Let me throw a poignant thought at you: many people today are more stressed out than ever before by the constant demands of work life, the reduced benefits, the growing workload and the endless hurry.  You have GOT to get shit done, or you will risk being out on your ass in no time flat.  You have GOT to produce results in the minimal time allotted to you or they will find someone younger and hungrier to take your spot on that grand Ferris Wheel you call your job.

Is that YOU?

If so, rest assured that you are part of a list of astronomically climbing numbers of people, who are not living their lives anymore.  No, they’re performing their lives, waiting for 65 to hit, so they can finally start “living” and enjoy some semblance of personal freedom in the final quarter of mortality.  What a hopeless, bleak reality.

The rat race spares no one.  In Finland alone, countless folks live only on the weekends and for the weekends.  Those weekends are spent in an alcohol-induced coma, a reflection of their inability to cope with their current reality which screams loud and clear that they have no life.  They are part of the living dead, breathing but just barely alive.  They are sick – mentally, physically and spiritually – and they continue to sell their souls for economic gain, so that they might maintain a self-orchestrated lifestyle that demands a set standard to be upkept.

The sheer amount of pharmaceutical drugs produced which are used to specifically cater to the symptoms of the stressed person are astronomical.  As we all should know by now, the three biggest industries that big government and different countries lend money from are: 1) the weapons industry, 2) the drug trade and 3) pharmaceutical monoliths.  Maybe we can start adding the porn industry to that list, considering its boom worldwide in the past decade also.

Just think: you are being KEPT sick by your society.  This society makes you sick through stress, and makes sure you STAY sick to ensure you generate money for the system.  You are expected to be a good, little soldier and spill all of your lifeblood for the “greater good”.  Screw you and your personal wellbeing, you should have realized by now – IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU!  It never has been.  Nor will it ever be.

So let me ask you: are you content with a life of survival – just barely alive so that you can perform your jobs and sacrifice over half of your waking hours a day to someone else’s agenda, being paid to exhaust your personal resources for someone else – or would you rather opt to actually LIVE your life?  I mean LIVE, as in feeling like you are ALIVE, because as Tyler Durden said in the movie Fight Club (1999): “This is your life, and it’s ending one minute at a time.”

As a personal trainer, I have heard so many people state the same thing: they have no time to look after their personal health and fitness.  The demands of everyday life are too much, and those demands require all of the time that they have before clocking in for the night.  It’s not just their eight hours a day building someone else’s agenda, it’s the time they must spend getting to and from work, plus the time they must spend preparing for work.  Take your 24 hours and deduct the aforementioned time, then deduct the time you must spend with compulsory issues like housework, servicing the kids, paying your bills and planning your next two week vacation to get away from it all and what do you have left for YOURSELF?

Well, you sure as hell don’t have TIME, do you?  No, instead you’ve got stress.  More stress on top of your work stress to add up to a life of stress, which you try to unravel on the weekends, only to perform and do it all over again on Monday.  Sound like a life worth living?

Not to me.

I’ve gone the other route.  I’ve chosen to be King of Gypsies, like a modern-day Captain Jack from Pirates of the Caribbean, in lieu of monetary gain and earthly riches.  I don’t have a lot of shit holding me down, ‘cos I understand the fact that your shit ends up owning YOU.  And the stuff doesn’t make you happy … ever.

Ever hear of women who have a whole closet full of “nothing to wear”?  Did they think the stuff they bought would have made them happier?  And what about those shoes that they bought in London that they haven’t even worn once?  How did they end up thinking that inanimate objects and material goods would ever be able to breathe life into their emotional state of being?  Who sold them that bill of goods, and why – after all of the letdowns of the stuff never producing any lasting happiness – do they repeat the same formula throughout their lives?

So when you look at your life and how you are honestly feeling at this stage of the big ballgame of your existence, let me leave you with one final question: would you rather be a king of the gypsies, with nil baggage holding you down, or slave to the grind, with more stuff than your ass can haul behind you?

A simple question.  And a simple answer, at least for this good ol’ boy.