The Chosen Path

As I move closer to the end of winter, this week will mark the first time since Ola got fired in the middle of last year that I will not have overtime. This is also the last week of the month, and it looks like I’ll definitely pull a profit of at least $2000 this month. Warmer weather, more time to sleep and profit to boot?! Oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy! Things are starting to get better. But, as I contemplate what I can do with my new-found free time, I can’t help but think about something my father Roy told me when I visited him last week.

When we were one-on-one, we touched on the subject of my crazy work schedule. I can’t remember what he said word for word, but this was the gist of it:

“Roger, I think you’re working too hard. If you look at the people that are truly wealthy in this country, they use their minds to come up with ideas that make money, not their bodies. You work so hard and it must take a toll on you. My biggest fear is that you don’t have time to think of money making ideas because you spend all your time working, and you may lose out on a gold mine because you were either at your security jobs or sleeping.”

I first saw it as yet another knock on my jobs, but I quickly realized that he was right. Most of the guys that work menial jobs will, at best, be upper middle class citizens and that’s about it. The wealth in this country is based on the people that profit from the hard physical work of others. The thinkers make the money while the workers struggle to pay the bills. I first tried to shrug it off by saying my usual “I’m not smart enough”, but does it really take a genius to come up with the Pet Rock? Does it take the mind of a rocket scientist to videotape oneself having sex and build a media empire? It’s not really difficult at all. So why not quit one job and spend more time coming up with ideas to make money?

The answer is simple: variable elimination. I can’t wait for an idea that may or may not happen. And I don’t trust my porn and cartoon littered brain to come up with the next big thing. I don’t. I like to do something simple and get money for it at a specified time. It’s what I’m used to. I have no doubt that there are thousands of ways to reach the goal I’m trying to reach, but this is the way I’m comfortable with. Going through treatments I remember thinking that, if I was gonna make it, then I want to live my life the way I want and do things as I see fit. This blog has never been about being a millionaire in six years. That was a gimmick I used because I felt I needed to motivate myself with a time limit. The honest truth is that I want freedom… I want to retire. That’s all. I wanna live out whatever days I have left doing what I want and controlling my future. I don’t believe in being at the beck and call of anyone. I don’t believe in waking up at 6:00am to put on a suit and tie and walk in a filthy garage. I don’t believe in writing down truck numbers in the blistering cold and dealing with the physically and emotionally dirty package handlers at the shipping depot. That’s not a life to me or anyone else with an atomic speck of common sense.

I think it's fair to note that, even though I do work very hard, I also work as smart as possible. It's not as if I take the money I make and spend it on whatever. Every dollar is counting towards the purchase of investing in something that makes money on its own. I want freedom. And that requires me to choose a path I’m most comfortable with to achieve that freedom. I’m sure there are other ways and, when I retire, I’ll be more than happy to explore different investment ideas. Maybe even partnerships. But my #1 goal in life is to free myself of my dependence of jobs for my sustainable income, and I can only do it in the way I know how. I’ll do it all my way.

P.S.: Due to that conversation with Roy, I’m not gonna complain about the jobs. I mean, I’ll bitch from time to time about someone acting stupid, but it makes no sense choosing a path and then complain about it. That's not the Roger Dodger way.