Best of all, I would take a vow of poverty and be free from the grip of money and materialism forever. In the monastery, I would have all the structure and discipline I liked about the Marines along with comradery, or esprit de corps, but with an even nobler purpose. If I was going to quit the Marines and do something better, what could be a higher calling? Where else could I find a life of service and avoid the “greedy capitalistic corporate world”? Just then, I began to have a religious reawakening and started to explore the possibility of becoming a monk. There is a reason many men and women like hunting and playing shooter video games: it is a heck of a lot of fun. I quit because I got good at the soldiering part and enjoyed it too much. Unlike some, I didn’t quit the Marines because I hated soldiering. I found the idea of killing people for a living disturbing, but mostly because the adventure part of it thrilled me. I’m not a pacifist, but the Marines taught us to enjoy killing, and that freaked me out a bit. I graduated near the top of my class, and I almost stayed to make a career out of the military (I did not go active duty), but I realized that my real job as a Marine was to kill people. In college, I ended up at Officer Candidate School with the US Marine Corps and loved it. Excellence is rewarded, but your pay is fixed. So then I tried to find selfless service in the military-the perfect egalitarian meritocracy. Despite the “one world” rhetoric, which I greatly admired, they didn’t seem to give a darn about anyone but themselves. They wanted the freedom to be as self-centered as possible and seek as much personal pleasure as possible without any responsibility. They didn’t want to be told what to do, and their anti-establishment attitude was often ego in disguise. The only problem was that many of my new liberal brethren were just as selfish, self-centered, and materialistic as my conservative parents. #Money manager ex vs ynab plus#It seemed like a clever idea at the time, plus it annoyed my parents. I grew out my hair, wore ratty clothing, and tried to drop out of society. I covered my car with rain forest murals, peace signs, and rainbows. So I became an anti-materialist wannabe hippie instead. I was a long way from becoming a monk because, at the time, I was an agnostic and a teenager. Then come, follow me.” This seemed like the answer I was looking for. That would be Matthew 19:21: “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Throw a Jesus quote into the mix and you have a proto-monk in the making. So when I started studying philosophy and religion in high school and read the words of Paul the apostle, “For the love of money is the root of all evil,” I believed Paul was right. Growing up, I learned through the behavior of those around me that money and materialism were evil. Like a common virus engineered to be a weapon of mass destruction, money was the tool we used to hurt, control, manipulate, and dominate one another. I grew up in a rich family where money was abundant but weaponized. Ironically, most of my money troubles occurred because I tried to escape worrying about money. (Bolding below are my own to help break up the text a little…) I was glued to every second of this, and hopefully you will enjoy it just as much :) To learn more or pick up a copy of the book to continue reading, visit: From Monk to Money Manager: A Former Monk’s Financial Guide to Becoming a Little Bit Wealthy - and Why That’s Okay It comes from Doug Lynam, a fellow monk turned money manager, and after stumbling across his story and asking him to share with us, he did us one better and allowed me to publish the first chapter of his new book which artfully goes over the twists and turns of his wild journey so far… Good morning friends!!! Have a really cool story to share with you today, but it’s a long one so make sure to tell all your bosses/clients you’ll be busy for a while and then grab yourself a nice cup of tea )
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