Video: The Power Of Words: Stefan Molyneux

Thank you Stefan.

And now ladies and gentlemen, [for something completely different] - i.e. some gratuitous self-promotion from yours truly, consisting of two of my own original compositions recently performed live :

For complete lyrics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmwyTMLiomU


For complete lyrics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOaSy9O6SJk

Regards, obf and The Freedom Network

Five Tools To Protect Your Privacy Online

[Onebornfree/Freedom Network commentary: Simon Black, creator of the"Sovereign Man" blogsite and email newsletter , here briefly introduces us all to some useful, mostly free, software that can help protect online privacy, some of which I already knew about, some I did not. Regards, obf. ]


Simon Black Reporting from the 6th Region, Central Chile

"We’ve discussed many times before—hardly a month goes by without some major action against Internet users… from Obama’s ‘kill switch’, to ACTA, SOPA and PIPA, to stasi tactics against people like Kim Dotcom.

Online privacy is becoming more important by the day. And nobody is going to give it to you, you have to take steps yourself to secure it.

Below are five different tools and services that will get you started:

1. Tor Browser

Tor is a great weapon in the fight for online anonymity as it allows you to surf the web without giving up your location and other personal data to the websites you visit.

The Tor Browser Bundle is the easiest and most secure way to get started; simply download it, and start surfing the web with the Tor Browser. It’s available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Learn more about and download the Tor Browser Bundle here

2. Duck Duck Go

If you want privacy, don’t search with Google.

Google store all of your searches to customize ads for you, but even worse, they can hand over the whole list of searches to any government agency that are curious about what you’ve been looking at for the last couple years.

A better alternative is Duck Duck Go, a completely anonymous search engine that does not store any information about you or your searches. The search results are essentially identical to Google’s, so there’s no loss of quality.
Search with Duck Duck Go here

3. HTTPS Everywhere

HTTPS Everywhere is a plug-in for Firefox and Google Chrome that tries to force a website to connect in secure mode, thus encrypting your traffic with the website you are visiting. This makes your browsing more secure because it prevents eavesdropping thieves or state-mafia from intercepting your unencrypted Internet traffic.
Download HTTPS Everywhere here

4. Cryptocat

Cryptocat is an encrypted chat that beats Facebook and Skype when it comes to security and privacy. If you want to chat in private then this is one simple solution. It’s also open source, which means you can see the full code and be sure there are no government “backdoors” built in.
Read more about and download Cryptocat here

5. Silent Circle

Silent Circle is a new player on the market, but it is founded by “old” players in the security and encryption industry. One of the founders, Phil Zimmerman, is also the creator of PGP, one of the most-used encryption platforms in the world.

Silent Circle is a suite of products offering:

• Encrypted email
• Encrypted video chat
• Encrypted phone calls
• Encrypted text messaging

Silent Circle is the only service on this list that is not free. But having the gold standard of encryption may be worth it for you. It is for me.
Read more about Silent Circle here

Bottom Line

You can set up most of the tools we discussed in 5 minutes. Each of them will go a long way in securing your privacy online.

Do you have a recommended tool or service that should be on the list? If so, please leave a comment and share it below."  

Original article source

Personal Privacy:Your Employer May Share Your Salary, and Equifax Might Sell That Data

To read this important article, please go to my Financial Safety Services blog entry, regards obf.

Become Drone Invisible! Get Your "Stealthware" Now!

[onebornfree/ Freedom Network commentary:this article is a great example of the market responding to the needs of certain people who {justifiably} feel threatened by the new drone surveillance technologies. Any one who claims that only "criminals" need to be afraid and there is nothing inherently wrong with the US government deploying 1000's of theses drones to spy on ordinary everyday people- violating their 4th. Amendment rights {assuming they still exist}, simply is living in la la land as far as I am concerned- regards, obf. ]

"In early 2012 the U.S. Congress authorized the FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act. Within this bill is a provision calling for the deployment of some 30,000 robotic drones over the skies of America by 2015, arguably the boldest overt domestic surveillance initiative to have ever been introduced in the land of the free. With an average of some 600 drones allocated per state, this future network of highly advanced surveillance systems promises to give law enforcement, military and intelligence assets unprecedented video and audio access into the lives of every single American.

Privacy advocates are justifiably outraged.

But whenever government attempts to institute a ban on contraband items, or pass draconian laws, or introduce new tracking and surveillance methods, rebellious elements within the target populace rapidly develop counter-strategies and technologies to marginalize the threat.

Oftentimes, billion dollar government initiatives and development projects are rendered almost useless by low-tech strategies and designs.

Artist and fashion designer Adam Harvey, who objects to the authoritarian nature of the global surveillance state, has done just that.

In an effort to counter the high-tech integrated drone surveillance systems soon to be fused into intelligence networks across the country, Harvey and a group of partners have developed a line of clothing dubbed Stealth Wear.

Making its debut on January 17th, the Stealth Wear line will include hoodies, scarves, hats, and t-shirts that will make the wearer invisible to thermal imaging cameras widely used throughout the unmanned aerial vehicle community......."

 Read rest of article here

Terry Coxon on Government, the Reality of Regulation and the Importance of Asset Protection

[Freedom Network  and Financial Safety Services commentary: Terry Coxon is a person who I have read and admired for many years now, his book "Keep What You Earn", is, in my humble opinion  an all time classic on asset protection. I would encourage anyone reading this Daily Bell interview to read that book at least twice through. Also, I believe his much maligned Passport Trust system is a very important and useful tool for the individual seeking more financial privacy, safety, and therefor by direct effect, more personal freedom.]

                                                       

Introduction: Terry Coxon is the author of Keep What You Earn and was for many years a close collaborator with and editor for the late Harry Browne. He currently is a regular contributor to The Casey Report. Mr. Coxon has a distinguished history as an architect of innovative financial planning arrangements, including the Permanent Portfolio Fund, the United States Gold Trust (the first gold ETF), the Passport Financial Offshore Trust and the Open Opportunity IRA.

Daily Bell: Glad to speak with you again. Let's jump right in. You've been speaking out for freedom and free markets for decades. Yet things seem to be getting worse. Why is that?

Terry Coxon: Once the public accepts or even tolerates the notion that regulation is needed for one thing, it's ready to accept every claim that regulation is needed for something else. Roll back the clock and look at what has happened.

The unstated premise of the Pure Food And Drug Act of 1906 was that individuals acting privately are too lazy, gullible and silly to stop handing their money to providers of rotten food or of poisons labeled "medicine," whereas individuals acting as government employees are energetic, shrewd and purposeful. If you accept the premise, then of course you want the same energetic, shrewd and purposeful people to prevent any mistake that you fear the lazy, gullible and silly might make. That's why today anyone who wants to smoke in a bar in California has no choice but to grab the stool by the window and lean his head out.

Daily Bell: Does regulatory democracy work?

Terry Coxon: I'd call it a great success. It works splendidly for:

        •       Businesses, especially the bigger firms, that want to freeze out new competitors

• Politicians who want to point to their accomplishments

• Politicians who want campaign contributions

• Politicians who want to re-enforce the dependency of their business constituents

• Foggy-headed individuals galloping to the rescue of millions of people they will  never meet

• Utopians who enjoy their thoughts of intellectual and moral superiority

• People who enjoy punishing

• People who doubted that they really existed until they acquired the power to punish

• People who've decided that their best career plan is to collect a government paycheck for                     going through the motions prescribed by particular laws

•        Individuals who are afraid of being free

• Individuals who resent those who are not afraid of being free

The numbers add up.

Daily Bell: Who is behind regulatory democracy and why does it continue to function from a regulatory and enforcement aspect despite its failure?

Terry Coxon: It hasn't failed at all. Just ask any of the people I've listed. It delivers what they want.

Daily Bell: Why do facilities like the SEC continue to gain power despite their incompetence?

Terry Coxon: You can rate the SEC as incompetent only if you judge it by its stated purpose. If you judge it by how well it serves the people on my list, it's performing swimmingly.

As for the public, any investor who thinks he's being protected by the SEC is a sheep waiting to be shorn. Quiz the people waiting in the sheering pen and you'll find that the place is crowded with people inclined to believe that individuals holding government-employee IDs are energetic, shrewd and purposeful.

Daily Bell: You were caught up in the system via the SEC. Tell us about that.

Terry Coxon: Imagine Martians destroying your planet.

Daily Bell: What needs to be done to reduce this regulatory plague?

Terry Coxon: I don't know that there is anything that can be done to stop the plague. Freedom is man's natural state but it is not his usual condition. By history's standards, liberty for the general public is an abnormality. The best you can do is to understand the problem, so that your head doesn't get filled with fictions and so that you can try to avoid getting hurt. One way to look at The Daily Bell is as a mental health project. By confirming for visitors that their doubts about government are in fact well founded, you help them get past the official fictions and stay grounded in reality.

Daily Bell: We believe we've noticed an uptick in the aggressiveness of the regulatory state − the aggressiveness regarding gun control, for instance. We believe that there is a power elite behind this aggressiveness. We believe that this group is pushing forward with plans to consolidate world government. Disarmament is part of that plan. Agree? Disagree?

Terry Coxon: Some people are far more effective than most in moving government in their preferred direction. Call them the power elite if you like but I don't believe you need to refer to a power elite to understand and explain how government works.

The starting point in making sense of government is to stop thinking of it as though it were a person. It's not a person. It's many thousands of people (including the members of what you call the power elite) pushing and tugging on one another in an effort to direct and control their collective power. It's a scrum. Everyone in the scrum has his own purposes, which is why government so often behaves in a contradictory fashion − attacking cigarette companies while at the same time subsidizing tobacco farmers, for example. Multiple personality disorder is an excellent model of government behavior.

Today most of the people in the scrum are lovers of big government, and they feel about private gun ownership the way monkeys in trees feel about panthers. There is a reason for their passion about gun control: Control over weapons is at the heart of government power.

It's a postulate of political science (both among libertarians and among more conventional folks) that government is the institution that holds an effective monopoly on the exercise of force. I think that touches on the truth but then glances off it. The monopoly isn't on force per se. It's a monopoly on intimidation. I've come to that conclusion by considering how a monopoly arises spontaneously.

A natural monopoly occurs in an industry if and only if the available technology supports unlimited efficiencies of scale. In such a situation, where any firm can turn out the product more efficiently than any smaller firm, the result is that the biggest firm forces the others out of business. It becomes a monopoly.

It's the production of intimidation (more so than the production of force) that enjoys efficiencies of scale. Regardless of how large or small the groups, a larger organized group of unarmed men can be expected to succeed in subduing a smaller group of unarmed men, if that is what they set out to do. And the intensity of the motivations of the two unarmed groups matters little. Both groups know who is likely to win any contest so even if the members of the larger group are only marginally interested in prevailing, the usual result is that no contest takes place because the smaller group sees that the odds are badly against it. The smaller group is intimidated.

Lovers of big government hate privately owned guns with such passion and obsession because weapons dampen the economies of scale in the production of intimidation. A single armed individual may succeed in overcoming multiple armed government employees, even though he would have no chance of overcoming them if no one were armed.

And private weapons dampen the efficiencies of scale in the production of intimidation in another way. With lethal weapons as part of the mix, motivation becomes a big factor. Three armed men who are seen to be seething with anger or who show a belief that they either must prevail or die may succeed in intimidating six armed government employees who are watching for 4 o'clock so that they can start getting overtime pay.

I wish the truth were gentler but that is, I believe, how things actually work. For myself, however, I have no taste for being part of either group.

Daily Bell: You deal a lot with asset protection and estate planning. Tell us about that.

Terry Coxon: It's a big topic.

No one wants to be a financial victim of what so many governments have become, but protection means dealing with multiple threats to wealth and covering all the bases. Here's a broad outline.

1. Decide on the kinds of things you want to own. That's the first step because you make can those decisions independently of how you handle the next steps.

2. Decide where you want to own things. Keeping everything in your home country is a mistake because it means volunteering now to cooperate in whatever the government decides to do tomorrow.

3. Decide how you want to own things. In the US, direct, personal ownership just isn't what it used to be. It's now more of an illusion of property than a reality. Direct personal ownership now means that you are the government's unpaid custodian. You take care of things until a tax collector or a regulatory agency or a judge says "hand them over." Using a foreign company to hold assets, especially liquid assets, would be a big improvement. But the thorough solution is an international trust. You hire the right institution to own things for you. No arrangement is sturdier.

4. Build exactly one plan, a single plan for all your objectives. That single plan should coordinate the goals of asset protection, internationalizing your investments, avoiding estate taxes, reducing income taxes, achieving privacy and generally becoming less dependent on what happens in your home country. If you have a separate plan for each objective, you risk tripping over yourself.

Most people can be far better protected than they are. For people in the US, all the goals I listed (which are the ones most commonly mentioned by my planning clients) are achievable to one degree or another.

Asset protection. It's not difficult at all to put liquid assets absolutely beyond the reach of future litigation risks, and it doesn't take long to get it done. Sixty days is plenty of time, once you decide to act. Immoveable assets, such as real estate, are more of a problem but the problem is solvable.

Estate tax. That's a tax on not planning. Even the largest taxable estate can be whittled down to almost nothing, and it can be done without interfering in investment decisions or giving anything away before you really want to. But it's a more complicated project than protecting against lawsuits, and it's a slow, gradual process that may take years.

Internationalizing your investments. Setting up accounts with foreign institutions has become a gigantic chore. But it's a kind of grunt work. What it takes is patience and persistence.

Income tax planning. There are some simple but rewarding steps that most people overlook. Few investors realize what they can accomplish with a familiar, homey thing like an IRA. There are other approaches that can accomplish even more, if your assets are large enough and if you have a tolerance for complexity.

Financial privacy. You can't have any but your heirs can have plenty.

Daily Bell: Tell us a little about the Passport Trust program. It's been quite a success.

Terry Coxon: An international trust is the permanent, robust solution for protecting family wealth. Nothing else comes close. I designed the Passport Trust program to make international trusts easy to understand and to eliminate unnecessary costs. Controlling costs lowers the wealth threshold at which real protection becomes practical.

Because an international trust can accomplish so much, getting the full advantage of one requires a lot of information. But the core concepts are quite simple. If you're curious, start by reading "Your Own International Trust." You can find it as a PDF at Passporttrustinfo.com. In ten minutes you can become a minor expert.

Daily Bell: Thanks for your time once again.

Original article source.

10 Reasons Why You Have To Quit Your Job This Year

[Freedom Network commentary: another great inspiring and thought-provoking article for those of us trapped on the employee treadmill, from Mr. James Altucher! Regards, onebornfree.]

This was going to end badly. I would play chess all day in my office with the door locked. My boss would knock on the door and I would put my headphones on and ignore him. People would complain that the software I wrote didn’t work. My boss would say, “where were you yesterday” and I would say, “it was a Jewish holiday” even though there was none and he would say, “well…tell us next time if you leave.”

It was bad behavior. I was a slave trying to escape but I didn’t know how. I wanted to start a business but I didn’t know what. I wanted to create something but I would play games all day, burning up the fuel in my brain.

You can’t make money without selling something real. You can’t make something real without first imagination manifesting itself in your head. You can’t have imagination without surrendering yourself to an idea that you want to create something of value to other human beings.

And now it’s too late. Now the course of history has finally written it’s next chapter. There’s no more bullshit. I’m going to tell you why you have to quit your job. Why you need to get the ideas moving. Why you need to build a foundation for your life or soon you will have no roof.

Jabba's Newest employee.

1) The middle class is dead. A few weeks ago I visited a friend of mine who manages a trillion dollars. No joke. A trillion. If I told you the name of the family he worked for you would say, “they have a trillion? Really?” But that’s what happens when ten million dollars compounds at 2% over 200 years.

He said, “look out the windows”. We looked out at all the office buildings around us. “What do you see?” he said. “I don’t know.” “They’re empty! All the cubicles are empty. The middle class is being hollowed out.” And I took a closer look. Entire floors were dark. Or there were floors with one or two cubicles but the rest empty. “It’s all outsourced or technology has taken over for the paper shufflers,” he said.

“Not all the news is bad,” he said. “More people entered the upper class than ever last year.” But, he said, more people are temp staffers than ever.

And that’s the new paradigm. The middle class has died. The American Dream never really existed. It was a marketing scam.

And it was. The biggest provider of mortgages for the past 50 years, Fannie Mae, had as their slogan, “We make the American Dream come true.” It was just a marketing slogan all along. How many times have I cried because of a marketing slogan. And then they ruined it.

2) You’ve been replaced. Technology, outsourcing, a growing temp staffing industry, productivity efficiencies, have all replaced the middle class. The working class. Most jobs that existed 20 years ago aren’t needed now. Maybe they never were needed. The entire first decade of this century was spent with CEOs in their Park Avenue clubs crying through their cigars, “how are we going to fire all this dead weight?”. 2008 finally gave them the chance. “It was the economy!” they said. The country has been out of a recession since 2009. Four years now. But the jobs have not come back. I asked many of these CEOS: did you just use that as an excuse to fire people, and they would wink and say, “let’s just leave it at that.”

I’m on the board of directors of a temp staffing company with $600 million in revenues. I can see it happening across every sector of the economy. Everyone is getting fired. Everyone is toilet paper now.

Flush.

3) Corporations don’t like you. The executive editor of a major news publication took me out to lunch to get advice on how to expand their website traffic. But before I could talk he started complaining to me: “our top writers keep putting their twitter names in their posts and then when they get more followers they start asking for raises.”

“What’s the problem?” I said. “Don’t you want writers that are popular and well-respected?”

When I say a “major news publication” I am talking MAJOR.

He said, “no, we want to be about the news. We don’t want anyone to be an individual star.”

In other words, his main job was to destroy the career aspirations of his most talented people, the people who swore their loyalty to him, the people who worked 90 hours a week for him. If they only worked 30 hours a week and were slightly more mediocre he would’ve been happy. But he doesn’t like you. He wants to you stay in the hole and he will throw you a meal every once in awhile in exchange for your excrement. If anyone is a reporter out there and wants to message me privately I will tell you who it was. But basically, it’s all of your bosses. Every single one of them.

4) Money is not happiness. A common question during my Twitter Q&A, asked at least once a week, is “should I take the job I like or should I take the job that pays more money”.

Leaving aside the question of “should I take a job at all”, let’s talk about money for a second. First, the science: studies show that an increase in salary only offers marginal to zero increase in “happiness” above a certain level. Why is this? Because the basic fact: people spend what they make. If your salary increases $5,000 you spend an extra $2000 on features for your car, you have an affair, you buy a new computer, a better couch, a bigger TV, and then you ask, “where did all the money go?” Even though you needed none of the above now you need one more thing: another increase in your salary, so back to the corporate casino for one more try at the salary roulette wheel. I have never once seen anyone save the increase in their salary.

In other words, don’t stay at the job for safe salary increases over time. That will never get you where you want – freedom from financial worry. Only free time, imagination, creativity, and an ability to disappear will help you deliver value that nobody ever delivered before in the history of mankind.

5) Count right now how many people can make a major decision that can ruin your life. I don’t like it when one person can make or break me. A boss. A publisher. A TV producer. A buyer of my company. At any one point I’ve had to kiss ass to all of the above. I hate it. I will never do it again. The way to avoid this is to diversify the things you are working on so no one person or customer or boss or client can make a decision that could make you rich or destroy you or fulfill your life’s dreams or crush them. I understand it can’t happen in a day. Start planning now how to create your own destiny instead of allowing people who don’t like you to control your destiny. When you do this count, make sure the number comes to over 20. Then when you spin the wheel the odds are on your side that a winning number comes up.

6) Is your job satisfying your needs? I will define “needs” the way I always do, via the four legs of what I call “the daily practice”. Are your physical needs, your emotional needs, your mental needs, and your spiritual needs being satisfied?

The only time I’ve had a job that did was when I had to do little work so that I had time on the side to either write, or start a business, or have fun, or spend time with friends. The times when I haven’t is when I was working too hard, dealing with people I didn’t like, getting my creativity crushed  over and over, and so on. When you are in those situations you need to plot out your exit strategy.

Your hands are not made to type out memos. Or put paper through fax machines. Or hold a phone up while you talk to people you dislike. 100 years from now your hands will rot like dust in your grave. You have to make wonderful use of those hands now. Kiss your hands so they can make magic.

One can argue, “not everyone is entitled to have all of those needs satisfied at a job.” That’s true. But since we already know that the salary of a job won’t make you happy, you can easily modify lifestyle and work to at least satisfy more of your needs. And the more these needs are satisfied the more you will create the conditions for true abundance to come into your life.

Your life is a house. Abundance is the roof. But the foundation and the plumbing need to be in there first or the roof will fall down, the house will be unlivable. You create the foundation by following the Daily Practice. I say this not because I am selling anything but because it worked for me every time my roof caved in. My house has been bombed, my home has been cold and blistering winds gave me frost bite, but I managed to rebuild. This is how I did it.

7) Your Retirement Plan is For Shit.

I don’t care how much you set aside for your 401k. It’s over. The whole myth of savings is gone. Inflation will carve out the bulk of your 401k. And in order to cash in on that retirement plan you have to live for a really long time doing stuff you don’t like to do. And then suddenly you’re 80 and you’re living a reduced lifestyle in a cave and can barely keep warm at night.

The only retirement plan is to Choose Yourself. To start a business or a platform or a lifestyle where you can put big chunks of money away. Some people can say, “well, I’m just not an entrepreneur .”

This is not true. Everyone is an entrepreneur. The only skills you need to be an entrepreneur: an ability to fail, an ability to have ideas, to sell those ideas, to execute on those ideas, and to be persistent so even as you fail you learn and move onto the next adventure. Or be an entrepreneur at work. An “entre-ployee”. Take control of who you report to, what you do, what you create. Or start a business on the side. Deliver some value, any value, to any body, to somebody, and watch that value compound into a carer.

What is your other choice? To stay at a job where the boss is trying to keep you down, will eventually replace you, will pay you only enough for you to survive, will rotate between compliments and insults so you stay like a fish caught on the bait as he reels you in. Is that your best other choice? You and I have the same 24 hours each day. Is that how you will spend yours?


8) Excuses. “I’m too old”. “I’m not creative.” “I need the insurance.” “I have to raise my kids”. I was at a party once. A stunningly beautiful woman came up to me and said, “James, how are you!?”

WHAT? Who are you?

I said, “hey! I’m doing well.” But I had no idea who I was talking to. Why would this woman be talking to me? I was too ugly. It took me a few minutes of fake conversation to figure out who she was.

It turns out she was the frumpish-looking woman who had been fired six months earlier from the job we were at. She had cried as she packed up her cubicle when she was fired. She was out of shape, she looked about 30 years older than she was, and now her life was going to go from better to worse. Until…she realized that she was out of the zoo. In the George Lucas movie, THX-1138 (the name of the main character was “THX-1138″) everyone’s choices are removed and they all live underground because above ground is “radioactive”. Finally THX decides better to die above ground than suffer forever underground where he wasn’t allowed to love. He wasn’t free.

He makes his way above ground, evading all the guards and police. And when he gets there, it’s sunny, everyone above ground is beautiful, and they are waiting for him with open arms and kisses. The excuse “but it’s radioactive out there!” was just there to keep him down.

“This is easy for you to say,” people say to me. “Some of us HAVE to do this!” The now-beautiful woman had to do it also. “What are you doing now?” I asked her. “Oh, you know,” she said. “Consulting.” But some people say, “I can’t just go out there and consult. What does that even mean?”

And to that I answer, “Ok, I agree with you.” Who am I to argue? If someone insists they need to be in prison even though the door is unlocked then I am not going to argue. They are free to stay in prison.

9) Its ok to take baby steps. “I can’t just QUIT!” people say. “I have bills to pay”. I get it. Nobody is saying quit today. Before a human being runs a marathon they learn to crawl, then take baby steps, then walk, then run. Then exercise every day and stay healthy. Then run a marathon. Heck, what am I even talking about? I can’t run more than two miles without collapsing in agony. I am a wimp.

Make the list right now. Every dream. I want to be a bestselling author. I want to reduce my material needs. I want to have freedom from many of the worries that I have succumbed to all my life. I want to be healthy. I want to help all of the people around me or the people who come into my life. I want everything I do to be a source of help to people. I want to only be around people I love, people who love me. I want to have time for myself.

THESE ARE NOT GOALS. These are themes. Every day, what do I need to do to practice those themes? It starts the moment I wake up: “who can I help today?” I ask the darkness when I open my eyes. “Who would you have me help today?” I’m a secret agent and I’m waiting for my mission. Ready to receive. This is how you take baby steps. This is how eventually you run towards freedom.

10) Abundance will never come from your job. Only stepping out of the prison imposed on you from your factory will allow you to achieve abundance. You can’t see it now. It’s hard to see the gardens when you are locked in jail. Abundance only comes when you are moving along your themes. When you are truly enhancing the lives of the people around you.

When every day you wake up with that motive of enhancement. Enhance your family, your friends, your colleagues, your clients, potential customers, readers, people who you don’t even know yet but you would like to know. Become a beacon of enhancement and then when the night is gray, all of the boats will move towards you, bringing their bountiful riches.

–

Don’t believe me. Stay with a boss that hates you. A job that is keeping you locked on a chain around your neck, tantalizing you with incremental increases in pay and job title. Stay in a culture that is quietly replacing the entire middle class. This is not anyone’s fault. This is the tectonic plates of economics destroying an entire suburban culture that has lasted for almost 100 years.

Until you choose yourself for success, and all that choice entails, you will be locked into the prison. You will stare into your lover’s eyes looking for a sign that he or she loves you back. But slowly the lights will fade, the warmth of another body will grow cold, and you will go to sleep dreamless in the dark once again.