You’ve probably heard the people say, “With age comes wisdom”. But that’s not totally the point…
Words: Wooley // Photos: Sebastian Marin
It’s probably a little more accurate to say, “With experience comes wisdom”. Age has a lot to do with it, but that’s only because you’ve had more time to gain experience… to learn from your successes and learn from your mistakes. And to learn that our daily tivial problems in life really do have a way of working themselves out. So if you’re gonna take anything away from that ‘With age comes wisdom’ cliché, let it be – not to run away from life. We all know a couple people (or at least someone) who is sooooo scared to f*ck up… that they just never do anything. They never take a chance. They never let go… and let life carry them. And they think that they are doing it ‘the right way’. They think they are being responsible, frugal, smart, holy, disciplined. But the truth is – that mindset is going to be the exact thing that holds them back from ever doing something truly outstanding. Because they’re always gonna stay safely between the lines… inside the boundaries. They’re never gonna experience real success. And for the record, ‘success’ is another thing that a lot of us lose understanding of. We’ve learned, through what we see in our f*cked up society, to tie ‘success’ too closely to ‘money’… when it should be tied more closely to ‘contentment’. If you’re at ease with the results of your life, if you’re satisfied with the results of your hard work, and if you’re comfortable with the results of your decisions/actions – then you’re successful. End of story. The money is imaginary… it’s just paper… it’s not real. It’s society’s dog treat for making us behave… and sitting when we were supposed to sit. But that’s what we look up to, idolize, and respect.
But take away the whole equation of money (pretend for a minute that it doesn’t exist)… and now who do you idolize? Now who do you really respect on this planet? And we believe, ad we fall deeper and deeper into the daily grind, that money gives us freedom. But it doesn’t. It’s actually the exact opposite. Money enslaves us. It controls us. And it makes us look & act like assholes. Chasing after the money-side of success will tear you apart. The contentment-side of success will make you.
If we could get rid of these imaginary borders that we have… these imaginary competitions that we have… over all these dollar-bills which are also by the way imaginary… that we would stand a chance of saving the Earth that we live in, but until we do that and come together as one, we have no chance… to survive. – Jacob Hemphill, S.O.J.A.
And in the end, all that matters is who we love, and who we are. And guess what… our experiences shape who we are. The more you experience, the more dimensions you’re gonna start to develop in your life…
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