It's Not About the Money

So I left the job that was killing me. No, let me word this precisely: I left the job I was using to kill myself.

Better wording still: I decided to stop destroying myself, and to that end, I decided to leave that job.

Why are these words so important? It’s all about personal responsibility. If there is anything I’ve learned, it’s that I am responsible. I’m responsible for the course of my life. I’m responsible for my decisions. I’m responsible for the results of those decisions. And perhaps most importantly, I am responsible for the meanings that I attached to the experience of my life as it unfolds.

Sound like a lot of bogus New Age fluff? Well, I submit it is the most empowering and practical approach to life possible. If you’ve read Stephen Covey’s amazing book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, you know that this statement, I am responsible, is underlying principle in the first Habit: Be Proactive.

I can assure you that I take this personal responsibility to what many might think to be its most absurd conclusion: No one can make me think or feel anything that I do not decide to think or feel myself. In other words, you cannot piss me off unless I decide to let you.

Think about it: What happens when someone says something “mean” to you? I can’t speak from your perspective, but when it happens to me, I choose to put a meaning to the situation that leads me to decide how I’ll react to it. If Nancy says, “You really messed up!” to me, I can decide that she means I’m a bad person, and choose to feel hurt. But I can just as easily choose to determine whether she has made a good point (Yes, indeed, I DID mess up), and treat the situation like a gift! Such a choice takes a lot of practice (and no, I’m not perfect by far), but it can be done. And the difference is life-changing. With practice I can respond to life and its uncomfortable moments intentionally – and make decisions based less on emotions and more on what is best for the situation.

When taken to that absurd conclusion, personal responsibility makes me invincible! I cannot be a victim if I don’t decide to be one. One of the messages of Buddhism is that I cannot lose anything if I have nothing to lose – no attachments. Well, if it doesn’t matter to my ego what you think of me, then how can you ever hurt me, or even affect me negatively at all? That’s power, baby, and all it takes is a little practice. (I’ll revisit the issue of practice in a future post.)

That’s why I stayed in that “killer” job as long as I did. I knew that I was responsible for the meanings I had assigned to that job: “The long hours are too hard.” “The Corporate office’s demands are too great.” “The problems here cannot be solved.” I chose those meanings, as much as I hate to admit it. And I made myself miserable with those meanings.

And that’s why I’ve formed “The First Habit, LLC.” It is a powerful, affirmative statement of my personal responsibility: For my finances, my time, my energies, my productivity, my legacy. It is the intentional renunciation of victimhood, once and for all. It is a concrete decision to pursue a life that is full in every way – free from imposed limits, as joyful and fulfilling as it can be. And if anyone doesn’t like that, well, too damn bad! Maybe they’ll be prodded to choose their own meanings a little more carefully.

As I’ve told a few friends in my close circle, “Oh, there will be money involved – I expect lots of it. But it’s not about the money.” Really, it’s about wealth – and money’s only a small portion of wealth. I’ll share more about that in the next post.