Are you living your best creative life? Orient yourself and imagine a new reality.

Choose Your Adventure

There are two choices: stick to the same path or venture into the unknown. Taking the red pill (a metaphor from The Matrix movie) means embracing truth, freedom, and creativity. It’s not always easy, but it’s thrilling! I bought it nine years ago. I built memories, learned boatloads (pun intended), and discovered what truly matters.

Life isn’t a one-size-fits-all. Embrace YOUR journey, even if it’s different. Freedom is perception. Whether sticking to the routine or daring the adventure, happiness

No one said it would be easy, but what choice do you have? I say do or die trying.

Despite losing my job in 2014, sound financial planning and good timing prevented me from returning to a traditional work hustle. I was free!

I had a million creative ideas for how to live the next 30 years.

Finally, I was well-positioned to live, love, and learn a proud life on my terms, not the bosses’ or society’s. Since I was a teenager, I’ve clocked over 85,000 hours of traditional employment. It was time… I was free!

So, I decided to invest the first year with a newfound lack of structure in building an online empire (yeah, right). During the frigid Canadian winter months, I’d write and vlog day and night from my comfy Toronto couch in my jammies. (I did bathe.)

The remaining six months were spent painstakingly refurbishing my newly acquired thirty-foot sailboat, dreaming of the perfect relationship. 

Where do you focus your energy?

I’d spend months wasting time, hanging around in nature with little purpose, occasionally smoking copious amounts of weed, drinking beer, and hitting the gym landside.

Three thousand two hundred eighty-five days later (nine years), I had not changed my approach to life.

Sadly, I had failed to build my empire, and while I appreciated my masterful woodwork, yachtsman skills, and new marina friendships, I was bored to death!

Had I inadvertently traded in one routine for another, failing to improve the overall joy of life?

Friends and family envied my ability to live in a perpetual sense of NON-urgency as they habitually overwhelmed themselves, trying to cope with their self-inflicted bullshit.

I was slow to figure it out.

I don’t regret the nine years of ‘tinkering’ as I adjusted to my new reality. It would be a big woop if I didn’t build my empire. Perhaps that was never my destiny.

Who cared if I spent countless hours not being as productive as others expected?

And yes, I’m still trying to figure it out (I don’t think we’ll ever get there). But at least I go to bed at night tingling with an appreciation for my life and wake up giddy with optimism in my relationships.

Freedom is how you perceive it. Good for you, my furry friend, if you think you’re free working 9–5. I have a different perception, so let’s agree to disagree.

Is it essential?

Living and working freely on your terms won’t eliminate your innate desire to consume beyond your means. Sadly, devouring planet Earth is a human affliction.

It’s not easy to live up to the traditional expectations of the family and friends we adore — especially in Gay relationships.

I’m not suggesting that, for a second, you alienate others to protect your newfound minimalism and lifestyle. Nevertheless, I do find the hedonistic gluttony of some gatherings off-putting. (Respect) 

My point……

Don’t kill your freedom to pursue your dreams by returning to an old way of relating and working because you need to pay for more shit you don’t need. — Stop it!

So how, then, do you unshackle yourself from persistent consumer habits? Can you survive without the 80 percent crap a consumption-oriented lifestyle demands!

What if…

What if you could alter your lifestyle to match your creative spirit with commerce?

Or, to put it another way, make money doing your thing. An ability to do what you want, when you want, with whomever you want, the way you want. — as long as you do so with love and integrity. 

I’m referring to the generous freedom to CREATE whatever healthy lifestyle you can imagine.

But make no mistake: Nothing in life comes easy — there will be tradeoffs and gut-wrenching obstacles to overcome — how exciting!

To proudly live, love, and learn on your terms and the terms of those who are near and dear to you takes hard work and discipline.

I know these general words sound like I’m about to sell you some overpriced self-improvement course to ‘take your life to the next level …no sales pitch here.

The plot thickens…

One of The Matrix’s most iconic movie moments is the red pill or blue pill sequence. Each capsule represents something, with the red pill as the path to finding the truth behind the lies, allowing you to change your knowledge and perception of reality forever.

My interpretation

Early in life, we have been force-fed a blue pill by circumstance, rendering us ignorant, refusing (or unable) to shatter the illusions we live.

A job loss offers you an opportunity (freedom) to shatter the blue illusion and willfully consume the red pill, revealing that you are a slave to a dream world sculpted by governments, corporations and other institutions that shape your modern-day perceptions of reality. — because you let them.

I’m not anti-government or anti-capitalist or anti-authority. In the appropriate context, control plays a role in most lives. But you must speak to power and fight for what you want and don’t want. Not someone else’s perception of how you should live, love and learn.

Authority begins with you being the authority (read: boss) of your existence. So — take the red pill!

Build a life on your terms, and don’t get too distracted by politics, the news, and other socialization agents — the insignificant and petty barrage of distractions that bombard your psyche, stifle creativity and put you in chronic fight-flight mode.

Institutions require people to be deprived of much freedom. As workers, we’re indoctrinated and systemically manipulated. The company tells you where to work, when and how to work. What resources can and can’t be used, and what rules must you follow?

Traditional families tell you who and how to live.

You work to make money so you can spend money. Therefore, more financial obligations foster a dependency on working harder and earning more. — — It’s how the game is played.

You may bury yourself in work to hide your true identity.

Of course, as I’ve described, there is no going back after learning something shocking. If you were to take the blue pill, you would continue to live in this comfortable simulation called your present life, but ultimately, it’s a prison for many.

Again, let me clarify…

I’m not suggesting you pack up your things, quit your job, or leave your relationships. But be strategic in your approach. Timing is everything, and you must leap eventually.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not ungrateful for my thirty-plus years of experience working in different settings or for my past relationships.

On the contrary, past employers and partners have been good to me. I appreciated most (not all) and performed exceptionally well. (so I’m told)

Your age is a factor.

At 62, I’ve earned the right (and resources) to quit my job and branch out independently. I also know what I’ll put up with and not put up with in my relationships. At 30, it’s a different story. — I get it!

Despite decades of working for hierarchal organizations, I knew I’d up and leave one day. I tried freedom a few times and learned painful lessons that sent me running back to the Borg with my tail between my legs.

Yet, despite failing to sustain my wild ideas financially, I kept pursuing the dream. I can say the same for relationships. I’ve walked out the door on more than one occasion, only never to look back! (hurts like hell)

The Borg is a Star Trek reference to an amalgamated collective of many subjugated beings that lack free will.

I chose not to have child-rearing responsibilities (sometimes with regret). I chose the freedom to continually upgrade my education and transferrable skills and dive hard into my career.

“My well-earned aspirations garnered me the luxury to flip most bosses the eventual bird and move on to the next shiny work pod. But, unfortunately, many people aren’t so lucky and take decades to get there — which is okay!”

I woke up one day and realized I had to stop chasing a carrot on a squeaky hamster wheel. (I love carrots.)

Let me repeat what I said earlier:

Authority begins with you being the authority (boss) of your existence. So — take the red pill! (Matrix)

One day (hopefully soon), you’ll wake up, take the red pill, wonder why you waited so long, and then forgive yourself for the delay.

Perhaps a turning point in your life will be when your last child moves out, a family death, a pandemic (ha), or some other epic personal event strikes. Or will it be when you’re so fed up with the same daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly routine that you pray for a crisis to be the catalyst that makes it happen? — you’ll know when it’s time — and you’ll be scared shitless.

I can’t tell you when to take the red pill, but I and many others can welcome you when it happens. Sorry, I know that sounds so culty, so please never mindlessly drink the Kool-Aid.

See This Lesson on Substack