The Scenic Route
Success. Accomplishing whatever we set out to achieve. Once we become successful, life suddenly becomes stress-free. We escape all human suffering because we are too successful to be human. We’re on Cloud Nine for all eternity. Just like all of those successful people we see in the world who have absolutely no problems like Jay-Z, or Barack & Michelle, or Stormzy, or some other accomplished genius/millionaire/pioneer. Now let me superslap you back into existence and explain why not only being ‘rich and successful’ is a fake fantasy, but how it guilt trips us for having dreams.
From the beginning of education until you retire, there’s some form of ideal which we all follow. Some idea of ‘success’. A reason to exist. Education makes us think that once we smash every exam, go to a top uni and get a million promotions at work, then we’ll be happy. Education also provides us with safety until we get there. You get a first class from a Russell Group uni, get a solid post-graduate job and work your way up. This is the route to most jobs whether you’re a banker, doctor or lawyer. Education streamlines you easily and safely to ‘success’, so long as you work hard. But this does not necessarily make you successful. It just makes you economically valuable.
Rather than someone following their passions, you become a highly trained, highly paid employee. The problem is that people mistake money for success so much that it’s hard to tell the difference between the two. This notion of ‘success’ gives us meaning in the abyss we currently live in, where we can make money constantly as a way of keeping score, and we can feel like we’re doing something with our lives. We’re building ‘generational wealth’, or we’re giving our kids a better life, or we’re trying to retire our parents so they don’t have to live difficult lives anymore. While these causes are very noble, it’s probably all bullshit we tell ourselves to make us feel better. Our parents would rather see us do what we love than be retired, we’ll be dead in less than a couple generations and giving our kids a better school education is literally educating yourself to put your kids in a better version of the same loop. While I agree that all of these things sound great, I don’t believe that reality will match our expectations of how happy they will make us.
In that case, you may be wondering what the heck money can provide us with, then? Time. We can retire early, maybe at 35–40, and just chill out for the rest of our lives. We’ll sip tea, and watch our pets play with our children as we cackle about memories with our old chums while sitting on a Bahamas beach. And that will continue for a few years until we’re sick of our friends and are bored of trying new tea, and have driven all the fast cars, and now we suddenly want to go back to work. Because there’s jack all else for us to do. And that is how capitalism gives us meaning. Without jobs, many of us would not have meaning. We need some sort of race to run, a goal to work towards. But using money as the motive means you’re a horse in someone else’s race.
COVID has taught us so much about gratitude, and spending time doing things we really enjoy. We connected with our families, we took some time to reflect, we learnt more about ourselves and what we can do. We slowed down and acknowledged the moment. Yet as the world kickstarts, we’ll be back out and working our asses off, going here and there as if we had never learnt anything in the first place. Look at anyone who’s ‘successful’. The chances are they enjoy what they do. Some people may be crazy rich just by grinding for so long, but are they necessarily happy and fulfilled? If it wasn’t all about the money, would they be alright? Money gives you time, but you have to sacrifice time to get rich in the first place. Usually a lot of it. Too many people I know plan to spend their 20s and 30s working all the time and then retire. But your relationships will suffer. You won’t have much time for hobbies, or self-care for that matter. Your personal life could fall apart. And most of all, you’ll never get that time back. You really are only young once, and do you want to spend all of that time working just for money? Separate being rich from having money. Money doesn’t make you rich. Love does. Passion does. Mindfulness does. Stop hoping that money will solve all of your problems.
The journey is the key, not the destination
Happiness lies within the journey. Meaning lies within the journey. Being able to enjoy the good days, and stomach the bad ones, but accepting it all the while and embracing it is part of the journey. Being present and thankful for the moment. That is how you gain power over human suffering. Not by doing a million things, working super hard and getting rich, running marathons, buying new clothes or being loved by everyone. Suffering can’t disappear. It can only be accepted, and it is much easier to accept life can be shit sometimes when it’s part of a process which we love. Think of it as taking the scenic route. You won’t get to the destination nearly as fast, but you’ll enjoy the journey way more. And that’s what matters in life.
I love to write. Articles, poetry, allegories, you name it. I just enjoy the creative process of it. Likewise with public speaking. Spoken word. All of it. I just like to be creative, and not have to do things in some set form or pattern, or fit into one specific type of box. Because I am not just one thing. This is how a part of me has always felt. Because a part of me feels like it wants to be free, and take risks, and prosper. But a part of me is also scared. It doesn’t want to starve. It doesn’t want to financially struggle. It doesn’t want to suffer. It doesn’t want to fail. And that’s how the system promotes it. You either succumb to an idealised form of ‘success’ or you fail. And that puts so many of us in perpetual fear of being inadequate that we never chase our dreams. We just suck it up and try to become rich instead. So I won’t act high and mighty and behave like I’ve got the answers here, because when the time comes I don’t know if I’ll finish education and go into a comfy job, or if I’ll upend it and do something I want to do. Maybe the two will come together. Maybe it will be neither. But this is a message to you all, as well as my future and past selves. Say it with me:
It’s okay to not have it all figured out. This is all part of the journey, so I choose to love it and embrace it, and trust myself most of all. I will never be great by achieving anything, because I’m great just how I am. The cards will all fold eventually, and none of this will matter. So just be present and embrace life for what it is.
That’s true happiness.
P.S. It’s important to note that some people genuinely enjoy corporate jobs, or desk-working jobs, or just having their own office etc. My mentality is to each their own. In the same way that no-one can tell me what to like or what to do, I can’t judge other people for what they like to do. As long as they love it, and it isn’t harming anyone, it doesn’t matter what it looks like. Mind your own ❤
P.P.S. The clearest way I can sum up this article is to say that if you do something to become rich, you will just be rich. But if you do what you love, then you will be fulfilled. You’re rich in a different way, so money won’t matter as much. Even so, because you love what you do you’re even more likely to make money. It’s like being the hired architect of a house vs. building your own and then furnishing it and moving your family in and living there. That’s the difference between a house and a home. Which would you rather?
