Our Body, Our Time
our most important assets while on Earth
I was raised in a religion that saw my being, my body as less than those of the men around me.
I was raised in a religion that told me my voice didn't matter as much as those of the men around me.
I was raised in a religion that called my body sinful and something to "overcome" in this life.
These perspectives were given to me by people who assumed authority and power over me because they got to Earth before I did.
I have spent the better part of my 39 years here on Earth trying to figure out why? But why? No one can ever really give me a straight or real answer when I ask these questions.
Why is it that the half of us who birth us all into existence, the half of us who have literal portals between our legs are the "lesser”?
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Original artwork, 2023
There was a point in my life when I started and executed a business with my partner. We were both raised in solidly middle class (maybe leaning lower for my family), midwest families. I began waiting tables at 14. He started at 15 working at Wendy's. We met working at a grocery store in our early 20s. In order to start the shop we sold one of our cars and signed a lease on 500 sq ft. It was our version of the American Dream.
It was a barbershop. My partner the barber. I ran the back of the house. We were wildly successful from the time the doors opened. My partner is really good at his craft and I was really good at the back of the house.
I remember someone asking me once, "what's your number?" As in, what is the number you want to be making annually. As a kid it always seemed like 100K was the number everyone around me was trying to get to. "6 figures" was always the goal. That meant "you really made it". I always held onto that belief. I had tunnel vision for that reality. If we could just make it to 6 figures life would be okay. We could settle into something comfortable.
Within 5 years of being in business our shop was making well over that number. That year when we got our taxes done I nearly shit. And as happy as I was about our success, I was simultaneously sick to my stomach. I was in my early 30s and we had "made it"? This was it? How was I still as stressed and sad as I ever was? This was supposed to be our moment.
I remember having a major crisis of identity, "what are we supposed to do now?". The only thing I'd ever given any thought to was making enough money to survive. Making enough to get out of the chaotic hamster wheel that was living paycheck to paycheck.
And now what? Who was I? What was I actually doing? If I have the thing I've been working toward my whole life, what the fuck else is there to do? I felt betrayed by the stories I was told growing up.
I spiraled into the deepest of depression for years. I could not believe how much we had made. We were just a small business in the middle of the country and we had made THAT much money? If WE were making this kind of money in business, how much were other people making? And if other businesses were making even more than we were, why wasn't the world a better place? There WAS enough money to make the world a better place. It was just the people with money were actively choosing NOT to. I was heartbroken.
As a tiny shop we made enough to care for the people who worked for us in the best way we knew how. So why was it that other business owners weren't doing the same for their employees? I looked at our little place and felt sickened again that business was actually really easy. Making money is easy. It's actually the people behind those businesses and money that seem to be making poor decisions.
I couldn't reconcile my reality.
That was when I started really trying to get to the heart of what was important in life.
What was underneath this facade of money?
What did the money actually represent?
What is a true asset?
It wasn't until I made the money that I could actually see that money wasn't the real asset.
That's when I went on a long term deep dive and discovered the most important asset you have in your life, is your body. Without a body you cannot and will not experience anything in this life. A body is hands down, any person's most important asset. The second most important asset in life is time. The amount of time your body gets to experience life.
We all are born into a world where we are given a body, our greatest asset while we are alive, for free from Earth. We are also given time for free. Our time is 100% ours. In this equation we all choose to exchange pieces of ourselves, energy from our bodies, slices of our time, for money.
We get up everyday and we trade our body's energy for money. We get up everyday and we trade our time on Earth for money. We all choose this. We all choose how this goes down.
Your body and your time are 100% your greatest asset.
Somehow we have gotten this equation confused. Many people believe that the money or things you can buy with money are the most important assets. However, money cannot be had unless you trade pieces of your life for it first.
I have made many sacrifices in order to take my body and time back from capitalist ideals that work hard everyday to divorce us all from our precious, one-of-a-kind assets.
The most counterculture thing anyone can do, is take their body back. Take your time back.
They are the only things given freely by Earth. Those are YOUR GIFTS from Earth. Your only power worth trading.
What is your body worth to you? What is your time worth to you?
How much work is being done in this world that is truly worth a human life? What work is as valuable as the precious time we are given?