Power

Power. I thought about this word the other day while riding my bike home from depositing a fat check into my new IRA at E*Trade in downtown San Francisco. I had talked to the middle aged portly E*Trade Account Executive, and I quickly got the sense that this person was treating me with a higher level of regard than my shabby blue hoody and rolled up pants would have deemed appropriate. On the outside I looked like a student or bike messenger, but ah! hand over a check with some zeroes on it and the world bows to your feet.

When we sat at down he asked "What do you think of the market now?"

I bluntly said "I don't listen to the talking heads on TV or take advice from Financial Advisors. They don't know what they're talking about. This is the beginning of a long painful downturn of historic proportions. Sometimes the best thing is to do nothing with your money."

With measured sincerity he agreed "Sir, I totally agree..."

I have a feeling he would have agreed to anything I said...

In that piece of paper I handed to him was 3 1/2 years of 401k savings...of waking up everyday when I did not not necessarily want to, of financial calculation, of hours of boredom staring at a compute screen and making small talk, of comfort and stability, of trading my time for their money. Why did I do that?

Because Money is Power. But what is Power then?

Power is the ability to impose your will on the outside world. I can buy material things, services, a smile, even flesh...I can make people do things they would not do other than the fact that I have power to trade. I have earned my money by sacrificing my own time and energy for that end. I have given up four of the best years of my life doing something I did not care about to earn this money, and handing it over to the smiling E*Trade broker, it seemed so ridiculous that so many of us go about our days smiling at strangers to get some more of this stuff.

But money can also be used to resist outside influence. This is how I saw money for a long time. By having it I can avoid control by others. I am not beholden to their expectations, their wants, to do things I do not want to do. It is a way of saying no, I don’t want to. No, I won’t go to work today...or the next, or the next. No I'm not living in this country anymore. I'm checking out of your stupid system for awhile.

When one looks through the lens of money as power the strange world that we live in suddenly seems clearer. In the end money is just the most obvious, easy, crass way of exercising personal power and value. There are less obvious ways that are not valued in today's world:

Peace of mind
Real Freedom
The Truth
Self belief
Talent
Knowledge
Action
Courage
Character
Determination...

I think these are things I've been searching in myself for a long time; and now I see that the real markers of personal success are not what I thought them to be at all.

At this time in America’s history, we are seeing the diminishing of our power. We have literally spent our way to financial, political, and moral poverty. President Obama’s gift is his appeal for us to nurture other aspects of power other than purely tapping into innate human greed.

Hope, honesty, listening to myself...these are my new wages.