When I turned 28 I took a bunch of mushrooms, had an ego death\/awakening, which led me into a dark-night-of-the-soul meets mid-life-identity-crisis, and suddenly, 6 months later, I was broken, homeless, questioning my life, and suddenly I could not go back to my old life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So that being said, let me tell you a few fundamentals that I have learned along the way, living in a big city and trying to survive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think, in retrospect, these things are super basic and fundamental, but for me, they were hard earned lessons from a former people pleaser who had never met the hardness of life before. I fully acknowledge that I grew up in a privileged situation, but that also left me WILDLY unprepared for life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, lets dive in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are a few fundamental things you need in order to be successful in life. By success, I am referring to inner satisfaction, safety, peace, joy, etc. I am not talking about success by modern terms. Do yourself a favor, look at those millionaire hero\u2019s you admire and understand this: none of it is as it seems. It\u2019s all fake. It\u2019s all a lie. Designed to get you chasing something you will never have. The sooner you understand that, the sooner you stop playing someone else\u2019s game, and start playing your own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So. My game looks like this, and this is what I\u2019m currently working towards:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1: learn thyself. Understand how your body and mind and emotions work. Understand how to relate to people. Understand how to read their intentions and know who is good for you, and who is not good for you. Then surround yourself with the right people. This requires time, and life experience (and perhaps reading a blog like this one). Understand how to feed yourself, care for yourself, maintain your emotional state and mindset. Face your trauma, heal, let it go, and move forward. Know thyself, and in doing so, you will know how to live.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
2: Trading time for money should always be considered a short term statetfgy, not a lifetime obligation. Trust me. One day you will get tired, bitter, irritated, and committed. Think golden handcuffs, except they aren\u2019t golden, and you\u2019re not rich. You\u2019re tired. You still rent. You own nothing. And that retirement and medicare promised by the government has not exactly panned out how it should have. Not with the rising cost of life and an inability to keep up. You need an exit strategy, you need safety, and basic provision, and the ability to have a home and cover expenses for cheap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So what does this look like? #1 if you don\u2019t own a place that you can stay, or you can\u2019t rent it for little to nothing, you are not safe. You are one paycheck away from losing it all. You will always be a slave to your employer and the world. So your absolute first step is shelter. Figure out a way to live as cheap as possible. And if you\u2019re saying \u201cBut I have standards\u201d and \u201cI like granite counter tops\u201d (I am looking in the mirror, learn from my mistakes) then I have one word for you. If you are living paycheck to paycheck, it\u2019s NOT WORTH IT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I got to the place where I understood that the life I wanted was not in spending more. That is an endless hamster wheel and it never stops spinning. You need a place of safety. Personally, that will look different for each person based on their unique situation. For me? It looks like a camper van, bus, or something similar. Every dollar I make goes towards that. If I can get that shelter, I can move out of my over priced apartment and live rent free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Living rent free is a game changer. To live rent free is to be free. Suddenly you have options. Suddenly you don\u2019t have the weight of the world on your shoulders. You don\u2019t have to take anyone\u2019s shit. You don\u2019t have to play nice in a toxic work place. You can explore your options and pursue what lights up your life, which for someone with ADHD, that is the same as living and dying. If you know, you know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
3: Transportation. Forget the nice cars that can\u2019t be fixed. Forget the $1000 a month paycheck for a truck that strokes your ego and makes you feel proud. I used to have a fully loaded brand new F150 with all the bells and whistles and within a year I was drowning under the car payment and eventually the truck got repo\u2019d and I got hit with a request for the remaining balance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Suddenly\u2026. I miss that paid off Honda civic. That Honda civic wasn\u2019t a \u201chigh school car\u201d, it was reliability, easy to fix, cheap to maintain\u2026 and as I currently have to daily drive a 20 year old Audi A3 that breaks down every three months, and I do not have the money to pay someone to fix it, and I have to use Youtube videos to solve the issue, I am starting to see life VERY differently. Fuck those $50k cars and their screens and expensive dealer repairs and $5000 part replacements. I would kill to have my 2001 Honda Civic back right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I would kill to feel safe driving around town again, instead of wondering if the oil is gonna drop out of the bottom of my car and leave me stranded on the side of the highway again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anyway\u2026 that is my basic survival guide. Maybe this is common sense for you, if so thanks for reading. But I had to learn these lessons the hard way, and I didn\u2019t see them for a very long time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When I turned 28 I took a bunch of mushrooms, had an ego death\/awakening, which led me into a dark-night-of-the-soul meets mid-life-identity-crisis, and suddenly, 6 months later, I was broken, homeless, questioning my life, and suddenly I could not go back to my old life. So that being said, let me tell you a few […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,13],"tags":[6,10,8,11],"class_list":["post-40","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-being-an-adult","category-finances","tag-adhd","tag-adulting","tag-intentional-living","tag-money"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-leon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-leon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-leon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-leon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-leon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-leon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-leon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions\/41"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-leon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-leon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-leon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}