Choosing To Be Wealthy Is Not The Goal
Wealth can buy a lot of material possessions – houses, boats, cars, clothes, and toys, but there’s one thing that wealth can buy that people often ignore, and it’s more valuable than anything you can buy – and that’s freedom.
In the past week, we’ve witnessed first-hand just how valuable freedom is as Ukrainian civilians have willingly taken up arms to defend their freedom from invading Russians.
Fortunately, we have little fear of Canada or Mexico invading our borders as Americans. Still, forces are constantly at work, limiting or taking away our freedoms and liberties.
From an early age, we are indoctrinated from all angles on how we should live and chart our life and career paths – from our families, teachers, and church leaders to people we look up to. We’re told to get good grades, go to college, get a respectable job, invest in a 401(k), and retire in our 60’s. Along the way, there are parties and institutions constantly fighting for our attention and money.
Colleges and universities want you to think a certain way – many now even suppressing opposing views in the name of safety and diversity. Wall Street tells you that a 401(k) is the only path to retirement. Credit card companies encourage debt to keep up with your neighbors.
Then, some politicians are constantly seeking to impose rules and regulations on your rights as individuals and as business owners. They all want you to think that it will all be good for you and that you’ll gain freedom, but the exact opposite is true.
We’re told that a dream job has a fat salary, killer perks, benefits, and room for advancement when it comes to working. The problem is, the dream job doesn’t give you the one thing that trumps salaries, perks, and promotions – freedom. That dream job can become a nightmare and a prison when you’re putting in 70 hours a week to meet your performance quotas. Start stringing a few of these weeks together, and family relationships, health, mental and emotional well-being start to suffer.
Nothing that Wall Street, politicians, universities, corporations, or credit card companies peddle will ever help you achieve freedom. Only by looking outwards will you be able to achieve true freedom. Only by creating passive streams of income independent of a 9-to-5 job can you achieve the ability to live life on your terms.
What does true freedom look like?
We only have to look back on the pandemic to see the assaults on our freedom to see what true freedom looks like and the value of independent passive income in preserving this freedom.
During the pandemic:
Did you lose your job? No problem if you had passive sources of income.
Did your child’s school try to force them to cover their faces? You could have homeschooled them or put them in a private school that didn’t have mask mandates with an independent income.
Did your employer force you to stick a needle in your arm to continue your employment? Wealth would allow you to quit.
Wealth ultimately gives you the freedom to go where you want, when you want, how you want, and with whom you want. This liberty is far more valuable than a Ferrari in the driveway that your neighbors may fawn over. Trust me; they’d be much more jealous of your ability not to have to punch a clock.
To me, freedom is priceless and a far more worthy goal of wealth than yachts or country club memberships, and that’s why freedom should be the end goal of wealth.
MIKE AYALA
Mike Ayala has owned and operated mobile home parks since 2007, and has been active in construction and management since he was 15 years old. He graduated from the Associated Builders and Contractors 4-year project management program at age 22 and then became a licensed instructor. He is also the host of the Investing for Freedom podcast.