“He only earns his freedom and his life who takes them every day by storm.” --Johann W. von Goethe
Geez, maybe my dear friend Tom thinks Mr. Goethe actually meant what he wrote. Tom is worse than the nastiest alarm clock attacking my sacred slumber. The man can wake you up from the doldrums of a so-so job: he will pester you into doing what you want to do. ’Hell beguile you, enthrall you, and invigorate you until you give up the pitiful misery of a disliked career. If Tom can’t stimulate you into your active pursuit of work life happiness, you’re doomed anyway.

Damned fools we are, all of us. Rich or poor, we are inconsistent and so funny in the handling our wallets.

Your happiness and your money require your boundless and playful freedom to make mistakes:  are you willing to screw up? Will you mess up good and often?  Can you do regrettable things and decide not to regret them? You are entirely responsible for your adventure and for the outcome. More so, you must be able to laugh about issues that drive others to suicide. How much fun can you take?

Hope lies between you and your happiness.  How can you be happy today if you are waiting for better times anxiously? Peddling hope can produce shit loads of money as you have witnessed and experienced unfortunately (ever been a member of a church or part of a network marketing religion?), but it is always a win-lose type of transaction. Being a sucker for hope is costly and it deprives you of your happiness, while your freedom remains uncultivated.  The best thing you can do with hope is giving it up for good.

Abandon self-improvement.  If there wasn't the Monday Morning After, motivational and self-improvement seminars could be such a meaningful way to spend your weekends and your money.  And how has that been working for you? What more is it than plain addictive behavior on a deeper and more sophisticated level? Agreed, our silly attempts to improve ourselves do have entertainment value--as some sort of spiritual masturbation.  Beyond that, all offers of self-improvement products imply that you're not good enough. Self-improvement is detrimental to your self-esteem. It destroys confidence and intuition, the most important traits you need to enjoy yourself and ultimately to make money.

Get rich quick!  Come again? Making plenty of money can be fun and if I can contribute to your drastically or gradually increased income, I shall be grateful. However, neither I nor anybody else can promise that it'll happen to you soon or ever:  There is NO "ironclad system for people like you"!  In fact, there aren't even other people like you, because you are an individual with all the benefits and disadvantages that come with it. At any rate, you can have a grand time with or without accumulating assets. The discussions of "rich" and "poor", the differences, and how to make it from poor to rich are absurd and construed. Only bloody idiots try to get rich.  Being rich won’t buy you anything, having cash in your pockets will. I suggest for you to stick with simply making money. There is nothing wrong with money and:  the--legally and ethically sound--ways of monetary acquisition are practically unlimited.

Freedom is free.  Duh!  Happiness is easier to obtain than you think. And you got some money already. I won't teach you new tricks, I refuse to give you advice, and you don't have to learn anything.  You are indeed good enough as you are today. What, then, is my mission? What's the purpose of my stuff?

I'm not on a mission from god. There is no absolute truth to anything and I am not conceited enough to believe in any purpose. If my writing makes you laugh, great!  If I can instigate you to explore your freedom and if you feel inspired to make regrettable mistakes, what more could I ask for?

Disclaimer:  Note, that everything you are going to read and digest here is NO investment or professional advice whatsoever!  My ideas have entertainment value at best and before you put any of them to use, do yourself a favor and see your damned physician! In a nutshell, this is what you can expect:

No Promise
No Delivery
No Benefit
No Guarantee
No Satisfaction

"Reason Foundation's tolerance, civility, and consistency in defending individual liberty make it a haven for believers in a free society of all shades of opinion". --Milton Friedman, Nobel Laureate in Economics

"Reason," writes The Columbus Dispatch, "manages to offend leftists with its defense of biotechnology, free trade and school choice, even as it appalls conservatives by supporting gay marriage, open immigration and drug legalization."

“I never have time to think about the real Andy Warhol, I’m just so busy ... not working, but busy playing, because work is play when it’s something you like.” --Andy Warhol

“So glad to hear from you - your newsletter was great as usual. I think of the Mary Poppins song, "I Love to Laugh" - just insert "I love to hate," and it's hilariously true.
Thanks for the reminder!” --Kay G.

Money has less in common with money than you may be inclined to think. In fact: everything else is more connected to money than money itself.  Weird?  No need to panic:  just get your mind off your dough for a minute or two. Profound, eloquent, and hilarious: Ajaban will "guide you through the Apocalypse for fun and profit!™"

"I'm dumbfounded, awestruck, perplexed, befuddled. I'm a miserable bastard going through a divorce and unemployed, who at 35 doesn't know what to do for peace of mind or soul. I'm not looking for you to solve my problems - I just find your writings fascinating." --B.T.

"Did you know that you belong in the loony bin, you screwball? No one can help you anymore, you idiotic imbecile."
Anonymous, Schweinfurt, Germany

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"I'm listening to your tape on my piece-of-shit clock radio tape player. I love it because it runs slow and you sound like SATAN and Arnold Schwarzenegger all in one. I wanted to thank you because just reminding me to embrace my failures allowed me to drive through the city of Hollywood without being depressed by the concrete environment. I previously thought only when I "had it made" could I ever feel that way about that."
C.K., CA

“You have unconventional wisdom that's unique to you.  I'm not sure what the mainstream would think of what you have to say. I've noted when I talk to people along the lines that you lay out, they tend to get turned off or even a little pissed off.  I think the reason for this is it tends to go against everything they have been taught and believed all their lives.  Well, I'm going to go back and read some more of your rants as I find them quit refreshing.” --K.B.

"To me the ideas as published on your site are new and refreshing. I have done a lot of the other motivational stuff such as goal setting etc., and it is time to break out of that and get a life! Your approach seems much more natural and I would like to learn more about it."
R.S., The Netherlands

"I have not laughed as much as I have reading the information on rumpelstilz.com. Laughing is something I have needed to do right now because I have been taking life all a bit to seriously over the last couple of months. I have been able to laugh at myself and the mistakes I have made with money as I read through your website. You know what? The sun will rise tomorrow whether I have money or not and it is up to me to choose the attitude of how I will greet the day and others around me." --M.P., Australia

"When economists reach agreement on the theory of capital, they will shortly reach agreement on everything else. Happily, for those who enjoy a diversity of views and beliefs, there is very little danger of this outcome.
Indeed, there is at present not even agreement as to what the subject is about." --Christopher J. Bliss,
Capital Theory and the Distribution of Income

“Oh, Egbert, you are so funny! I'm in stitches everytime I read your newsletter. To take an unvarnished truth and make it funny is one thing, but you are completely off the charts in driving home a point with such alacrity and humor! You hit the bull's eye and drive the arrow clean through the wall!” --L.C.

"You've got to follow your passion. You've got to figure out what it is you love — who you really are. And have the courage to do that. I believe that the only courage anybody ever needs is the courage to follow your own dreams." --Oprah

“I totally appreciate your reminders and insights. I need the wake-up call. It's comforting. I do print them out from time to time and read them out to my mother, and she loves it too. It lets us know it's ok to be more ... human. God bless U.” --P.

“You've got to find what you love.  Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work.  And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking.  Don't settle.  As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it.  And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on.” --Steve Jobs

Stay Hungry.
Stay Foolish.

Measly $25 can increase quality of life, yours and theirs: kiva.org.
Be somebody’s banker. You’re rich enough!

“Thank you Egbert, your articles delight me tremendously!” --Christine

”Oh, by the way ... I really enjoyed your newsletter on 'will power'. It opened my eyes on how habits come about.  I'll drink to that!  You've been the highlight of my day.” --B.A.

"Wow, your site has an attitude.  Every god damn site I go to is so politically correct, other than porn sites. You say it like it is. Thanks." --C.

Employees hate their jobs almost by definition. According to Forbes Magazine, 87% of Americans don’t like their jobs. No surprise here. Shocking is that hardly anybody questions the status quo of modern slavery. We, the citizens of a developed country, scream for MORE jobs we can hate? That’s what “developed” means: hating what we do with our lives?!

If you despise your current job, chances are you won’t like your next job either. 87% hate their jobs today and 87% will hate what they do next month. Am I suggesting a revolution against “the oppressors?” Indeed, but who is the oppressor? The “evil corporations?” Absolutely NOT! Employers only provide the means for you to do what you crave to hate (“It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.” --Voltaire).

School and college have prepared us to live life in hatred, to live the best years of our life looking forward to end it--with retirement. It is insane to quietly accept being bereft of an enjoyable and productive life. WE are guilty ourselves of murdering our individuality, creativity, and our freedom.

You desire to love your job or to find a job you can enjoy? Are you out of your mind? It won’t happen soon, but if you hate what you do today you can hate it better in the future ... much better, in fact. My new book “How to Better Hate Your Job” seems crazy--and indeed it is unruly, wild, and provocative. No, it is not politically correct. I’m so sorry, dear!

Oh, you are self-employed, an entrepreneur perhaps, and you believe this book is not for you?  Think again:  can you afford not to know what’s going on in the minds and in the subconscious regions of job-hating employees? Really?! Even if you are not an employer, you deal with such people every day.  Even for you it’s time to get a clue.

Get your copy now--Paperback or FREE eBook download--and tell your friends, enemies, and your hunchbacked relatives about it. For the time being, it’s an “Advanced Reader’s Copy.” Some bugs still need to be eliminated and few things have to be altered before the final version will go to print. So? What are you waiting for? ’It’s important to do at least one regrettable thing every day ...

How about having fun with pain?

Ridiculous idea? Think again. Most employees invest pain to earn their income.  You bet it is insane and yet, we consider it normal behavior. Parents want their children to have good jobs to hate, and school teachers prepare their subjects almost for two decades for a work life in pain and disgust. 87% of Americans--according to Forbes.com--don’t like their jobs.

Having fun with pain is not at all my idea:  monks discovered the joys of flagellation in the dark ages. Today, no one is more advanced at cubicle sado-masochism than the average employee.  Happy digestion!

pain, sweet pain

"There lies in man a terrible cruelty; just as pity may be such as to cause him positive pain, so may the infliction of punishment amount for him to a sweet pleasure." --Jean-Paul Richter

“I hate my job” typed into Google produces over 12 million links.  Depending on the day, over 60 million links may pop up when you google "hate work". By comparison, Google produces only some 7 million references for “hate crime”. Hate work must be worse than hate crime. Does everybody who despises her job maintain a website about her favorite abomination?  How many hundred million people detest what they are getting out of bed for or into?  Geezus, even your neighborhood Domme is wasting other people's precious pain time by writing essays like "Five Things I Hate about being a Dominatrix in the Summer".

According to Gallup, 74% of employees are either not engaged in what they're doing or actively disengaged:  Zombies.  Work zombies cost the economy a minimum of half a trillion dollars annually in lost productivity, and I am quite sure all zombies feel underpaid.  Truth is, hateful employees are useless at best and useless employees are practically overpaid.  All of them. 

Asking for a raise when you can't stand what you do is a DUH kind of issue: it won't work. Probability of getting more money is slim for those who loathe their jobs. And the idea that you would enjoy your miserable life a bit better if you just got more dough for your professional bitching is a myth.  Someone dumb enough to pay you ten times of what you're scraping by with today in your horrid employment, risks becoming the target of your tenfold increased hatred.  More people than dogs bite the hands that feed them.  I know plenty of individuals who "went where the money was", ending up on shitty jobs with phenomenal pay and benefits. They acquired greater mortgages, bigger car payments, high maintenance wives, demanding brats, and they despise their generous employers at least as much as they were when they slaved away in disgust for pitiful scrooges. The best way out of a poorly paid crap job is a better paid crap job, and the best way out of a well-paid crap job appears to be a heart attack. To think that more money will make you happier while performing a despicable job is pretty stupid. Sorry, that's not what I meant:  it's outright idiotic to believe that more cash will make you love your job better.

No my dear, I did NOT say that more money isn't good for you.  Nothing can be said against more money at any time.  At least I won't talk bad about mo' money. However, correlations between more money and greater job satisfaction aren't more real than the tooth fairy and if you currently hate what you do, a pay raise is not the most important issue you need to consider.  You may have problems--and who doesn't--but money or the lack thereof is merely a symptom of your problems and not their cause.

What's the minimum amount you are willing to hate me for?  That question should be part of every job interview. What department would you like to hate in? Do you actually qualify for this level of hatred?  How many years of hate experience do you have?  Which companies did you hate before us?  Where did you learn to hate so great? Got a college degree in hating, a doctorate maybe? Where do you see yourself hating in five years from now? Will you hate well in a team?  Our hate ethics are the highest in the industry.  Give us all the hatred you got, and we'll hate you back in kind.  Welcome aboard on our hate force!

The average Joe understands the bumper sticker, “I'd rather be fishing,” because it is common knowledge that work is deplorable.  The retirement cult is generally accepted without question because everybody knows that people can't wait to leave their stinking lives behind.  Bunches of individuals are literally dying to retire. People's lives suck. That's why they're so eager to retire.  We do what we can to make our lives miserable because we don't trust gain when it appears to come without decent pain. Don't let the superstitious belief in luck and lottery millions fool you:  people expect to earn their dollar the hard way.  Besides being pissed off about it five days a week, we don't find anything wrong with it.

Hard equals good.  Pain is predictable and a solid foundation for a pleasant future.  We don't trust free lunch.  And when Samuel Butler muses, "All of the animals except man know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it," he misses the mark. People are enjoying life intensely.  They do so in a more sophisticated way though, by hating the living crap out of what they do.  We love to hate our jobs! When we find ourselves over our heads stuck in the mud, we are in our element. Eat shit and you know you're earning your keep. At least that's how we want others to perceive us and our lot, and plenty of folks lay it on so thick that they believe their intricate charade themselves.  Overt happiness and freedom are suspicious and too dangerous, just as we don't want anyone else to see how much cash we have on us, either.  Hardly is there a more suspicious matter than oodles of cash.  We never know for sure what weighs heavier: being scared of money or our desire to get it.

In that regard, money and sex are similar. We let our desires and our inhibitions slug it out. Who wins?  Good question.  Money is more intimate a subject than sex.  For instance, don't tell me you have shared your credit cards and bank accounts freely with all those you have had wild sex with.  The exchange of bodily fluids with a stranger may lead to chronic illness or death, but more people than you think would find it riskier to hand their wallet to that same stranger.  Even more intimate than cash are freedom and happiness. We are so secretive that we will rarely admit to ourselves how free and happy we actually are!     

Truth surfaces in odd moments. Our employer fires our hateful ass, and we sue that son of a bitch to get the job back that we have been despising so successfully for years.  Hmm, on some level we must have loved that job more than we do being without it.  Hopeful and gratefully we vote for politicians who promise us hundreds of thousands of new opportunities for work and grief.  We are ecstatic about leaving seventy four competing applicants in the dust.  We are qualified and we think we deserve to abhor this job more than anyone else does. We choose and defend what we want to kvetch about in the future, and we're willing to commute for hours each day to get there in time, so that our esteemed colleagues don't have to start their daily bitch routine without us. And hating overtime may be the sweetest thing there is!

We use our freedom to choose to do what we love to hate. Our cussing and fussing is simply an awkward expression of love. Next time a friend or fellow slave rants on about her miserable job, don't listen to the words.  Watch her gestures, pay attention to her voice tone and to her passionate facial expressions.  She will disagree but she is indeed happy to have that stuff to rage about. On average, people don't express happiness and joy as intensely as they show indignation. We love to hate our work because it is a socially accepted—and therefore relatively safe—way of displaying a temper.  Professionally, we restrict our freedom to do what we want to our choice of what we want to hate for a living. Make no mistake, there is no one else besides us who dulls our minds and who confines our actions to the joys of cubicle S/M. What?  Exactly:  I think it is somewhat strange that S/M is still considered perverted by many, but what employees do in their cubicles throughout their lives is normal and sane. 

Self-sabotage is not a rare condition few of us have to face during exceptionally challenging times of our careers.  We start our work lives with sabotage and we end our days with it.  Intentionally we go through hell to somehow and magically pop up in heaven with a gold watch?  Nuts! Rappers don't have a real reason to be angry but they know, if you want to be a successful rapper one day you must look angry.  A rapper must not smile. No one tells teenagers to be angry.  They choose to feed their anger with anything and everything they stumble across.  Employees have to hate their jobs because the conditions and the pay are so poor? And they are angry since they can't do with their lives what they really want to do?  Bull. Tiger Woods isn't paid too poorly, officials don't mind to bend a rule here or there to improve Tiger's terrible work conditions, and  yet the man looks basically angry all day. Mr. Woods behaves like a pissed off little boy when things don't go his way. And he is still angry, A-N-G-R-Y, when he wins.  There is no reason for it:  Tiger Woods chooses to be angry because he loves to be angry, just as teenagers and miserable employees choose and love their daily gripe.

What can be done to accommodate employees and to make their lives easier?  You don't get it, do you? They like to be pissed off and they love to complain. Pain is cool.  Employees are happiest while proclaiming misery.  Almost NOTHING can be done to accommodate employees and to make their lives easier. Best you can do to make your employees more loyal is to give them more reasons to yammer.  Tell them there won't be a Christmas bonus this year. Their addiction to pain--to receiving pain and to the joy of inflicting it--will keep them moderately happy on the job until the end. Money is not that important to the average employee. If it was, who would seek or maintain a job?

I can see some of you nodding your heads in uncomfortable agreement and several of you may have murder on your minds--no less uncomfortably, I hope.  Why do I put you through this pain? As if your life wasn't difficult enough without me. It's my intention to broaden your choices. If you choose employment you may realize that you are happier with your life than you thought, even during periods of upsetting and irritating experiences.  If that's not worlds better than just being upset and irritated, I don't know what can help you.  A better job? C'mon, you know there is no such thing.

Entrepreneurship is another option or becoming self-employed, but no one should help you to make that critical step.  Richard Branson or Mick Jagger would probably make disastrous employees.  By the same token, the finest and most loyal employee is not necessarily successful being self-employed. The best employee may be ill prepared to make it in the market as an entrepreneur.  For what it's worth, typical employees are limited to bank on their strengths. Being self-employed, you may choose to thrive on your weaknesses also. That’s way too much freedom for innocent employees.

Btw., what do Charles Darwin, Steve Jobs, Friedrich Nietzsche, Steven Spielberg, Leo Tolstoy, Eric Clapton, Martin Luther, Brad Pitt, Vincent van Gogh, and Michael Dell have in common? Right, them dudes didn't finish their college education (Mr. Spielberg recently completed his after receiving dozens of honorary doctorates). No license, no qualification, bad resume, bad people.  Poor and bad people. 

Your permission is required to do what you want. No license, no certification, no one else's approval is necessary for you to be free. You need nothing to do what you want.  And of course, it's the worst that could happen to you. Being unprepared for the fact that you don't need more preparation. God forbid, you could go ahead and do what you want to do. Freedom is neither pleasant nor comfy, and it should scare you.  That's why I ask you, “DON'T quit your current job!”  Once more:  DO NOT QUIT YOUR JOB. 

But who'd dare to stop you from starting something new and different, parallel to your daily grind?  If you need more education first, forget it.  If you need more money first, forget it.  If your husband needs to give his O.K., forget it. If your children need to be a little older first, forget it. Never will there be the right time or ideal circumstances for you to be free enough to act as you please.  You will never be “more free” than you are today. Freedom can't be gained over time. You take it or you do not.

We cannot control nor predict the monetary results of our activities very well.  But you do have full control over plenty of things you decide to do today. Perhaps you shaved successfully this morning or you applied makeup.  I hope you brushed your teeth and your dentist hopes you flossed, also. There are a million other things you are capable of doing with the same level of control and similar precision.  Try it. You can do a lot for fun or profit. You get to control most of the action. Just don't get too attached to your expectation of a particular outcome. 

Three examples, one for fun and the other two are business related:  during the last couple of months I learned to ride the unicycle. I can't do it really well yet but it won't throw me off easily anymore.  It's enjoyable and as thrilling--possibly more so--as it was to learn bicycling when I was a kid. It took much longer than I anticipated, but nothing and no one's ridicule could stop me. I had the freedom to start but I could not control the outcome.          

A German guy--let's call him Fritz--has a girlfriend who ran an ailing sex shop in the mid 1990s. One day, he and his buddy purchased 30 dollars worth of silicon and they started bungling with new shapes and colors for dildos.  Objective:  that thing must not look like a penis.  Result: they modeled dildos and vibrators looking like penguins and dolphins in neon colors.  Sales in 2005 were approximately five million dollars worldwide, jumping to $13.2 million in 2006.  Yeah I know, it's not the type of business your mom would give her blessings for, and your friendly neighborhood banker would rather participate in a couple of Poker tournaments than investing a dime in your smut shop.  And it may not be advisable to talk about your vocation with everyone you happen to sit next to in the opera house. However, this gentleman was able to start from one moment to the next.  The outcome, as favorable as it turned out to be, was subject to all sorts of influences. He could neither forsee nor control it.

In 1959, Ruth Handler invented the Barbie doll, called after her daughter Barbara. Ken was named after Ruth's son (geez, how creative!).  "Through years of observing our daughter's play patterns with dolls," remembered Elliot Handler, "my wife noted that she invariably passed by dolls of her own age group, favoring instead teenage dolls with fashion accessories.  At the time, the only such teenage dolls were paper cutouts." A grown-up doll, a model for authentic clothing and accessories, a surrogate for a little girl's fantasies of her future, was Ruth's idea.  $500 million worth of Barbie dolls were sold in her first eight years of Barbie's life. Today, every second two Barbie dolls are sold somewhere in the world.

These two inventions and businesses are not based on rocket science, and riding unicycles is not reserved for members of a circus troupe. Activities that have the potential to increase fun and/or profit in your life aren't as complicated as the invention of the internal combustion engine.  At least they don't have to be. If you can buy something, you are capable of selling something. What's the big difference? Chances are, you are overqualified for self-employment just as you are overqualified for most jobs.  How often have I heard that not everybody is born to be self-employed. How true!  Nobody is.

We can't even eat and shit without help when we're born, but we learn that stuff eventually.  None of us are “born” walkers, speakers, architects, secretaries, lawyers, gardeners, chefs, or anything else.  Call me naive but if you could run a lemonade stand when you were a child and you know how to make $47 with a garage sale, you can make money parallel to your employment.  You may not want to, and that is fine with me, but then don't give me all that nonsense about how hideous your job is. You just love it more passionately than anything else, don't you?

Uh, you believe this newsletter was exclusively for employees? Wrong. Plenty of self-employed boys and girls are even BETTER at complaining than the average employee. Listen to company founders talk about their hard life! You'd think they were sold into slavery by an evil force.  Generally, individuals choose carefully and intentionally what they want to hate, since they know most money is made by people who hate what they do.  You gotta love it.

As long as you despise your jobs and your endeavors at least somewhat, I know all is well.  If you hate it a lot and passionately, glorious success can't be far.  And if you just can't take it any longer, I know that you know where your freedom of choice begins. If you ask me, I wouldn't be surprised if more and more people chose to abolish employment for themselves, soon. It's the next step.

Tata,

Egbert

P.S.:  If you enjoyed it, hated it, or if you are not so sure, go to Yahoo Groups and read past issues of my free money-by-mistake newsletter: http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/moneybymistake/.  And, while there, go ahead and subscribe also: You will receive upcoming issues via e-mail.

P.P.S.:  You think I should cough up some blog type thingy related to issues discussed here? Why not? Check it out at Google Schmoogle.