I once read a quote meant to address the entitled youth of America that read simply “The world doesn’t owe you anything.”
I believe this is true, however I also believe that the opposite is also true. That being “You don’t owe the world anything.”
That’s right, there is a clean slate between us and the world in which we were born. In fact, the only debt we have in this life are in the commitments we make along the way, and our own personal debt (accomplishing the goals we set for ourselves), and whatever debt our faith lays upon us.
Along the way we WILL make commitments too. It’s unavoidable. If we take out a loan, we have committed to paying it back. If we get married, we have committed to join our lives to another. If we have a child, we have committed to raising that child. Commitment requires choice.
Personal Debt is simply the things we promised ourselves, our goals. Our passionate pursuits.
For those of us who have faith, there may be debts we have there.
Unfortunately they (society, parents, public at large, etc) would have us believe that we also carry with us debts that we did NOT choose:
- We owe our parents for our lives.
- We owe our country our loyalty.
- We owe capitalism our unwavering consumption.
- We owe society our conformity.
Every single one of the above bullet points is false. Completely fictitious. Obligations instilled starting at birth to exercise control. And these can stay with us our entire lives, often times holding us back from experiencing the full joy life truly has to offer.
For starters, when we decide to have children, we do so of our own choice with no expectation of return from our offspring (after all, it’s not slavery). We hope we raise our children to be grateful, and grow to be successful (in whatever makes them happy) for their own sake. If we do a good job, this is certain anyway.
We pay taxes ….. that’s how we support our country. Any additional “loyalty” (whatever that is supposed to mean) is a choice, whether we live here or not.
We are under no obligation to live the lifestyle media suggests we do. I’m not gonna elaborate on this, because I’ve done so too may times before.
If we free our minds of these fictitious debts, we allow for more possibilities in our lives, and therefore more joy, more success.