THE FINANCIAL PHILOSOPHER

The Decline of America Part I: What Consumes the Consumers?

"Paradoxically, what keeps the so-called consumer society going is the fact that trying to find yourself through things doesn’t work:  The ego satisfaction is short-lived and so you keep looking for more, keep buying, keep consuming." ~ Eckhart Tolle

There was a time in history when humans only consumed what they needed to survive and reproduce. However, humans have "evolved" to mindlessly consume much more than is needed. In nature, at least as it is explained by humans (science), living things can be either a producer (makes its own food), consumer (gets food from other living things), or a decomposer (breaks down other living things to get nutrients). Human beings are consumers.

But what consumes the consumers? Assuming humans are at the top of the "food chain," the only thing that can consume us is ourselves. And this occurs as a direct result of unconsciousness--the lack of awareness (ignorance). This consumption is not just a physical one; it is also mental, emotional and spiritual.

This post will serve as the first in a series of three or four posts that philosophically observes the decline of Western Civilization, especially in America.  Here are some initial points to provoke and prepare your and my thoughts:

• Humans consume information but information consumes attention. The wealth of information that exists today equals a poverty of attention. The mind is the gateway to authenticity, productivity, spirituality and thus the mind is the enabler of the overall well-being of individuals. But without attention, the mind is not awake. Therefore the decline of attention translates into an increase in entropy--an increase in useless energy--and thus the figuritive light of the individuals that make up the society fades... and thus the society fades...
• The term consumer is not just a scientific one. It is most commonly known today as an economic one that refers to the end users of products and services in economic and social systems. These consumers and their collective economic activity make up the vast majority of the economy, as measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Therefore the vast majority of economic energy is spent keeping the consumers well-fed with food, money, and media messages to continue their growth and thus the growth of the economy. However, this effort translates into the interior deterioration of the economy itself over time, much like the body, mind and spirit of the consumers (individuals in society) deteriorates..
• The increase in the capacity to connect people together has paradoxically divided the world into tiny cultural segments. Connectivity is diminishing into segmentation.
• The increase in the availability and accessibility of luxury and convenience makes bodies and minds lazy. Therefore we grow physically overweight, mentally weak and spiritually dim.
• When people grow accustomed to illusion, they require greater illusions to be satisfied. Therefore only a "better illusionist" will succeed in this environment. This partially explains why politicians have evolved to be more magician and less leader in recent decades.
• The need to be satisfied cannot be fulfilled if the appetite for satisfaction can grow without limit. Consumption increases the appetite and thus there is no means of "satisfaction" in absence of consciousness.

These are just some of the themes that will be addressed in this series of posts that I currently foresee as my next book project (the current one is near completion, which provides excuse for my light posting lately).

I hope you'll join the conversation as we work to awaken ourselves, our friends, our families, our nations and the world. This may sound a bit grandiose in nature but such is the nature of a "crisis in consciousness," as Jiddu Krishnamurti so aptly labeled the modern sickness of society.

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Related: The American Awakening

Begin With Hope (But Do Not Dwell There)

"The past and present are only our means; the future is always our end. Thus we never really live, but only hope to live." ~ Blaise Pascal

I recall my wonderful and late mother-in-law would always begin each year with the same proclomation, "This will be the year of change!" However, if she were alive today, I know she would agree, in honest reflection, that her annual New Year's message was really one of hope, not one of change.

My message to you today, dear reader, is that hope and change are competing interests; hope can be a beginning but it is not a means to an end, the change. When you say or think that change will come, you are attaching a positive and hopeful meaning to the thought.  However, you have not taken any meaningful steps toward change; hope is not a plan or a means of moving you toward the destination.

"It is indeed beautiful to see a person put out to sea with the fair wind of hope; one may utilize the chance to let oneself be towed along; but one ought never have it on board one's craft, least of all as pilot, for it is an untrustworthy ship-master." ~ Soren Kierkegaard

Hope, like money, can be a great tool to help you move along the way of your life travels when it is needed most.  However, both hope and material wealth can potentially cover your authenticity and thus paradoxically minimize the chances of arriving at that which you had hoped for -- to live a life of meaning and purpose.

Now go back to the featured Pascal quote at the top of this post. If the future is always your end, you never really live but only hope to live. Said differently, if you dwell in hope you do not dwell in reality; you are always Becoming but never Being; and thus you are not living; you are dying.

"Do I want the present moment to be my friend or enemy?  The present moment is inseparable from life, so you are really deciding what kind of relationship you want to have with life.  Once you have decided you want the present moment to be your friend, it is up to you to make the first move:  Become friendly toward it, welcome it no matter in what disguise it comes, and soon you will see the results." ~ Eckhart Tolle

To bring about positive change, the focus is not on past or future but on the present. Start taking steps now toward the things you had only hoped for in the past; notice what is happening around you and begin to really appreciate it; recognize what is not you and allow the authentic Self to emerge; stop making plans and begin living life now.  This is not the year of hope; it is the year of presence; and thus it is the year of positive change.

I wish you all the best in this New Year and I look forward to bringing you more perspectives for mastery of life, in the form of my first book, in 2013!

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Related:

The Goal is Not the Driving Force

Life Planning Part II: The Search for Meaning

10 Potentially Perilous Paradoxes on Planning & Life

A Thanksgiving Proposal

"Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you." ~ Lau Tzu

It's interesting and ironic how in America we have this annual ritual of giving thanks for all that we have by consuming large quantities of food then going out the next day to buy more things that we don't need. 

However, to be thankful is to be content, which is to say that one is satisfied--they have enough. 

But what kind of looks do you think you might get from your family and friends gathered around the table when you stop eating after only one serving of Thanksgiving dinner?  Imagine the reaction you might receive after announcing: "I'm satisfied; I don't need any more food. Oh, by the way, I'm not joining you for Black Friday shopping tomorrow because I already have enough things; and so do all of you!  Why don't we give money to charity instead this year?"

Are you laughing yet?  I am.  However, what makes this little anecdote not so funny a moment later is that, although it sounds like a joke, it's not really a joke.

I won't suggest here that we Americans change the entire tradition of Thanksgiving but I do propose that we do our best to help our fellow Americans and friends around the world to really think about the essence of the word and act of thanksgiving, not just the holiday.  Let's celebrate the tradition once per year and indulge in a few well-deserved small pleasures; but let's also do our best to remain thankful every single day of our lives.

Will you join me? 

Try to incorporate into your daily life some type of thanksgiving routine.  You can say aloud, pray, read or meditate on something that reminds you of how thankful you are to be alive one more day, to have your health, your mind, your family, your friends, your garden, your music and anything and everything that gives you true wealth and fulfillment.

An annual tradition that I've continued for at least 5 years on this blog is to share some of my favorite quotes on thanksgiving and contentment:

"I love to go and see all the things I am happy without." ~ Socrates

"As you walk and eat and travel, be where you are. Otherwise you will miss most of your life." ~ Buddha

"We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have." ~ Frederick Keonig

"Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for." ~ Epicurus

"If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires." ~ Epicurus

"Money often costs too much." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Freedom is not procured by a full enjoyment of what is desired, but by controlling the desire." ~ Epictetus

"What is important in life is life, and not the result of life." ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

"There is no calamity greater than lavish desires. There is no greater guilt than discontent. And there is no greater disaster than greed." ~ Lau Tzu"

"Slow down and the thing you are chasing will come around and catch you." ~ Zen saying

"My opinion is that you never find happiness until you stop looking for it." ~ Zhuangzi

"The wise man knows that it is better to sit on the banks of a remote mountain stream than to be emperor of the whole world." ~ Zhuangzi

One year a reader said he printed the quotes from my Thanksgiving blog post, cut them out separately, and then had his Thanksgiving guests each draw one from a hat and read it aloud.  That can be in impactful beginning to my Thanksgiving proposal.

Give thanks; live thankfulness; and be thankful every day.  You will soon notice a positive difference in your life and in the lives of those around you.

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Related: The American Awakening

As children look out upon the world...

...with wide, uncritical, undemanding, innocent eyes, simply noting and observing what is the case, without either arguing the matter or demanding that it be otherwise, so do self-actualizing people tend to look upon human nature in themselves and in others. ~ Abraham Maslow


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Related:

Self-Actualization is Success in Life and Money

Quotes on Contentment

Defining 'Rich' (On the 'Shores of Discovery')

"The liar uses the valid designations, the words, to make the unreal appear as real; he says, for example, 'I am rich,' when the word 'poor' would be the correct designation of his situation." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

I recently joined a writer's network here on Hilton Head Island and went to a meeting where attendees are invited to read some of their work to the group for some constructive criticism.  Everything I heard was impressive but I was struck by the reading of one particular story.

One of the writers in the group compiles vignettes based upon his life work as a trash collector on the beaches.  I'll attempt to get permission to share some of his work here in the future but a particular story he read this week involved a brief discussion he had with a handyman that often serviced the maintenance requests of beach-front condos.

The handyman asked the trash collector, "Do you know the reason for my most frequent service call?  Out of all the maintenance requests I receive from these $10,000-per-week resorts, the number one compaint by far is to fix a television that does not work."

I thought this to be a powerful observation.  Although not surprising, the outside world maintains such a strong grip on most people (wealthy or not) that being even a few steps from nature--having in one's possession the rare opportunity to turn down the noise of a false reality and tune into the authentic Self--many of us still choose to remain connected to an illusion at the expense of remaining disconnected from the truth of inner richness.

"I do not know how I may appear to the world,
but to myself I seem to have been only a boy
laying on the sea-shore,
and diverting myself now and then
by finding a smoother pebble
or a prettier shell than ordinary,
whilst the great ocean of truth
lay all undiscovered before me." ~ Sir Isaac Newton

There is nothing inherently wrong with watching television at some point during one's vacation.  However, please allow me to humbly submit to you:  If you find yourslef indulging in some mindless program while on holiday in a luxurious beachfront condo and the television stops working, you may receive that inturruption as a serendipitous cue to step out of the false richness of the material world and onto the shores of inner discovery... and begin looking for seashells.

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Related:

The Fisherman's Parable

Quotes on Contentment

How to Know You Are 'Better Off'

"Contentment is natural wealth; luxury is artificial poverty." ~ Socrates

How do you know if you are "better off" now than you were in the past?  When you aspire to enable your children to be "better off" than you in their future, how is that accomplished?  When I tell you that these questions (and their answers) are at the root of the greatest existential challenges of the modern world, it is no exaggeration.

Money is not the root of all evil but it is the most effective means of losing oneself.  It is also the most effective means of getting votes in an election. 

As America steps closer to a presidential election, the question "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" is used as a measure of success for the sitting president but this illusion is also applied to the collective success of the citizens of our country.

"It is the mind that maketh good or ill, that maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor." ~ Michel de Montaigne

But if we believe and teach our children, as the politicians tell us, that success is measured by one's net worth, what does that teach about one's self worth?  I can tell you from speaking with thousands of people, sharing comments with hundreds of blog readers, observing the attitudes and behaviors of my financial planning clients and prospective clients, and from reading countless books on psychology, philosophy, money and happiness, that the world's message to its inhabitants, that one's identity and self worth are synonymous with money, material wealth and social status, is completely false.

As I have shared with readers in the past, the utility of wealth diminishes after the point at which one has enough money to pay for the basic physiological needs of food, shelter and clothing (plus a few of life's small material pleasures).  For example, if a family in America can sustain a reasonable lifestyle with a household income of $70,000, an increase of income to $700,000 will not make them 10 times happier. 

"We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have." ~ Frederick Keonig

There is no doubt that some people in the world are truly suffering because they are not able to provide for their basic physiological needs.  However, there exists a larger, rarely communicated problem: The definition of "better off" is purely financial; the material, meaningless world grows in importance as the inner, meaningful world fades.

Until we are able to change the message that "better off" is more about meaning and purpose than money and prominence, we perpetuate the illusion that our self worth is measured financially; we equate high price with high value.  I believe we can change this message by attaching new and accurate meanings to it.

You know you (or your children) are 'better off' when:

• Your money is now a tool for life and your life is no longer a tool for money.
• The value of health and time are higher in relation to money than it once was.
• The word "rich" is defined as enough, not more than you have now.
• Identity is now who you are, not what you have.
• You see more similarities than differences.
• You learn that seeking is the opposite of finding.
• Suffering ceases to be perceived as punishment or necessary sacrifice but as a temporary challenge that helps reveal meaning and purpose.
• You find yourself telling your children that doing what you love is more important than finding the high-paying job.
• You maintain the perspective that things can always be better but they can also be worse.
• You spend more energy on growing relationships than growing your brokerage account.

Can you think of others?  I don't expect to completely erase the conventional line connecting financial status to the meaning of "better off" but I do believe that most people, deep within themselves, feel that there are many things in life more important and more valuable than money and material wealth.  This inner truth simply needs to be uncovered from the debris placed upon it from outside sources.

"How you are seen by others becomes the mirror that tells you what you are like and who you are. You need others to give you a sense of self, and if you live in a culture that to a large extent equates self-worth with how much and what you have, if you cannot look through this collective delusion, you will be condemned to chasing after things for the rest of your life in the vain hope of finding your worth and completion of your sense of self there." ~ Eckhart Tolle

Ironically, politicians like to speak with fond and reverent recollection of the days when their parents were financially poor but they still managed to achieve incredible goals, uphold the highest of values, and pass these lessons on to their children.  As the politicians tell their stories, tears well up in their eyes as they point to their parents in the audience and go on about how their mother and father were the greatest people in the world.

This is where the politicians are correct, although they won't explicitly communicate it:  Life is the journey; meaning is found in the doing, the perspective, not in the results; the challenges are what shape us.  And these ideals and accomplishments are not enabled by an increasing supply of money; they are enabled by meaning, purpose and the degree that people act as their authentic selves.

What the world needs is more people who are "better off," not because their net worth has grown but because their self-worth has grown.  Ironically, when people act authentically, the unintended consequence is the attraction of more financial energy.  These people are content--they are rich--regardless of the results because they live today, not in the past or future--who they are and what they do are aligned.

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Related:

Real Reason Economy is #1 Presidential Issue

The Diminishing Marginal Utility of Wealth

Quotes on Contentment

No Man Is An Island (But He Can Live On One)

"Have you ever looked back and thought, 'If I had done this or that five years ago I'd be better off now?' But the opportunity was there; why didn't you see it? Are you sure that you are not closing your eyes at this moment to one which you will see later in retrospect?" ~ Dorothea Brande

My family and I just moved to Hilton Head Island, SC.  The featured image is a private beach--our favorite place in the world, Dolphin Head--inside the gated community where we live. Why move to Hilton Head?

First, I'll tell you that we did not move for financial or career reasons.  That would be contrary to the themes of this blog (and the philosophies that lead my family's collective life direction)!  We moved to Hilton Head because it's where we want to live and raise our children. 

From a philosophical perspective, we try to live our lives in such a way that the future and the present do not have competing interests and quality of life is much higher on our priority list than financial, material or social pursuits.

"Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy." ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

This move has also prompted me to share with readers some truth and myth about happiness and its pursuit.  My readers know that philosophers have been teaching for centuries that happiness is a choice; it is enabled by the conscious effort to learn new perspectives, which eventually become habit, and to transform dreams into reality. 

In the modern book, The Happiness Advantage, author Shawn Achor reveals scientific studies that illustrate what philosophers have intuitively known for 2500 years: 10% of happiness derives from environment and 90% derives from conscious choice; most happy people are happy because they have chosen to be happy.  This speaks indirectly to the idea of the law of attraction: You get what you think about; your thoughts determine your experience.

In fact, financial and career goals are not often the sources of happiness, as most people think; it is the opposite: Happiness leads to success.  As I have said in the past, happiness cannot be manufactured by will but it can be enabled through mindful and healthy perspectives on life.  Therefore, and in different words, the happy person purposely and easily finds contentment with life; they are consciously thankful every day; and if their path leads to something that causes suffering, they either change course or embrace the suffering if change is not possible or productive.

"I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them." ~ Henry David Thoreau, Walden

As I drove over the bridge to Hilton Head Island, with a moving truck and family following closely behind, one of many thoughts that entered my mind was Henry David Thoreau's "castle in the air" metaphor:  Life perspective is "top-down," where the life one desires is lived first and the items beneath it follow as an incidental result of one's contentment and authenticity; the journey is given precedence to the destination; success follows happiness.

However the conventional business and personal finance approach is "bottom-up," where the bottom line desired is planned first and the items above it are planned second; the "bottom line" is the goal; the destination dictates the journey; happiness is pursued but pushed into the future (and sometimes never reached).

I will admit that the castles-in-the-air approach can be risky in financial terms but which is more risky--decreasing one's financial health or decreasing one's mental, spiritual and physical health? 

"Challenging the meaning of life is the truest expression of the state of being human." ~ Viktor Frankl

This is not a promotion of whimsical career moves or of changes in physical location.  However, it is an urging to reach deeper inside and ask yourself existential questions for the purpose of living a life of meaning and self-actualization:  Why do I live?  What is my purpose?  What if I had 5 years to live?  What do I want people to say about me at my funeral?

It's time to get busy livin' or to get busy dyin'!

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Related:

Thoughts on the Law of Attraction

Get Busy Livin' or Get Busy Dyin'

Questions for You

Kent Thune, CFP is an investment advisor located on Hilton Head Island, SC.  His firm, Atlantic Capital Investments, LLC serves clients throughout the United States.

Be Unconventional: Live Life Now

"It belongs to the imperfection of everything human that man can only attain his desire by passing through its opposite." ~ Soren Kierkegaard

Conventional wisdom is an oxymoron. What is wise about conventions? 

Consider the conventional idea of retirement: More than half of one's life is used as a kind of sacrifice to save enough money to replace the income needed to pay for living 10 to 15 years in the life one had only dreamt of during their younger years.  By the time the individual is able to afford so-called financial freedom, their idea of happiness or the capacity to achieve it has either changed or diminished, respectively.

I see this as a tragedy. 

To provide full disclosure: The idea and application of life planning, as opposed to conventional retirement planning, is at the forefront of my mind this week because my family and I are in the midst of moving to another city (which explains the lighter writing schedule lately).  The reason for moving is not for financial or career reasons, which would be conventional, but for life reasons; we enjoy our current house and city but we feel strongly that our new city will provide greater quality of life in almost every way.

I will admit that our move is made possible because my work as a self-employed investment advisor and freelance writer creates more mobility than (sorry, I have to say it again) the conventional career.  This is not to arrogantly say that one must be self-employed to be free.  However, it does say that sacrificing life now for financial wealth later is a form of slavery and that freedom does not often come without significant risk.

"What is important in life is life, and not the result of life." ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

I will provide details soon on the move and the new city.  For now, feel free to get a primer with these life planning blog posts (with excerpts following the links to the posts):

The Goal is Not the Driving Force: You are the driver--the helmsman of your journey, your life.  You choose the craft, the destination and the journey.  However, none are more important than being your own driving force.

10 Potentially Perilous Paradoxes:We sacrifice life now -- we sacrifice meaningful pursuits and diminish the value of life now and work in a job we hate for decades; we delay "gratification" for a day when we will obtain an undefined "financial freedom," which will presumably buy the time needed to finally be ourselves; we kill ourselves to live;  and thus life is made a tool for money, whereas money should be a tool for life...

The Non-Financial Cost of 'Retirement': If so many people who are actually in retirement have discovered that a happy retirement consists of working in a job that is self-fulfilling, shouldn't retirement planning therefore consist primarily of career planning or, even better, of life planning?

I look forward to sharing more soon...

The Crisis in Consciousness

"…and considering what the world is now, with all the misery, conflict, destructive brutality, aggression, tremendous advancement in technology, and so on… it seems to me, though man has cultivated the external world and has more or less mastered it, inwardly he is still as he was: He is still brutal, violent, aggressive, inquisitive, competitive. And he has built a society along these lines." ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

All crises in the world--personal, interpersonal, international, financial, cultural, political, religious--are rooted in a greater crisis. 

To borrow a phrase from the great 20th century spiritual leader Jiddu Krishnamurti, the world has for decades been in something he aptly labeled a crisis in consciousness.  To summarize some of his philosophies and incorporate similar ideas, here is a summary of points that describe the root of almost every problem that exists on the planet today:

• As a human being in the 21st century, the challenge to remain conscious--to obtain and maintain self-awareness--is greater than at any other time in history. This challenge arises from the attraction and distraction of illusion, which has increased its intensity, breadth and effectiveness with the massive and rapid growth of technology. 
• The ability to be someone else and to be somewhere else other than who you are or where you are, respectively, is growing every day.
• The more civilized the society, the greater the capacity to escape reality--to dream, to hope, to buy and sell illusion.
• The Information Age is one of knowledge, which is not the same as wisdom.  Knowledge is superficial; it is shallow; it has breadth but it has no depth.  It is all brain and no mind or spirit.  Knowledge feeds the ego and starves the Self.
• As a human, you prefer states that are temporary, rather than traits that are lasting.  Almost every product or service that is bought or sold today is used to help others enter the state they desire and to re-enter the state when that one begins to fade. 
• Most people stumble from pleasure to pleasure, doing their best to manufacture happiness.  However happiness stretches and it thus becomes increasingly difficult to reach.  You convince yourself that more money is needed to buy more things and the proverbial carrot-chasing, rat-racing existence continues.
• You consume things and increase your appetite for them; and your identity can be constructed completely of physical world forms, such as ideas, concepts, clothes, cars, houses, physical appearance and so on.  You think that, without the things, you are no longer yourself.
• Computers, hand-held devices, social media, print media and everything you see on television is designed to distract and attract your attention, to convince you to buy the things to become the advertised identity.
• However, you are not the things; you are your attention; and if you are constantly distracted, you leave little possibility to be authentic, to be your Self; you become fragmented, others become fragmented, and so the world becomes fragmented. 
• When you pay attention, what price are you paying and what are you receiving in return?  Think about that.
• All of your biases and preconceived notions can be shaped by "Liking" only people and sources of information that agree with your egocentric view of the world. Your worldview can become more and more narrow and you may find yourself "against" more and more people but "for" nothing that is authentically you.

And so we have a great paradox:  The world is more connected than ever but it is also more fragmented.  People around the planet have the capacity for greater love and understanding of eachother, and also for understanding themselves as unique personalities.  However we form figurative islands that separate and categorize, sharpen ideology and dichotomy, and thus create more stark divisions of financial, social, political and religious groups, which then create greater potential for interpersonal and international conflicts.

"See if you can catch, that is to say, notice, the voice in the head, perhaps in the very moment it complains about something, and recognize it for what it is: the voice of the ego, no more than a conditioned mind-pattern, a thought. Whenever you notice that voice, you will also realize that you are not the voice, but the one who is aware of it." ~ Eckhart Tolle

There are always crises in the world and they are all rooted in the crisis of consciousness.  This is not deterministic or pessimistic, just observation.  It is foolish to fight against nature and this includes human nature.  It is natural for simplicity to evolve into complexity and for complexity to eventually return to simplicity.  However humans also have the unique capacity for awareness--to think about thinking--to have a hand in our own evolution.  Technology, and all of the devices that fall under this broad heading, can be used as a tool, just as I am using it as a tool to reach you now. 

As Krishnamuriti said, "you are the world psychologically, and the world is you; and when you understand yourself you are understanding the whole human structure and nature."  To help the world overcome the lower crises that fall under the greater crisis in consciousness, you begin by helping yourself, by learning more about yourself and eventually being your Self.

A great central theme of this blog is to wake people and to keep them awake.  I am fortunate enough to have awakened from a constant, losing battle of keeping myself in an illusory state.  The illusion was that everything must always be improving: Climb the corporate ladder, make more money, buy bigger and better things, and so on.  To battle the stress of this existence, I survived by looking forward to the end of the day, to the end of the week, the holiday, the vacation, and the retirement.  I was always Becoming but never Being.  But at what cost?  I was never living in the present moment, where life resides; I was caught in the crisis of consciousness.

I will have more soon on some personal developments in my life that may help you overcome the crisis in consciousness in your own life.  Thanks for reading.

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Related:

The 'Experience-Stretching Hypothesis'

How Ego Hurts You (And How to Overcome It)

The Diminishing Marginal Utility of Wealth

The Best of Freedom

"The real opposition is that between the ego-bound man, whose existence is structured by the principle of having, and the free man, who has overcome his egocentricity." ~ Erich Fromm

This post is made in recognition of America's Independence Day celebration this week (and because I'm busy doing other things, as you would expect a free person to do). 

I rarely enjoy "best of" compilations because I like to experience the original work in its completeness.  Therefore, in that spirit, I've created this "best of freedom" compilation of previously published TFP posts with links for you to go back to the original, if you so choose. 

In different words, you are free to follow any of the links after reading the sample:

Are You Free?  Deeper Thoughts on Freedom: This post is primarily a collection of approximately 10 quotes on freedom you've probably not heard before (unless you read this post one year ago when it was published).  Here's a sample:

It is the whole soul, in fact, that gives rise to the free decision, and the act will be so much the freer the more the dynamic series with which it is connected tends to be the fundamental self.... But the moments at which we thus grasp ourselves are rare, and that is why we are rarely free. ~ Henri Bergson

'Freedom From' vs 'Freedom To':  Seeking "freedom from" something can produce unintended consequences, while seeking "freedom to" something is a path to meaning, purpose and authenticity:

....specifically with regard to the idea of financial freedom, one must be careful not to seek money only as a means to "buy freedom" from something, such as work, from society, from debt or from whatever it is one wishes to escape, unless this freedom from is attached to (or followed by) a freedom to something...

The Fisherman's Parable:  If you don't know this story, please read it.  I won't give it away with a sample but just know that its theme is about the power of contentment, which is a root enabler of freedom.

Man's (Career) Search for Meaning: One of the quickest means of losing oneself is to work in a career that is not aligned with who you are; the only purpose for the work is to make money.  Eventually, your primary source of happiness, although short-lived, is in things:

• Life goals become defined by monetary goals -- or at least you perceive that money is the primary enabler for fulfillment;
• You make your life fit the demands of your career, rather than the opposite;
• And if you hate what you do, you rationalize the stress as a sacrifice for providing for your family, your retirement goals and/or your desire to identify yourself as somebody.

As you go about your life this week, I encourage you to think deeply about freedom and what it means to you.  How do you know you are free?  If you are not content and rarely find yourself acting authentically, how can you consider yourself free? Are you serving something other than your own meaning and purpose for living? 

Why do you live?