I’ve never been good at living in the moment.
Coming from the side of the tracks where my family was not well off, I learned a lot about taking what you can get out of the system. At a certain point you realize there are people who will one day inherit a house. Then there are people, like me, who probably won’t get very much when my parents die, ideally I am not named in anyone’s will.
My whole life has been this desire for fame and glory.
It’s probably a combination of daddy issues mixed with overcompensation.
There’s this constant burning within for more. Finding real satisfaction in a moment is challenging. Despite the difficulty I’ve been learning to find the beauty in each moment.
Or maybe there’s a part of me trying to reconcile with how little progress I’ve made towards some of my goals.
What’s ridiculous is if I’m really candid, my life has a lot of blessings and my unwillingness to offer reverence for those blessings may be holding me back.
The drive that comes from never wanting to go back to where you come from
There were years of my life where neither of my parents worked regular jobs.
It always felt like money wasn’t there. This wasn’t because my parents were lazy. Instead they were on welfare meets under the table hustle for many years. Despite any criticisms I may have of my childhood, it wasn’t that bad.
We never went hungry.
We got to take some road trips and see some stuff. I got to go to New Brunswick one time with my dad. I remember going to Park Safari. We even saw the last home game the Expos played.
That being said, you can’t help but notice certain things around Christmas time. Santa really does hate poor kids. My parents went hard making it special, but as you get older and compare toys, you realize some people just have way more money.
Some of your peers get to miss school because of family vacations. Sure they’d have some extra homework over it, but that never happened to me. Some people live in homes their parents own and others are like me, I’ve never lived in a house.
In high school I was on the low income lunch program.
I never lacked, but life showed me that the circumstances I grew up in weren’t quite as nice as others.
I never wanted that for my kids (which never came).
Wealth and equity is more about habits than income
I later found out that at one point my parents pulled in around 60’000$ a year in the 2000’s.
This isn’t crazy money, but we’d clearly had some years where we were on the lower end of the middle class salary range. In theory, my parents made enough that with good choices we’d have elevated in stature.
Instead we ended up ordering a lot of food. Something I didn’t realize was so expensive until I’d adopted those same habits when I made that same kind of money myself. High key, I really do miss some of my more reckless carefree years.
That Holden knew one day a future me would pay for it, that future me is me now.
There are several private things that also contributed to us not having money, but something my parents did try and instil was the concept of moments and memories.
As I mentioned I did get to have a lot of experiences. Many of them were fun. Like we’d rent these cabins in the woods and have little excursions and adventures.
I’ve since learned many people never leave Montreal.
Those moments of travel, limited in scope as it felt, were all blessings.
Even the time when I was 3 and ate soap in Platsburgh New York. I vividly remember wondering what soap tasted like. Then I knew.
As you live life you can always change your habits to have more money. You also need to make sure you change your PRSPCTVS to see the good things out there. It’s far too easy to get caught up in a lust for more, because of past hurt, comparing yourself to others who are winning more.
Chances are you’ve got your fair share of amazing moments right in your face.
People like you more when you can appreciate what you have
I damaged a few relationships last year because despite blessings in my face, nothing was good enough for me.
In my defence I was really stressed over money and paid opportunities felt sparse. That being said I did very little to actually find paid opportunities and when cool stuff did happen, my attitude was kind of sour. It was a bad look.
Especially because some of the things I have gotten to do are actually dope.
I got to watch a famous person record a song one time in the middle of Brooklyn. I’ve gotten to play snooker and smoke crazy hash in the middle of Lahore. I got to make out with a random Jersey girl in the middle of Jerusalem at a club, holding up our travel group’s bus because I was having a “moment”.
I have way cooler memories but none of those examples took place in Canada.
Lately as the days roll on and I feel like a failure barely keeping it together I need to remember to count the blessings.
For whatever reason last night I just couldn’t sleep. My brain was hounding me with this neverending list of chores and tasks and misery that was waiting for me. Sometimes when I talk to people, I default into this chainmail sounding complaint rant.
It’s been about 6 months now without taking a day off and that is affecting me and my psyche. My vacation is booked and is less than a month out. This is another blessing that not everyone gets to experience.
I can afford to go on a vacation and still deal with my life.
This article is really to remind myself to be grateful that I can make money and continue to have amazing moments. Despite not being where I want to be, I have come so far that the rest of the journey is still going to be great.
Humility is the key to finding the sugar daddies that elevate you.
Live Long and Prosper Everyone