Another guest post by Alexander. Check out his first post “The Human Circus Analogy” here. The best way to ensure disappointment? Follow exactly what society dictates you should do. Go to school. Get a stable 9-5 job. Get Married. Live frugally. Save for retirement. Happiness and bliss awaits. Does the below sound familiar to you? Go home exhausted and recharge for the next day. Weekends spent trying to escape. Weekends flying by in a drunken haze. Sunday is the day of dread. Happy Monday! Isn’t it sad that we celebrate Wednesday aka Hump Day for the simple fact that it is 48 hours away from Friday, which is the day before we get our freedom to feel like we can be ourselves again? Wishing time will go by faster, wishing our lives away one second at a time. Is this it? Choice. The average man stuck in a dead end job lacks freedom of choice. His only escape is to drink and buy material things advertised to him through corporations that end up taking back the same money he sacrificed so much time to earn. The joy is temporary. He is constantly chasing, stressed out, overworked and suffocating. Stuck on an endless hamster wheel and climbing the corporate ladder, he is rewarded for working more hours by an upgrade to a bigger wheel. By the time most realize they are stuck it is already too late. With kids, a house, a mortgage and more tied down than ever before, it is even harder to change. But hey, by this point in time, retirement isn’t so far away… There’s always retirement to look forward to, right? He has no leverage with time. He gets paid a fixed hourly rate. Can’t be here? You don’t get paid. Become more efficient? You get paid the same. The maximum hours anybody can work is 24 hours/7 days a week. Your earning potential is limited by time no matter how many raises you get. Keep in mind that we are assuming no office politics and the workplace is a perfect meritocracy which isn’t always true. Trading time for money without leverage is a losing game. Solution: BUILD SOMETHING, something you can call your own, with the potential to leverage. Here’s an analogy. Imagine you have a yard filled with heavy rocks you must lift. How would you do it? You can build a stronger body or build a machine. Let’s do the math. You can either train 2 years to lift 400 pounds or study for 3 years learning how to build a build a pulley system. Yes, it might take longer to learn to build the pulley at the beginning, but the incremental benefits are worth it. How much longer do you have to train your body to lift 500 pounds? Another 2 years? The pulley can be easily modified to lift that. What about 1000 pounds? It might take your lifetime to train your body. What about 2,000 pounds? Impossible. Your body has physical limits, but the machine does not. You can leverage the machine to do things your body can’t. This machine is your business. Building a business can be your passion, not just a means to leverage your money making potential. In fact, it needs to be your passion if you want to be successful at it. Humans get depressed when they have no real goals to accomplish. You will never meet a successful businessman without a passion or who doesn't love what they do. This is the same reason why you will never see a professional athletes who doesn't love what they do. They simply can't compete otherwise. The same cannot be said for most office workers, who can't wait to leave the office. When Usher sang DJ Got Us Falling in Love,Thank God the week is done, I feel like a zombie gone back to life, he meant it literally. Yes, people dance to this song after working jobs they hate. Ironic, isn’t it? Stay tuned for future articles on traps you need to avoid when building your first business. “We can all be good boys and wear our letter sweaters around and get our little degrees and find some nice girl to settle, you know, down with... “.....Or we can blaze! Become legends in our own time, strike fear in the heart of mediocre talent everywhere! We can scald dogs, put records out of reach! Make the stands gasp as we blow into an unearthly kick from three hundred yards out! We can become God's own messengers delivering the dreaded scrolls! We can race dark Satan himself till he wheezes fiery cinders down the back straightaway....They'll speak our names in hushed tones, 'those guys are animals' they'll say! We can lay it on the line, bust a gut, show them a clean pair of heels. We can sprint the turn on a spring breeze and feel the winter leave our feet! We can, by God, let our demons loose and just wail on!” ― John L. Parker Jr., Once a Runner