A Private Life
The power of a private income can best be understood in the context of leading a private life.
Recently, one of the big shifts in society is that we are no longer encouraged to be private. The person who does not talk about themselves is seen as boring, an acquaintance who does not share the tiny details of their life is judged for having something to hide, similarly, the quiet mocking for those of us not on Facebook/Twitter/Insta/TicToc/Interwebs is rife.
Go onto any social media and you will find people openly spruiking every detail of their lives from the pillowcases they use, their underwear drawers to the balance of their bank accounts and investments right down to the foibles of their families and positions they make love in. Ugh.
The same applies to general conversation – there is so much shallow oversharing and so many one-upmanship stories. Yawn. Whilst a bit of cheery banter and gossip are perfectly fine fun, whatever happened to the fascinating sharing of new ideas and concepts in conversations?
A private life is now a thing of scorn or at least a thing to be investigated for possible ill intent. Not sharing our lives makes the base narcissistic capability in humans wild with fury. Living a private life is in effect saying NO.
The Power Of A Private Life
Living a private life means we are no longer subject to the open criticism of all and sundry.
We are no longer influenced by social acceptance and the opinion of others. We set our own goals and pursue our own definition of success – that is the power of a private life.
From memory, it was Ellen Goodman who said these deeply relatable words “Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for – in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it” ……. why do we do this to ourselves?
Because we do not live a private life. Other’s expectations govern our decisions, actions and self-worth.
The power of a private life means we are uninterested in gaining other people’s opinions to validate our lives, goals, and our definition of success. This is how it should be.
R.H Jarrett in his little-known small book called IT WORKS (link is to a free PDF of the book) clearly iterates the power of keeping intentions to yourself as one of the three positive rules of accomplishment.
The moment we subscribe to popular culture and start incessantly comparing our life to other people’s – discontent creeps in and takes root. Comparison truly is the thief of joy.
A Private Income
The same can be said of income. We can be on good wages and then hear of a colleague doing a similar job on more money – discontent instantly kicks in.
Additionally, once we start earning more than our immediate group of friends and family, envy and jealousy often emerges from others in our group irrespective of the effort that has been put in to becoming successful. As a result, tall poppy syndrome and a misguided sense of entitlement kicks in hard.
A private income means that nobody knows what we earn, how we earn it or where it is invested. A private income means we can live a lifestyle that does not equate to our net worth – usually opposite to many in society who go to great lengths to appear rich but are, in fact, living on their debts.
A private income needs us to keep quiet about what we earn, how we earn it, where we invest it and how we spend it. That is in full contravention to current societal norms.
The Power Of A Private Income
The power of a private income is most palpable when it comes to personal choices. More specifically, if our income is private and there is no external evidence of our net worth, then we are at liberty to live a life we want to live.
Living the life we want to live, is the purest explanation of success.
With a private income, we are A). free from the obsessive opinions of all and sundry on how it was acquired, managed and invested.
B). A private income allows us to discreetly give to others as we see fit.
C). A private income can quietly turn around the fortunes of a family generationally.
D). A private income allows us to focus on important pursuits and projects that benefit and mature society.
E). A private income allows us to speak of other things besides jobs, salaries, bosses, work gossip, he said / she said / they said and a host of other shallow time wasters.
Ultimately, creating and maintaining a private income is a key indicator of maturity in a deeply shallow world.
Cheers
Pingback: Financial Freedom through Unearned Income - My Passive Income Journal