds and having some light movements hit our eyeballs. And we get to pay money for the privilege.

Part 1 – Introduction

Part 2 – What is Value?

Part 3 – Practically Creating and Delivering Value

Part 4 – What is your Current Mindset?

Part 5 – Value & Self-Esteem

Part 6 – Value & Service

Part 7 – Value & Marketing

Unfortunately, I haven’t found a good, practical guide shifting to an “abundance” mindset, only indicators or markers of where it is. I have spent the past year or so creating my own understanding of the abundance mindset that brings together my knowledge of personal development, the way the world works, psychology, philosophy and economics. I want to share this understanding and my process for achieving it here.

What makes this guide special? My goal is to help you shift your mindset to an abundance mindset by delivering clear reasoning (instead of assertions) behind each of the pillars of the abundance mindset and contrasting it with the common mindset. You can then test out your results with the abundance mindset versus your previous mindset and decide which works better for you. The other guides I have seen have done some things I will avoid:

• included assertions rather than arguments
• have only described the final mindset without contrasting it with the “common” one
• have only talked about the “symptoms” of the abundance mindset (such as finding a ten thousand dollar a night for a hotel room acceptable) rather than why that is so
• made metaphysical assumptions about the nature of the universe such as for the law of attraction. There may be value there, but I will stick to a naturalistic understanding of the world whenever possible.

The criteria that define the abundance mindset are:

• it has to be ethical.
• it has to model the world as it is by explaining how people make money right now and accounting for why people don’t.
• empower us to make more money easier, better or faster, and deliver all sorts of results easier.

How this guide works This guide is written so that the next page will contain almost all you need to know about this mindset. It will be a sort of overview of the whole guide. The pages after that will contain greater detail, illustrations and depth about each part as well as my personal history with each idea. This is a work-in-progress. If some part of this guide could be improved or if you feel that some parts are lacking, please contact me and let me know so you can help create greater value for the other readers of this guide.

Table of Contents:

Part 1 – Introduction

Part 2 – What is Value?

Part 3 – Practically Creating and Delivering Value

Part 4 – What is your Current Mindset?

Part 5 – Value & Self-Esteem

Part 6 – Value & Service

Part 7 – Value & Marketing

I took dance classes not too long ago and it was a lot of fun. I highly recommend it. The benefits of taking even one dance course are numerous: you get to meet interesting people, you get to experience the richness of life, prevent boredom, learn a new skill, other kinds of dancing also improves (not just the one you take), you become more comfortable in your body, you learn that no one else knows what they’re doing while dancing so you stop being self-conscious, and you enjoy yourself! If you’re in college or university, check out your gym, they will probably have dance classes. There might also be dancing clubs. If you’re not, check out your local gym, they may have dance classes or be able to refer you to some good places. Or google, “(hometown) dance lessons” and substitute your hometown for the word. One of the most enjoyable experiences I’ve had.

I should make this clear: in my class, the guys did the leading and the women did the following. However, the instructor explicitly said that that did not have to be the case. So, any time I say “guys” just substitute in “leader” and when I say “women” you can put in “led”. At least one lesbian couple chose one of the partners to be a leader and the other person to be led. Leader and the led are just roles in dancing, in this case filled by guys and women. I’m not sure dancing where both try to lead or be led would work well. You can find dance lessons that are alternative-lifestyle friendly if you ask around.

At the beginning, everyone is awkward and unsure of what they’re doing. However, an odd thing happens with the instructor starts to dance with someone: they look beautiful together. When the instructor starts to dance with a woman, it’s like she knows the moves, even though she’s a beginner like everyone else. This puzzled me. It took me a while to figure this out but here it is: he was leading her firmly and clearly. The guys weren’t doing that so it all looked like a mess. So, why didn’t they all do it?

There’s a number of reasons why the guys weren’t doing that. The first was that the guys weren’t really sure of the dance moves themselves, so they didn’t really have the attention to spare to lead the woman. The second was that the instructor didn’t explicitly teach leading and just taught the steps. I don’t know whether this was just something he did but didn’t know he did (implicit vs explicit–watch this entertaining video by Tim Ferriss for his dance story). This is important because leading works two ways: you have to be teach how to lead but also to be led. To lead, you have to send clear signals with your arms and body. To be led, you have to keep a taut stance to be sure that you receive the signals through the arms. Finally, I think that a lot of people just aren’t very comfortable leading. There may be self-confidence issues there such as, “who am I to lead?” and others may be in the love-hate relationship with the masculine role that guys seem to have. A guy should be strong and lead, but also allow the woman to lead? A lot of guys get confused by the mixed signals they get about the nature of manhood.

In any case, I started to lead with confidence even if I didn’t feel it and everything went wonderfully. Everyone I danced with had a lot more fun and we looked great. I realize that the role of the leader is a sort of stewardship. You have to fulfill your responsibilities to the other person, as well as listen to them while working towards a common goal. You can try bossing your dance partners around, but it doesn’t work very well. Sometimes your dance partner will tell you clearly what isn’t working through her body. She’ll refuse to do a move or be very resistant to it. How is dancing a metaphor for life?

Life is a bit like dancing. Your life is your dance partner and if you don’t lead, it will be a mess. The vagaries of chance, circumstances and past habits will lead you and you’ll end up with something you didn’t really want. Life will often tell you what’s not working and you won’t get the results you want. You have to listen to your dance partner. But you also don’t want to make assumptions about how life is. Don’t let timidity make you assume that you shouldn’t lead or that something is not possible. Try it and you’ll find out quickly. Let life tell you what’s working and what’s not and learn to listen to it, just like on the dance floor.

Even if you’re wrong, be confident and keep leading. Even if you make a mistake, you’ve learned something and the other person’s learned something and keep leading. Right after a mistake is when leading is needed most and that’s when most people stop or lose confidence. A lot of the dancers got thrown off by a mistake in the dance, lost their confidence and messed up the rest of the routine. If you keep leading, though, the mistake is barely a hiccup and people will often miss the mistake because you don’t make a bit deal of it and just keep on dancing. If you lose a job but go right into following one of your dreams (like living in Spain), or getting another job or starting another business or volunteering, the job less will barely look like a hiccup and it will just like it’s part of the plan. But if you lose a job and just sit at home, you’ve lost confidence after a mistake and ruined the rest of the routine. But you can start dancing and leading again at any time. Even if you’re wrong, you’re right so keep leading the dance.

Life is your dance partner. If you lead clearly and strongly, people can see a beautiful dance and go, “boy, they’ve sure got a great life”. If you let life lead you, you’ll often end up somewhere you didn’t want to. Live consciously.

Here’s a tip for doing your own fear-setting: do research. If you’re afraid of bankruptcy, google up information how to file for bankruptcy exactly. Then mentally walk through the process in great detail. You will find many stories of people who’ve got bankruptcies in their past who go on to become quite wealthy (Donald Trump, Steve Pavlina, Brian Tracy and Dan Kennedy come to mind). You may just have to go online and search for “[your town] homeless shelter” or you may have to go visit/volunteer at the actual shelter so that you can build a very clear picture of how it’d go. Whatever helps you get over the issue. For example, I’ve already studied the process for filing for bankruptcy (not as hard as you’d think) and the various ways to get back on your feet. I’ve been to Covenant House, a youth shelter in Canada, and seen first hand how they work. All this helped me get over my vague fears.

So, in an attempt to get a handle on my fears of becoming broke and homeless, I walked through a detailed scenerio in my journal. I’ve included the content of that journal entry here with some minor edits, mostly to correct spelling or extreme incoherance. It is sorta rambling, but I’ve intentionally left that in there so you can get an idea of just how little “editing” or judging goes on in a good journal entry:

I guess I’m still afraid of what’d happen if I lost all of it and had 0 dollars and on the street. Like, let’s say I’ve just gone bankrupt, all my money is gone, I have no income sources, just the clothes on my back and the duffel bag with some basics. I have 0 dollars and I just stepped out onto the street. What’d I do? Beg/borrow a quarter from someone and go to a phone. If I don’t have a phone number, I can go to the library, use the internet to find out the phone number or facebook them or email them and get some help. Then I’d prolly wander around Toronto. I’d prolly try to make my way down to a foodbank or something. Somehow get some change or tokens or tickets to take the ttc out to a friend’s place, or even Covenant House or some other youth shelter, which I researched using the internet at the library for free. Show up there, and use their resources to find a job. Gmail is free, doesn’t require a house to have, so my resume is still available. I’d like to have kept my laptop but I could backup everything important onto a usb stick. Then, while staying at the shelter, I’d prolly work a bit or borrow some money to buy a second hand suit at that used clothing store or good will or something, use the suit and the internet resources at like covenant house to get a job. I could also use the internet resources and borrowed money to setup a site with adsense or whatever, that’d take some time. I could beg for or borrow some paper and write out my site by hand or whatever.

Anyhoo, get a job, use goodwill to buy clothes cause they’re cheap. Even if I don’t get a place to stay, I should be able to borrow 100 dollars. I mean, covenant house surely has some mechanism in place to pick up clothes, too, so I don’t necessarily have to pay for them. Honestly, with all this, I should be able to find housing for a week at least. Keep my spirits up, even show up to the YMCA or convenant house with a smile and just say, yea, this’ll help me get me back on my feet quickly. I mean, I haven’t fallen off my feet yet. So, I’ll try my darndest to get a job, even if its just a minimum wage one, part time. I’d do fine in retail cause I’m smart and capable, and i’m willing to work hard, especially in that situation. That’d get me enough money a month to get my own place. I should be able to pick up a retail job in less than two weeks, if I’m being generous while staying at covenant house. Then, get my first paycheque, prolly save that for a while, then wait for the second one to put together the first and last month’s rent/deposit on an apartment. Move out of covenant house using the job’s income, then build up my credit again with a credit card that’s attached to a bank account, or whatever that thing is. Use it to buy some hosting and get to work on building a website and creating value again and making money again. Even if that doesn’t work, I can work that job pretty much indefinitely, but of course, I’ll keep looking for other jobs and prolly get them, cause I’m good enough to be paid at least 15 dollars an hour in the market in some, prolly office, capacity. Even if I don’t have any friends left, I should still be able to get to covenant house and they can help me with it all, or just go to the library and use the computers there to get all the information I need. As long as I’ve got myself intact, I’ll be fine there.

I guess I’m still a bit afraid of having no money, but it’s a lot less. If I had 0 dolalrs, no friends, no home, I’d be back on my feet in about a month. Then I can work on building my fortune again. Borrow books form the library, etc. I’ll be fine. I really, really would.

I do not have the courage to do this, but at some point I want to try being homeless for a while. Like, limit myself to 10 dollars a week or something. I can take it in steps, like limiting myself to 10 dollars a week at home and then going out and finding out what options are available for homeless folk. I can totally do that, even now, and just pretend like I’m a concerned third party looking up info for someone I know or somin.  There’s a number for the city['s homeless resources on the website].

The next part was originally written before the above part, but it makes more sense after it so I’ve moved it:

This is a fear that comes up again and again: losing everything and not being able to take care of myself, ending up homeless I suppose, hated and pitied by everyone around me, I suppose. I can prevent that from happening by building strong relationships and bonds around me. A network that can support me and I can support them, too, if only in other ways.

I guess I do equate money with security. I guess that really comes up when I don’t have any or enough money and I feel insecure. I guess security can only come from being able to trust myself. Trust myself to do my best and to be able to handle it. I can rely on friends with apartments, I can rely on homeless shelters and even the kindness of strangers. YMCA or Covenant House (till I’m 24 anyhoo). Say I move out on my own and then I go bankrupt or insolvent and I can’t pay rent and I’m kicked out. I mean, I should be able to negotiate something. For example, I know that I can find at least a decent job, even a minimum wage job fulltime would be fine and I can handle it.

I can create value for people in other ways. If I created value for others, that’d be good. I guess I’ve a fear of being destitute and I think many people share it. However, many, many people get through bouts of homelessness just fine. They lose their homes, their businesses, everything, end up on the street with nothing but the clothes on their back. At least I have technical skills and stuff that I can use to get ahead, find job to get myself back off the street. Going to the street would not be the end of the world. I’d rather not, but I’d survive it and it’d be barely a hiccup in the long run. Pretty simple steps can be taken to prevent that. IE, be careful about how I spend money, save 6 months of expenses in advance. Actually, that’s a good idea, that solves the issue of what to do with the extra money. Build a STEF of 6 months to cover all expenses, so that’s…12,000. Wow, that almost seems excessive, but as long as I feel more secure, it’s good. It may take me a year to build up that depending on my level of income. 6 months of full out expenses, and I can cut some down to prolong that, and can then redirect the income going out to charity to come back and support me while I figure out things out. Like, if I lose my job or somin crazy like that, or business has shut down or whatever, I’ll have 6 months to get things back together. And if I’ve been able to get to that level of income in the first place, I should be able to use those skills to build income sources in the next six months…again. I could get a job, any job to cover me. So, I really don’t have to live month-to-month, paycheque-to-paycheque on the income I get. I don’t have to get reliant on something that may be yanked out from under me, I can build a 6 month safety net and then that’s ok. I can also save money for retirement, but I’m not too bothered about that. Yes, I can give away money more than required to keep me covered, and it’s ok.

I’m almost certainly being optimistic about how long it would take me to get back on track. That said, I think I could handle it as long as I’m fundamentally ok and have locked in the gains from personal development over the last two years.

I feel that this is no longer a fear and more like a situation I now have a plan to handle. It’s kinda funny–now I’m afraid of what’ll happen now that I’m not afraid. I feel willing to take big risks like buy investment properties, etc. I probably will not but I feel like I could and that courage is a good thing. There’s a surprising number of safety nets built into the Western system. It needs to allow for bankruptcy, redemption and rebirth so the system works. And there’s a vast array of people willing to help those in need with food, clothing and shelter. Makes me grateful for being here and certainly appreciative of all the good work everyone is doing out there. Thank you all!

PS This entry took me some courage to reveal something I considered private. Courage is a good thing.

We’ve inherited an interesting notion from the Big Three religions, which is that a human life has infinite value. The religious justification is more along the lines that each body has an immortal soul and that it is god’s will to protect that body and soul. A soul has infinite value. That is a natural law argument. What if you don’t believe in a soul? Most people, I would suggest, simply substitute in potential and say something like, “What if this child becomes an Einstein in the future?”

In any case, we assign an infinite value to a human life, so questions like, “How many people would you let die to save your sister, brother or child?” mess with us. They especially mess with us because we are supposed to think of the highest good for all, and just because it is your relative, doesn’t mean others have to die to save them. We’re supposed to be more noble and self-sacrificing than that.

All of this suggests something to think about: how do you value value? There are no units to measure importance inside a human consciousness. Besides, how can you verify it? For example, say that we decide to measure whether someone can live based on how many people would cry if they no longer existed, how can you necessarily tell that someone is crying because they’re devested? One person’s response to mere sadness might be crying while another person never cries.