Don’t Work for Your Money, Make Your Money Work for You!

There are two kinds of people in this world:

1. those who work for their money
2. those who make their money work for them

You choose who you want to be! Don’t work for your money. Instead, make your money work for you!

My Story: Working for My Money (aka The Dark Fall of 2018)

The Dark Fall of 2018 is what I call a very bad time in my life. I was unhappy at work. Disgruntled even. I was on the cusp of a career change. My very foundation and worldview was shaken to the core. At the time, I was a Cloud Architect. I was changing careers. A new boss was coming in. I felt miserable and I wanted out.

I’ll keep the details private to protect the guilty for now because those people are still around at the company. Perhaps I’ll do a tell-all tale when I do retire, or at least leave my current employer.

What I learned from that dark time is that I could take the negative attitude that I was a victim of systematic disadvantage, micro-aggressions, stuck where I was and everyone around me was mistreating me. Whatever your demon is, it shapes your perspective of the world. The thing I finally realized is that I had a choice. Even happiness is a choice!

I could let the world pick on me. I could keep the victim mentality and live a sucky life and then die. OR, I could take a positive attitude. I could know that I had potential to make my situation better. And I could work the problem instead of letting the problem consume me.

“You are not a tree. Move!”

A colleague at work shared a quote with me about this bad situation when I felt stuck and trapped: “you are not a tree, move!”

I felt as though I lived in a hell. I felt as though I could do nothing about the situation.

In retrospect, I recognize those as lies I told myself. The truth: I was in a trap of my own creation. Looking back, I realize I had so many options in front of me. For example, I did not have a family to support. I did not have crushing debt to pay off. So many options and possibilities were in front of me and I was blind to them.

I was stuck inside the victim box with feelings of helplessness, frusteration, anger, and all the negative emotions you can think of. I went so far as to write a brimstone and fire resignation letter that would have burned every bridge I had at the company. Thankfully, I never sent that letter and turned things around because of that conversation with my colleague, and a good dose of Mel Robin’s Mindset Reset.

Happiness is a Choice

Since those dark days circa 2018, I have more than doubled my Net Worth. I created a great situation at work where I GET to work from home, where I GET to make my money work for me, and where I GET to save my surplus money and seriously consider early retirement. This new and better than ever situation is not something that just happened to me, and it’s not because of my wealth accumulation. No. It’s the result of a series of small and meaningful changes that I had to work on, every single day, one day at a time.

You can take the attitude that you’re in a trap. That you’re a cog in the wheel and that your situation is unchangeable and “just what it is” and out of you control. Talk about depressing suck!

Instead, you can take the attitude that the world is your oyster. That your setbacks are just short-term challenges to overcome and that you will look back on and say “I wouldn’t change anything.” It’s your choice! And I believe that Happiness is a Choice that we make.

I choose to make my money work for me. And I choose to be happy. As Dave Ramsey says, you need to live a different kind of life now so that later you can live differently than everyone else.