Free The Millionaire Fastlane by M.J. DeMarco Page A

freedom because his debts kept him contained in servitude. Would $2 million have made a difference? Perhaps in the short term, but not in the long term because his relationship with money was already corrupted. A source close to the investigation said, “He just didn't want to work anymore.” In other words, he craved freedom.
    Normalcy Is the Rat Race, a Modern-Day Slavery
    Why am I wealthy, versus the guy stuck in morning traffic driving to work? I have freedom. I wake up and do what I want. I pursue dreams. I write this book without worrying about how many will sell. I hop a plane to Las Vegas for two weeks without worrying about jobs, bosses, or unpaid electric bills. Freedom is fantastic.
    Yet my lifestyle is not “normal.” Like wealth, society, through its “Get Rich Slow” mandates, has defined “normal” for you. Normal is waking at 6 a.m., fighting traffic, and working eight hours. Normal is to slave at a job Monday through Friday, save 10%, and repeat for 50 years. Normal is to buy everything on credit. Normal is to believe the illusion that the stock market will make you rich. Normal is to believe that a faster car and a bigger house will make you happy. You're conditioned to accept normal based on society's already corrupted definition of wealth, and because of it, normal itself is corrupted. Normal is modern-day slavery .
    I'm amazed that most people perilously operate one crisis away from financial ruin. We have become a nation of undisciplined spenders and consumers. We have become a nation where unfettered spending and material extravagance write our obituaries in the ink of stress. If you're held hostage to your lifestyle, you aren't wealthy, because you lack freedom.
    The Proper Use of Money
    Money doesn't buy happiness when it's misused. Instead of money buying freedom, it buys bondage. “Wealth” and “happiness” are interchangeable, but only if your definition of wealth hasn't been corrupted by society's definition. Society says wealth is “stuff,” and because of this faulty definition, the bridge between wealth and happiness collapses.
    When you don't feel wealthy, you're likely to try to conjure that feeling. You buy icons of wealth to feel wealthy. You crave feelings, respect, pride, and joy. You want admiration, love, and acceptance. And what are these feelings supposed to do for you? You expect deliverance into happiness. You want to be happy!
    And that's the bait. We equate the corrupted definition of wealth with happiness, and when it doesn't deliver, expectations are violated and unhappiness is the consequence.
    Used properly, money buys freedom, and freedom is one parcel in the wealth trinity. Freedom buys choices. The fact is, there are plenty of poor people who live richer than their overworked upper-middle-class counterparts because the latter lack freedom, they lack solid relationships, and they lack health-all deleterious effects of working a hated job five days a week for 50 years.
    Money secures one agent of the wealth formula, freedom, which is a powerful guardian to wealth's sibling ingredients: health and relationships.
     
Money buys the freedom to watch your kids grow up.
Money buys the freedom to pursue your craziest dreams.
Money buys the freedom to make a difference in the world.
Money buys the freedom to build and strengthen relationships.
Money buys the freedom to do what you love, with financial validation removed from the equation.
    Are any of the above likely to make you happy? I bet they will. They certainly won't make you unhappy.
    Lifestyle Servitude: The Trap of the Sidewalk
    Sidewalkers are embroiled in Lifestyle Servitude , where life is forced into a rat race, a constant tug-of-war between lifestyle extravagances and work, a self perpetuating merry-go-round of work for income, income for lifestyle, and lifestyle for work. Wherever there's Lifestyle Servitude, there's a systematic erosion of freedom.
     
Work creates income.
Income creates lifestyle/debt