Why can’t a person have more than one life?
Where is it written that you can’t start over by escaping from that which makes you unhappy?
I have a confession to make.
I can easily see many “traps” that I willingly walked into in my life. Hell, in many cases, I sprinted into these damn traps without even realizing it. 🙁
If you look up the definition of the word “trap,” here’s what you’ll find:
- A contrivance used for catching animals that springs shut suddenly.
- A scheme of one person to take another by surprise and thereby gain an advantage.
- A concealed pit.
- A snare with intent to capture.
- To catch, take, or entrap.
When we’re young, society seems to teach us that we can be successful if we go to college, get good grades, get a good job, get married, buy a home with a mortgage, have 2.5 children, go to church – all while saving 15% of every paycheck we receive.
If we do all these things, then we’ll be successful – according to society.
However, society doesn’t bother to tell us that we won’t be truly happy until we’re finally able to retire at some point in our 60s… when we get out of the biggest trap in the world —> J.O.B.
Today, when see this plan from society, I instantly think:
Trap, trap, trap, trap, trap, trap, trap, trap and trap.
I see one BIG f-king trap where our choices become restricted one-by-one. Society deceives us by pressuring us to do what it wants us to do. Everything society wants us to do is designed for society’s benefit. Society profits from trapping us… from restricting us… from limiting our options in life.
Our colleges, employers, health care system, government, 401k plan, church, lenders and insurance companies all profit from societies various traps.
A trap is anything that restricts our freedom – our choices – our options and our flexibility in making decisions on how we really want to live.
To illustrate, I’ve listed a few traps below that we’ve all encountered. (In parenthesis, I’ve highlighted how I’ve been trapped by this particular item).
- A career you don’t enjoy (Accounting/CPA)
- A job you don’t like (Audit Dept. @ Large Public Accting Firm)
- A business partnership where your partners don’t add value (Apartment building investment)
- Fame (Turning myself into a celebrity to build my business)
- Debt (Mortgages/Car Loans/Credit Cards)
- Overhead (8,000 square foot office space)
- Long-term contracts (leases/phones/equipment)
- Your own business (A 24/7 gym I used to own)
- Investments (Unprofitable commercial real estate)
- Relationships (Partnerships/Marriage)
- Poor health
- Addiction to drugs/alcohol (Sugar)
- Credit scores (I used to work hard for high credit scores)
- Where you live (by your job/business/family)
- Pressure from your family (Career/Where you live/Marriage/Church)
- Traditional retirement plans (401k)
- Our thoughts (Negative/closed minded)
- Lack of “useful” knowledge and/or skills (marketing/investing)
- Lack of savings and resources
- Stuck in low-value activities
- Negative friends and family members
- A busy schedule
The two main traps are: MONEY TRAPS & TIME TRAPS.
Now to be 100% clear… not all traps are bad. Some are actually very good for us. They make our lives better. I’m happily married and this is a good trap for me. An unhappy marriage would certainly be a very challenging bad trap.
Bad traps are the ones that lead to unhappiness. This is because these traps restrict us, they lock us in bad situations, they’re unpleasant, and they imprison us in activities that we don’t necessarily want to do.
When you stop and think about it, you’ll see that we always willingly walk into each and every traps. We don’t stop and question things – we don’t stop and ask ourselves… IS THIS A TRAP?
So, how do we get out of a bad trap?
Well, the first way is to actually realize we’re in a trap. Many people don’t realize this and continue living inside multiple traps.
Once you understand that you’re in a trap, you have to plan your escape. Just like Andy Dufresne did in Shawshank Redemption. You have to figure out how to get out of your trap so that you can live without restriction.
What is your escape plan?
Now this is going to sound self-serving, but if you really take some time to think about this escape plan, you’ll realize that I’m on to something…
We can get out of most bad traps by
creating massive recurring cashflow.
Take a second and review the list of traps again and see which ones can be eliminated by creating more recurring cashflow. More recurring cashflow gives us the ability to get out of (or drastically improve) EVERY trap with the exception of intense pressure from family.
We can use cashflow to change careers, or quit a job we don’t enjoy.
We can use cashflow to exit bad businesses, bad investments, and almost all bad relationships. Use the cashflow created to pay whatever price must be paid.
We can use cashflow to move to new area and to build a new life.
We can use cashflow to pay off debt, to get help breaking addictions, to improve our health, and to build a financial fortress for our families.
We can use cashflow to acquire new skills and to build new money systems.
And finally, we can use cashflow to buy our time back so that we no longer have to do anything we don’t really want to do: busy schedules.
Cashflow is the key that we can use to unlock almost every trap that brings us unhappiness.
I can help you create more cashflow.
Become a Cashflownaire here:
https://dividendrealestate.com/membershipspecial/
