Legends Never Die

I was talking to a good friend of mine a couple of weeks ago, and he told me about this book he was reading, called “The Alchemist”. The main idea behind the book is that most people live their lives as if they are survivors. Everyday we get up and go to work so that we can get paid, so that we can pay off our debts and/or buy things we like. We get a few weeks of vacation every year, but aside from that, we are slaves to capitalism.

Somewhere in this endless grind, we lose sight of the things we really want to do in life.

This thought has been stuck in my head since my friend and I first discussed it. Just take a look at the question, “What do you do for a living?”. The question itself implies that we live to work. Isn't that just a tad depressing? The really sad part is that this is a necessity in a capitalist market, or almost any kind of market for that matter. The only way this could ever be changed is if we had a free resource economy, which is something that probably won’t happen in my lifetime, unfortunately.



So the real tragedy here is that people aren’t living their lives. And so my friend and I started discussing the idea of a personal legend. If you had the ability to live your life the way you wanted to, what would you choose to do? If a storybook were written that told tales of your endeavors, what would it say?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and I’m not sure how I would ideally live my life. I never really thought about it before, as the cultural norms of our society depict everyone working for the rest of their lives. The only point at which we are released is when we retire, or in other words, when we are not physically capable of working any longer.

This disgusts me.

Here I am, spending the prime years of my life working under the arm of the corporate world, with freedom only given to me when I am sucked dry of my vitality.

I work at a bank during the summers and winters when I am home from school. At one branch in which I worked, there was a lawyer who would come in every afternoon to take care of his finances. I always enjoyed talking to him, as he had a lot of interesting things to say about the world, finances, life, etc. One time in particular, we had a survey that we were handing out to customers in which we asked them what their financial goal was. His response was one word, ‘independence’.

I thought about that for a long time, and I started to come to the conclusion that our monetary system is really messed up.

I mean think about it: A person loans out $5 to someone else, who pays them back $5 a week later.

That’s good human interaction.

Now, instead: A person loans out $5 to someone else, who pays them back $6 a week later.

That’s fucked up.

The whole idea of interest inhibits us from ever being free, and as a result, money makes people cautious. The only real way to escape the ‘monetary prison’ of capitalism is to obtain an exuberant amount of money, as while money doesn’t buy you happiness, it buys you choices.

Anyways, I got off track. Imagine if you had enough money so that you never had to work another day the rest of your life. You could choose to work, if you wished, but you could essentially do anything you wanted. Although I’m not really sure exactly what I would do, I came up with some ideas.

1) Become a beach lifeguard. For some reason, I’ve always had a desire to be a beach lifeguard. Just look at the URL to this blog. I guess I just get a kick out of saving lives. Weird huh?

2) Travel to major cities and then write about their restaurants, venues, and nightlife. I have always been fascinated with city life, and all the interesting places you can find. You know all those night clubs and restaurants you see on the silver screen and how spectacular they look? I want to experience all of that. All of it.

3) I want to be a personal trainer. I want to help other people get in shape and improve the way they live. Furthermore, with no obligations toward work, I could spend my time exercising to the peak of my own physical performance. I’m very health conscious and I make sure to get adequate exercise, but school and work make it difficult to really achieve the feats of strength that I’d like to. With so much free time, I could dedicate it to honing my strength, which has always given me an unrivaled sense of balance.

4) Lastly, I think I’d like to be able to express my opinion to the masses somehow, much like some internet celebrities do. Take a look at Philip DeFranco on youtube. He voices his opinion every day, and thousands of people watch. He’s opinionated, and as far as I can tell, always stays true to himself, regardless of what others think. That’s something I would like to do.

If you look at all of these, the main inhibiting factors are time and money. The time issue can’t really be alleviated, but the money problem can. I don’t want to just “survive” from day to day, and for those who would consider themselves to be living comfortably, I have a message for you: As long as you need to keep working, you are stuck in here with the rest of us.

I’m going to end this here, before it gets incoherent. So here’s your question:

What is your personal legend?

Stay frosty