Unscripted: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Entrepreneurship pdfdrive com

INADEQUACY
Consumer culture is all about comparison. Comparative immunity doesn’t
care about image illusions because it acknowledges that a well-dressed slave is
still, well, a slave.
For example, every once in a while, I find myself in North Scottsdale, an
affluent Phoenix suburb. On this particular day, I visited my orthopedic doctor
and got stuck in the waiting room. To pass the time, I picked up one of those
local “lifestyle” magazines. Page after page was a hedonistic orgy of overpriced,
consumptive temptations. As I thumbed through it, I felt sadness for the poor
snobs sucked into faking affluence. Over three-quarters of the magazine was
advertising for:

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Plastic surgery
Your boobs are too small and your nose is crooked! Fix it and be happy!

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Engagement rings
Give your fiancé a diamond ring that will be envied, not laughed at!
Personal effects: watches, cars, clothes, and shoes
Nothing screams success more than a $120,000 watch!

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Imported furniture
This $30,000 coffee table will definitely be a conversation piece!
In my ten-minute pass of the $12,000 dresses and $42,000 chandeliers, the
messaging of this “lifestyle” magazine was clear: 
you are inadequate and your
inadequacy can be solved by spending everything you earn on outclassing the other
guy.
It made me think.
While I can afford most of the overpriced garbage in this magazine, most
people, even in North Scottsdale, cannot. Yet 
somebody
is buying this stuff.
With comparative immunity, you’re free from comparison propaganda. You
know you are adequate. You know your self-esteem and self-worth are not
defined by a $1,000 pair of shoes made in an Indonesian sweatshop.
Let the fools fooled by the inadequacy messages succumb: debt, uncertain
future, and work until death. Don’t waste life’s precious time adorning your
coffin with diamonds.
What part of your life is susceptible to comparison rituals? At the office? At the gym or
in the club? In the school parking lot? And how have you reacted to it?

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CHAPTER 44
PURPOSED SAVING:
PREPPING FOR LIFETIME PASSIVE INCOME
You can’t try to do things; you simply must do them.