While comatose and imprisoned, the machines feed our minds with a simulation designed to keep us oblivious, distracted, and obedient to the system dr… - M.J. DeMarco

without fiscal constraints, the type of lifestyle a million bucks no longer buys. In other words, you can dine out four times a week.

During a visit to the county landfill, I parked my truck in front of a junk heap and stared. As I meditated on the garbage piled as high as a demolished apartment building, it struck me that everything in this gigantic entangled mass was once new. State-of-the-art. An object of want. There were BBQ grills, bikes, toys, lawn furniture, stoves, picture frames, wine racks; it was a graveyard of past desires, a swollen scrap heap of residually accumulated consumption. Then I thought: Someone once opened their wallet, swiped a credit card, and bought this stuff. And now, here it lies as worthless junk, while its debt probably remains.

If financial freedom and autonomy are your goals, your beliefs must align with those goals. If they don’t, you’ll either (A) lie to yourself, or (B) sabotage your effort, causing tension and stress. Both make goals unobtainable.