depression – My Mental Model

Depression is a Bitch [Part 1]

My last entry was almost 6 months ago. There’s been no lack of thoughts or ideas. No lack of motivation to continue understanding what’s happening around me. But there was a deep sense that I wasn’t at my best self and that this was an activity which I would only do when I could put quality work forward.

Generally speaking, writing these entries is a weekend activity for me. I’ll wake up, go through my morning routine, and then sit down with my laptop and write out something that’s on my mind. It was common to start at 9 or 10 in the morning and not wrap up until the mid-afternoon. I found it really valuable in organizing and testing my ideas. I also really enjoyed the exercise of articulating my thoughts.

But… As my professional life continued to go sideways, so did the rest of my life. The more I think about it, the further back it probably goes.

Chapter 1

I was all but kicked out of my university half way through my second year. My grades were decent, but in my position as dorm president, I had a habit of standing up to university authority when they overstepped their boundaries and started negatively impacting the lives of students. Through a series of university judicial charges, bans, and fines, they made it very clear that I was unwanted at that school. So I left. But after 18 months, I took it as a personal challenge and decided to go back and take my degree through sheer academic effort. I did. I excelled and it left me optimistic for a bright future where talent, effort and focus would lead to great things. I even skipped my convocation to hit the job market ahead of everyone else. I managed to graduate into the great recession. The job market was barren. I took what I could get.. I was hired as a management trainee for enterprise rentacar doing customer service and washing cars in a suit for $13/hour. In one of the world’s most expensive cities. Not ideal, but if I could make manager, everything would get better.

Chapter 2

Enterprise Rentacar was hemorrhaging money in my area so they decided to cut costs. Within 12 months, most of the area’s top paid employees were constructively dismissed. That included my manager, also a close friend of mine.. In that transition, I was offered a job managing the second largest location in our group, a mid-sized airport branch. It required me to move about 4 hours away and I wouldn’t get my promotion until I arrived, but they insisted I would be rewarded by taking one for the team. I discussed it with my dad, and we decided it was the best career move available to me. 2 months after I moved, my dad died.

Chapter 3

Within the month following my dad, my girlfriend left me for another guy, I tore my shoulder pretty bad, and corporate management was now telling me that I would have the responsibility of a manager, but only the title, pay, and recognition of an assistant manager. They said that corporate policy prevented them from authorizing a promotion at this time. 2 months later, they moved another assistant manager to the branch who was under the impression that they would get promoted. 2 months after that, the original manager who was on an indefinite maternity leave decided to come back.

Chapter 4

Without much going right in my life, I put all my focus towards the small inheritance my dad left to his 3 kids. My dad made it my responsibility, so it became the most important thing in the world to me. As I started to look for work, the investment firm who handled my dad’s funds took an interest in me. So did a wealthy business man who was looking for a protege to mentor as he shifted into a soft retirement. The portfolio which my dad made me responsible for is probably the single biggest reason why I chose the bank.

Chapter 5

The bank (RBC) was introduced to me as the hardest thing I’ll ever do, but that if I can make it through the first 4 years, it’s worth every ounce of effort. I was warned about the high failure rate, but was also told that failure was a result of laziness, ego, and not following direction. Little did I know, the failure rate was about 95% for those who didn’t arrive with an already established book or source of clients. I also learned that following the process meant maintaining a status quo which was ineffective, severely out of date, and not in the clients’ or public’s best interest. Regardless, I worked harder than I had ever worked before. Weekends was a given.. late nights were a given.. holidays were a thing of the past.. whatever I could do to increase my chances of success. It didn’t seem to matter though. Expectations were $10M of net-new assets per year, by far the highest in the industry. In year one, I did $7M. In year 2, I was up to $16M. By year 3, management had determined that I wasn’t worth keeping. In year 4, I realized that a far better path was joining a more senior team who wasn’t subject to short-term sales targets and could actually focus on providing wealth management services to their clients.. what I understood the job to be, and what I excelled at. After a great deal of effort, I joined a top 5 team with expectations of taking over the book once the senior advisor retired in 5-10 years. It was the best possible deal someone like myself could’ve landed. 1 month after I moved and joined the new team, the senior advisor told me that management had a target on my back. A month after that, I was fired.

Chapter 6

I left the bank on a Monday and while leaving the office, my stubbornness and sense of competition took over. I refused to be beat and committed myself to having a new job by Friday. Then I went and bought an ounce of weed.. mulled it over.. and realized that was a terrible idea. For the first time in my life, I had committed everything I had to being successful at something – and it failed in spectacular fashion. All the hours I put in.. all the money I spent.. all the relationships I didn’t prioritize.. all for naught. I used to think that I was so capable, that I could be successful in any environment. This proved otherwise and it was important to understand why. Eventually, I realized that if I was going to stick to my values and be a person of integrity, there were some environments which would tolerate me and some who would celebrate me. It was now my responsibility to find the latter.

Chapter 7

I eventually found work with a small cannabis shop which had won a series of awards for being the best retailer around. With cannabis legalization on the horizon, it occurred to me that there was a significant amount of opportunity here. At first, I worked with them in building an expansion plan which would see them go from one store to a national chain. Then we needed to raise capital, so I put that together too. Eventually, I told the company I was looking to earn a leadership role within the company, preferably the CEO seat. The founders were a husband and wife team who spent most of their time minding the store or doing non-profit work, creating a great opportunity for someone to come in and mind the back-end of the business. For the first several months, everything was pretty good. The happiest I’ve been in a long time was when we had 45 days to prepare for a pitch competition. I worked 15 hours a day, 7 days a week to make sure that every aspect of the business was presentable to investors. I even stopped smoking weed because it was just getting in the way of something I loved doing.

But then legalization was delayed and regulations became uncertain. This spooked investors and a lack of investors stressed out the founders. I tried to tell them that we didn’t need the majority of funds until after legalization and that they didn’t need to stress, but it fell on deaf ears. I tried to bring a business coach in to help streamline communication and roles. They suggested that we design our roles around our personal interests, skills, and capacity. That meant giving me more of a leadership role in the company. They were reluctant and the recommendations went nowhere.

As we got closer to legalization, I lined up a friendly investment from the largest cannabis company in the world. It was all the financing the company would need to build out its next 8 stores. Around this time, the founders started to question what I did for the company or if I was even needed. I had the distinct impression that I was no longer part of the inner-circle. Maybe this had something to do with their passion for social justice and the fact that I’m a straight white male who drives an SUV and used to work at the bank. Maybe it was their suspicion for my rational approach to business when everything in their world was a matter of emotions. Maybe it was their tendency to look at the business as their property instead of looking at it as an organization of people who are working together, trying to solve a problem. Or maybe it was me declining to start our meeting with healing crystals for the second time in 2 weeks.

Whatever it was, they came to me and said that they wanted to enjoy themselves when they came to work and they were spending most of their time stressed out. They thought I was the cause. Apparently, I just wasn’t their kind of people. I listened, I apologized, and I made a real effort to try and ‘soften’ my edges. This included spending a long weekend at a ranch, doing mushrooms for the first time as an adult, talking to my ‘softer’ friends, and reading up on the issues I was facing. It wasn’t enough. Within a couple months, I was no longer employed. They even tried to remove me from the board, but had to stop when they were reminded that all the funding came through me and is only accessible while I”m part of the company.

Chapter 8

This lands us at Dec 1 of 2018. Just like when I had left RBC… personally broke.. somewhat dejected.. but with my eyes on redemption. I was a major part of building one of the best cannabis retailer in the country. On the verge of cannabis legalization, this seemed like a rather valuable skill set. Things could be worse.

Something I had finally learned is that I’m not willing to compromise my values for my career, so finding a place where there’s an alignment of values is paramount. As such, I thought I’d take some time in finding that fit this time around. Between December ’18 and April of ’19, I applied to over 200 jobs, participated in dozens of phone interviews and several in-person interviews. That was on top of all my warm-network activity. By the end of it, I had been considered for everything from Chief of Staff at a publicly traded company to a Chief Operating Officer of a small start-up.

It was quite the experience. I learned about the gig-economy and how health plans, let alone dental is getting harder and harder to come by. I learned about how recruiters are incentivized. I learned how the head of HR is there to sell strong candidates on the company in the same way that strong candidates try to sell themselves. And I definitely learned about the imbalance of power between the interests of those looking for work versus those looking to hire. I didn’t take a job until April 15th of this year. Not because I was being picky, but because it was the first job officially offered to me and I needed an income.

Chapter 9

The job that I ended up taking was with a cannabis retailer that I had been trying to stay away from. I didn’t agree with the way the CEO carried himself and was not interested in his business. However, they were the only company who made a real offer. Even if it was only a 3 month contract, the compensation was fair and it was an industry I wanted to continue in. Could be worse.

I was brought in to help with a capital raise and do some market analysis. We launched the raise a couple weeks in and I quickly found out that current shareholders, who we were going back to for more money, were not very happy with how things had gone. As it turns out, the company had raised $8M to open 15 stores by the end of 2018. Now in 2019, we had 2 stores, no money, and needed another $6M to open up another 9 locations. The capital raise fell flat on its face as almost every existing investor declined to put more money in. As a result, the CFO I was working for became increasingly agitated. Eventually, he asked me to mislead potential investors for the sake of closing more investment dollars. I told him it wasn’t a good idea and stood my ground on ethics and business practices. The following week, I was told that if I wasn’t comfortable doing these kinds of things, my contract wouldn’t be extended. I brought this to the CEO and HR who both sided with me, but ultimately said that they weren’t part of the conversation and would have to talk to the CFO as well. The CFO met with me the following week and told me that the unsuccessful capital raise has forced him to re-do the budget and they no longer have funds for my position. That was 4 days before my contract ended.

Chapter 10

For the fourth time in my young career, I had found another employer who was at odds with my values. The realization that I was consistently being forced to choose between my values or my career… was just a really dark place for me. My values are who I am. If I compromised those for someone else, in exchange for money… I just can’t. I’d rather get off the ride entirely than live my life like that.

Upon reflection, it’s like I had the potential to be a tremendous employee.. but despite my best efforts, couldn’t find the right employer. I had the potential to be a great entrepreneur but lacked the resources to do it. It was like I had all these gifts.. but no one to give them to. All this potential, but without purpose. And if I’m not useful.. if I’m not meaningful.. if I have no purpose.. why am I needed? Why should I continue to consume the world’s resources if it’s all for naught? Wouldn’t it be better for everyone if I just removed myself from the equation?

I don’t think I’m the first one to have those thoughts. I suspect they’re more common today than ever before. And for those reasons, I’m grateful for the experience. I’m not out of the woods yet, but I’m no longer missing the forest for the trees. It’s remarkable how much you can learn in the dark places of your mind, especially once you shine some light. Even if I were to get hit by a bus tomorrow, the compassion I’ve learned for my fellow human being has made this entire experience worth it.

Why Suicide is More Appealing Today than Yesterday

Before anyone worries too much, I’m not considering suicide. Not today anyways.

This morning was Anthony Bourdain. Not long before that was Kate Spade. And between the two, how many others? I can’t help but think that this is getting worse and not better. There’s a negative energy that’s growing in our world and it’s impacting us in some profound ways. I think these are conversations we need to have.

I can’t remember the first time I thought about suicide. I was probably quite young. It wasn’t a function of depression as much as it was an exercise in exploring the extremes. It was probably a fight with my parents, or getting picked on at school. A moment of woe is me, I bet I would matter more if they thought I had committed suicide. In grade 12, I fell for a girl and was infatuated to the nth degree. When she left me, I was convinced that I would never be happy again. There was probably some consideration of suicide, but where I landed was that I wanted to be a fire fighter or something to that effect. I figured that if I wasn’t capable of being happy, I could at least dedicate my life towards helping others. It blew over and I moved on, but the conversation of suicide remained.

In my third year of university, I dated a girl who opened up to me about having tried to commit suicide. According to her, she wasn’t dealing with a breakup very well and ended up going into the shed at the back of the house and slitting her wrists. As she tells the story, her brother stumbled in on her and took her to the hospital, saving her life. I asked to see her wrists, and saw no scars. I was asked to keep this to myself as nobody else knew besides her brother. I did my best to be supportive. When we broke up, she told me that she didn’t think she could handle another breakup like this. That she might go and do something extreme. I reached out to her brother and asked him to keep an eye on her. From what I can tell, she’s doing just fine these days.

It wasn’t something I could relate to. Even in my darker, more melodramatic moments, I wasn’t interested in taking my own life. It seemed like giving up. For better or worse, this mindset of never giving up is hardwired into me. I’d much rather go out on my shield. Maybe that’s why I’ve often thought of ways in which I would be willing to sacrifice myself.. the hero’s death. The idea was that if I was going to die, I wanted there to be as much value in my death as possible. I either wanted to die of old age among a lifetime of accomplishments, or to die in a proper blaze of glory. There was almost a mathematical element to it, if my life was worth ‘x’ and an honorable death would yield ‘x’ + 1, I’d take it.

When I started getting in over my head at the banks, I started looking for outs. I wasn’t willing to throw any more money at the problem. I wasn’t willing to quit or give up. I wasn’t willing to compromise my integrity. And I was running out of time. Part of my role at the bank included being licensed for life insurance. I remember reading that a life insurance policy would still pay out if you committed suicide, as long as more than 2 years had passed since you took out the policy and when you took your life. Hmm…

Last year, I was in a relationship with a girl who had been through a fair bit. In grade 11, she was in a head on collision with a motorcyclist and the motorcyclist didn’t make it. She went through some rough patches around that. Her family was not as supportive as they could’ve been. I knew this, but I also knew that she had been keeping something from me. I knew it was something dark, so I told her that I would be ready if she got to a point where she wanted to share. One night, we were hanging out in my car and the conversation went in that direction. Feeling like I had an opening, I asked if she spent much time thinking about death.

I told her that I think about it often. In the last 7 years, I’ve lost parents, friends, and family members… how could I not? I told her that every once in a while, when life gets to be a bit much, I think about suicide. What would it be like? How would I do it? Would I have the courage or the conviction? Would I regret it? She was surprised that I was talking about these things so calmly and openly. She opened up to me about her experiences and we had a remarkable conversation.

At first, I think she almost expected me to freak out or want to report her to a hotline. I didn’t, I just listened. And when she talked about life getting to be too much, I told her I could relate. I told her that’s when I think about it too. I told her about the conversations that take place in my head when I reach those dark corners, and then I told her about all the things that bring me back to the light. I could tell that she had never connected with someone else on this. It’s easier when you don’t have to face things alone.

After that conversation, I can’t help but think that the contemplation of suicide is a sign of a healthy, curious mind that’s going through some things. I spent most of my life thinking that people who are ‘suicidal’ are mentally weak, or damaged, or so distraught with life that I could never relate. I suspect that most people have had a similar perspective. Perhaps this is why we feel alone rather than connected when we have these kinds of thoughts. If thoughts of suicide only happened in extreme and rare cases, then perhaps it would be indicative of faulty hardware and perhaps those people should feel scared and alone. But if thoughts of suicide were had by most individuals in times of extreme duress, isn’t that something we should be aware of? Something that we should collectively acknowledge?

I’ve seen different ways of communicating what it’s like to have suicidal thoughts, none better than this by the late David Wallace,

“The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.”

And yet the final thoughts of almost every person who has survived a jump off the Golden Gate bridge, are thoughts of regret..

‘What have I just done? I don’t want to die. God please save me. Boom.’

There’s something happening here. We need to talk about this. Posting the suicide prevention hotline to your social media account isn’t enough. Thoughts and prayers are not enough. We need to have real conversations. We need to acknowledge that suicidal thoughts have a place within a modern society like ours, and we need to do a better job of understanding why.

Unemployment rates are at all-time lows while income inequality is at an all-time high. There’s no lack of work, just a lack of income for it. With a lack of income comes a lack of opportunity.. The lack of opportunity to own your own home, or to further your education, or even to start your own family. How many of us were raised with the idea that the only thing between us and a good life was hard work? How many of us are at a point now where no matter how hard we work, we can’t seem to make any progress? And how many of us are getting a sense that these factors are largely out of our control?

That’s hopelessness.

I can’t help but think that this structural shift in equality of wealth is the underlying reason for all this pain and suffering.. it’s the root of what we’re ultimately desperate to escape. Like J. Cole said, ‘you can’t take it when you die but you can’t live without it.’ When wealth has been shifted from the many to the few, this is how it plays out. When there isn’t enough to go around, people fall back into their tribes, looking to protect their own. Rather than looking for a solution to the problem, we’re looking for someone to blame. People become quick to draw lines in the sand between us and them. Social discourse becomes hostile. Where we were connected, we are now divided. And it all starts to break down.

If we’re looking for an analogy for how this plays out, we don’t have to look far. It sounds remarkably like climate change to me. The planet is a large and complex ecosystem which tends to exist within an equilibrium. Adjusting the average temperature of the planet by a few degrees over a long period of time isn’t something that most people would notice, but that’s not all that’s changing. With a shift in temperature comes a shift in equilibrium and the path from here to there is filled with chaos. Heat waves are now keeping planes from taking off. Blizzards are lasting well into the spring. Every hurricane that comes along seems to be worse than the one before.

By shifting the distribution of wealth by a few degrees over a long period of time, a lot of people didn’t notice. But they see the mass shootings. They see the school shootings. They see the police brutality. They see the Charlottesville protests. They see the government corruption. They see how little they’re making. They see how much they owe. They see what level of health care is available to them. They see the opiates in the community. And they see that we’ve lost the ability to talk these things through. Things are heating up.

When I think about the world we live in right now, it’s not easy. Then I remind myself that for some, this path is harder than others. Then I remind myself that not everyone is equipped with the tools to deal with these things. And that’s when I think no-shit people are struggling, these are hard times. These are the times where those with nothing to lose and those with everything to lose are choosing to escape rather than endure. And I can’t help but think that this is a function of hope.

There’s a Storm Coming

I tried to write an entry on reverse seniority last night. I couldn’t do it. I’m bugging out.

No cannabis. That’s probably part of it.

I have a brain that doesn’t turn off, a large appetite for information, and an obsession for understanding things. Something I’ve been doing since high school is recognizing patterns and using them to predict what comes next. Nothing is concrete, just possibilities and probabilities. Too many variables to keep track of, but sometimes you can see part of the picture and filling in the rest isn’t so tough.

Coming from an investment background, it’s difficult to ignore what I see in the markets. Bonds are paying next to nothing. The equity market hasn’t had a major correction in about 10 years. The housing market is on tilt. Even crypto is now detached from reality. Besides my private equity investments, I’m now in 100% cash for the first time in my life. It’s like being at a poker table with a bunch of drunk rookies. I have chips, I know how to play, but when everyone else at the table is throwing money at shitty hands… you have to be patient. Some days are easier than others.

My friends and I used to battle it out for who could be more generous. We’d always enjoy trying to pay for one another. Now we’re too poor to hang out with each other. Half of them still live with their parents to avoid paying rent. I look at my generation and I see an epidemic of drugs used to treat an epidemic of depression. If it wasn’t for my drive and my lack of emotions, I’d probably be in the same boat. Considering how much weed I was smoking, maybe I was in the same boat. I’m surrounded by a generation of kids who were told that if they stayed in school and worked hard, they’d be able to land themselves a good career and that a good career would lead to a comfortable life. I’m surrounded by a generation of the most educated kids we’ve ever produced, entering into a rapidly deteriorating job market, with the highest cost of living we’ve experienced in modern history. We’re barely treading water. Something’s gotta give.

Maybe it’s the birth rate. Maybe this is how we cull the population. I literally broke up with the first girl I thought I’d marry because she was fixated on having children in the immediate future. I wasn’t willing to bring a family into this world without building a foundation first. The biological clock is real. And my heart goes out to the women struggling to understand what they should be doing at a time like this.

I saw Paul Ryan on TV the other night saying that the Republican tax reform was going to give the middle class the boost it needed to get back to having kids. What a bold faced lie. But that’s become the status quo for American politics. Only a few of us will actually put the effort into understanding what’s going on. The rest of us will just pick a team. Red or Blue. By picking a team, we think we’re taking a stand for what we believe in. But we’re not. Red or Blue, it’s the same song and dance. The value of a politician isn’t a function of policies, their ability to inspire, or their ability to govern – it’s their ability to raise funds for their campaign. Why? Because the best campaign wins the seat. But in the age of billion dollar campaigns, where is this funding coming from? Big business and the top 1%. So is an elected official’s loyalty to the people who voted for them? Or to the people who paid for them? If you’re not sure, I suggest you ask net neutrality.

With problems this obvious though, how are we not motivated towards change? I’d argue that we are. Trump was elected for exactly that reason. As much as I liked Obama, he didn’t do enough to stop what was coming. People were left behind. All the pain and disillusion that we’re seeing in major cities today, the rural towns were ahead of the curve. But they were team red. They were loyal. And someone on team red came along and said I have all the answers, here’s who you should blame, and if they ever say otherwise, they’re lying. MAGA. And half the country became complicit.

But maybe this is just what we needed. When Trump was elected, I knew he didn’t have the character, integrity, or intelligence to be a great president, but I was open to the possibility of him being a good president. As things started to play out, I knew that ship had sailed. What did occur to me though is that he might still be valuable. He might be so crooked, so corrupt, and so incompetent that the world couldn’t help but see that he had reached the most powerful seat in the world – not by merit – but through the abuse of American ignorance and a system which has been compromised beyond repair. And maybe that would be our motivation.

You know what I wanted for Christmas this year? Mueller. I check my newsfeeds at least a dozen times a day. Every time I do, I hope to see another piece of the puzzle. Eventually, I hope to see justice. And perhaps justice means that Trump is exonerated from crimes which he didn’t commit. But I doubt it. And I’m good at predicting these things.

So what happens when one of the most respected law enforcement officials of all time lifts the veil on the real Donald Trump? What do those tax returns actually look like? How much is he actually worth? Who does he actually owe money to? And what happens if there was collusion? Will it be enough to shatter the image and faith placed in Trump? I hope so.

I see the clouds on the horizon, and I can hear rumbles of thunder, but the storm is still too far away. And I wanna dance in the rain.

I don’t know what that first crack of lightning will be. Maybe it will be Trump going to jail. Maybe it’ll be the Republicans refusing to impeach him. Maybe it’ll be a loss of consumer confidence that triggers an overdue recession. Maybe it’ll be the bond bubble that’s been growing since the last recession. Maybe it’ll be China’s house of cards that finally topples. Or maybe it’s on us. Maybe we finally realize that you and I aren’t so different. Maybe we realize that we aren’t the enemy. Maybe we realize that we’re in this together…. and maybe we march together, up those stairs, and tell them that this does not belong to you.

And tear the whole. god. damn. thing. down.

Escapism

Alcohol consumption has been increasing steadily for the last 10 years. Cannabis use is at an all-time high. Opioids have been declared a national emergency. Entire sub-cultures of youth and young adults are finding fewer and fewer reasons to leave the house. It’s like we’re all trying to escape from all this… sucking.

Do well in school. Work hard. Be nice to others. Pretty common advice for most of us growing up. We were supposed to do well in school so that we could learn the skills necessary to earn a good income. We were to work hard because the more effort we put in, the greater the reward. We should be nice to others because it’s important that we all get along.

So what happens when you do well in school but struggle to find a job when you graduate? And what about those who had to take out student loans? What happens when you realize that you’re not the one being rewarded for your hard work? And what happens when you start to feel like the world has genuinely given up on getting along with one another?

You escape.

We all hallucinate our own reality and it is by that mechanism that we can choose to exist in a reality where we don’t feel the weight of these issues. Some escape to a digital reality, some to an altered state, but the objective is still the same – being there is better than being here.

Why not just step your game up and go take what the world owes you? Just make sure you out-perform your peers and you’ll get that top 1% lifestyle that you’ve always wanted. And once you get there, you’ll know that you’ve made it and that you’re truly different than the other 99%. That’s what a younger me would’ve said. To the victor go the spoils, so just make sure you win. Modern-day cannibalism at its finest.

The problem with the ‘try harder’ approach is that it only works in a zero-sum scenario. If a few people put in more effort while everyone else is doing the same as they were, those who are putting in more effort are likely to receive more rewards. If everyone puts in more effort, relatively speaking, the effort levels all remain the same. Effectively, if we all try hard, we all stay exactly where we are.

So being a grown-up is nothing like what we were told. Effort is no longer the difference between being rich and poor. Jobs are disappearing to automation at an increasing rate. The cost of living is climbing faster than income. Debt has replaced savings. Home ownership and a family are now an irresponsible financial decision for most. And when we look to our leaders and our policy makers in the hopes of change, we see one of the most embarrassing breakdowns of governance in the modern age.

We can’t seem to get to where we want to go. The advice we were given did not hold up. We’re being told it’s because we’re lazy. We’re being told that we’re the problem. It just doesn’t make sense…

Depression.

Escape.

But we rise.

Our hope that the human condition will prevail remains in tact. While you look to divide, we look to connect. Where you seek control, we seek freedom. Where you look to horde, we look to share. Where you look to keep secrets, we look to expose the truth. While you’ve looked to maintain the status quo, we look to challenge it. And where you fear the future, we embrace it.

We’re just trying to be patient, waiting for our turn. We see you trying to drag this out though. I recommend against it. It’s not a fight you’ll win.