I have been into rap for a while, but even more so in recent months. What many people do not know is that I have a pretty extensive collection of hip hop and rap albums lurking on my various iPods, but my extensive nature is also very selective about content. Foul language does not bother me at all, and if everyone around me knew what I sometimes listen to, they would not apologize for using those words around me (I still don't understand why most people apologize to me for saying the f-word...). With that said, my selectiveness means that I value the actual underlying beat of the song as well as how clever the lyrics happen to be. I like a good banter and metaphors either put into or taken out of context show me how someone has a quick mind that allows them to come up with phrases you otherwise would not hear in everyday conversations. Those are the rap tracks I like and those are the methods I would love to be talented enough to write myself.
A line that caught my ear lately was by Drake (I've been listening to him more than usual lately) and his one little stanza sparked such an idea that I spent the whole day typing down reminders stemming from it all day. (I replaced the first word in the quote) “People with no money act like money isn't everything.” Now, music is like anything else of opinion, meaning everybody has one and we all have certain ways of interpreting lyrical content just like we all have differing opinions on the Bible, and hey WE (you) are always right in our own heads... Agree to disagree, actually, and just step off.
The truth I take from the above quote that that, yes, indeed those who do not have money act like money is not everything. Why? Maybe it is because they do not have money and have adapted to such for the better. Those who do not adapt to their surroundings to make the best of it while planning out solutions to their situations ultimately have no goals they are attempting to accomplish or they have reached a spot of stability without struggle that they are both content and comfortable with. The problem is that those who find their area of comfort are far fewer than those who say they are reaching for bigger things yet are just giving up on themselves or their own families for their own reasons. What a terrible existence.
When I meet someone and actually want to meet them and who they are in a social setting, I try to figure them out for the sake of knowing if they are someone I feel like talking to or getting to know or not. The problem is the question that always seems to be asked first by the time you are in your twenties and the question I would rather not know right off the bat. “What do you do for a living?” This seems like an elementary question, but what I have realized is the flood gates it potentially opens up. If the person is successful in their own right, they make attempts to reveal aspects of their success to me that I really did not care to know. The best example of this involved someone I met a few months ago at a birthday event one of my friends had. This young woman sat next to me as I was talking with another one of my friends and introduced herself and one of the first things she asked was about my job and started digging for details that I was reluctant to give. I was not ashamed to tell her by any means, but that is not my favorite way to find out about someone right off the bat.
After my polite, but rather uninformative answer, she started telling me about her job. It started off with “I work with Fortune 500 companies....yadda, yadda...” Her verbal novella sounded exactly like one of those ads you find on Indeed.com or Monster.com when a recruiter is looking for a team to pull commission for a multi-level-marketing campaign. Without any further interest from me she started talking about her earning potential and how she could move up quickly. She was living with her parents, but was about to buy her first brand new car, move out on her own, and told me about everything she had accomplished with the company even though she had been in it only a few months. Being happy with your position at work is completely fine with me, more power to you, but if I did not ask, that is not where I want to be pulling my first thoughts about you from. These are things I would rather know about later, after I have figured out who a person really is outside of where they are stuck for their forty hour work weeks. I already have close, great friends that I am happy to talk about that sort of thing with and friends that are happy to hear about where I am going with my business ventures. When I meet a person, I want to go beyond their job description and Lamborghini dreams and focus on who they are organically.
Do not get me wrong, goals are great, motivation is just as good, but the older I get, the more I notice the people fixated on the material aspects of their industry are not who I want to be around. Why would I not want to be around people motivated by money? Simple. Most people get consumed by it and do not handle having it very well as time goes on. The people who only chase money as their primary goal tend to be the people who are the most unhappy with their lives. I am going to go right ahead and state that as fact because I spent five years of my work-life surrounded by very wealthy people who were never very nice to me, only talked about money, and complained about their families. On the contrary, there were wealthy people I feel honored to know because they did not talk about the same things as the money chasers. These are the people who spent their careers just trying to do better and had the dedication to move up in the world without allowing money to effect their lives in a bad way. The money never had a big effect because they never focused on having it in the first place.
The more humble people I have found in life are those who understand their job does not make them who they are, but life is to be lived outside the confines of their office or place of business. They do have business goals and places they would like to be for the sake of a legacy, but they never let any of that get in the way of their personal goals or what they are well aware of needing to be in life. Having a sense of humility about yourself is much greater than saying: “I want to be a billionaire so f-----g bad.” as Bruno Mars put it.
Doing your job well and for the sake of your own happiness is much greater than money. Having a goal you feel destiny has placed in your path that you would leave that job for if you found a way to go about it is even better. When I looked into this idea a little more deeply a few days ago, I found a message board where someone asked the question “Would you date a guy who did not graduate from college?” The majority of women responded that they would not. Many even elaborated about the fact that they, themselves, did not go to college, but feel that a man is uneducated and not a good support for them without being “formally educated”, regardless of if he has a well established business or a high salary without a degree. I thought we were beyond this? Of course you want to feel secure in finances with someone, but why is the order looks>money>personality. Having someone who is on a good path and smart is more important to me than a paycheck. Now, finding someone who has no goals or motivation for growth is toxic to someone who practices moving forward (believe me, I've tried that) but if we put monetary worth before who a person is either in relationship, friendship, or family, on either side of the spectrum, the inevitable failure is not very far off. Run hard, train harder, and never stop learning. Establish your goals and take some risks because if you do not make it the first time, those who really care will never call you a failure.
Grace and Peace,
Drew
Twitter: JdrewSilvers
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/drewcoustic
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/drew.silvers
Current Song: Amicii - Levels
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