Also, for what it’s worth, I’ve forgone millions of dollars in compensation over the years to work on socially beneficial projects, and literally just left $250k on the table last year alone. But yeah, wanting to support my family makes me greedy.
I actually find it pretty interesting that there's so much hostility towards my posts when I attempt to start a discussion on alternatives to our present and decaying society. Like, it is a lack of imagination? A resignation to reality? Belief that this is the best we can do?
Personally, I /can/ envision a future without landlords, banking info, and retirement accounts, where we direct the immense productivity of our people away from one that necessitates a focus on money. I guess I'll just need to work on my pitch.
My annoyance is that I’ve had this discussion a hundred times and unless you are in the trenches trying to make change while supporting your family I’m not really interested in musings on what a better world looks like, I’m busy trying to support myself doing the work to make it happen.
And per my comment above, I’ve given up a TON of money, but I still deserve to have money in my pocket.
This week has been an interesting one for me, my perspective has shifted quite drastically. Honestly I was bitter, I found that I was unintentionally on a mission to inflate perceived injustices to create bad people in my mind, ostensibly for the purpose of making myself look "good" in comparison. I let that need leak into my interpersonal interactions in an attempt to push that juxtaposition into other people's minds.
I'm not in the trenches like you because I spent a decade focusing on bootstrapping a company because I wanted money, and I selfishly wanted to just ignore everything that bothered me and focus on what I loved doing. In the end it ruined most of what I actually value, and that changed me in ways I hadn't realized; in the end I burned myself and bridges as those things began to crumble.
I will say that I've thought a lot about our conversation this week as I've been trying to find a path to somewhere better, as I do struggle a lot with what you're saying as I have kids of my own, some adult, who are seriously struggling because of the screwed up money obsessed world we find ourselves in.
A pretty big part of the torment I was laying on myself was because I didn't feel like I deserved the monetary success I had worked so hard to find, I felt like liquidating my value as my co-founder had was tantamount to becoming one of those people I so fervently despised. I've instead been trying to prove to myself that I could do it again on my own, with the expected result.
I decided to call our investor this week and negotiated a buyout of my equity. Now I guess I just need to figure out how I can turn that into some good in the world. I'm incredibly grateful at this point actually, I've experienced having nothing, I've experience true hopelessness, and I've experienced how much even a small gesture by someone who cares can drastically change one's circumstances and frame of mind.
If there's anything you could share with me about your experience in advocacy, I would be humbly thankful.
I apologize for how I treated you.