“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

"You are a menace to society."  --S.B.K., AZ

"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 ...

Power we don’t have we call power. Power we do have we call weakness. Make up your mind, will you?

“Power corrupts, but absolute power is really neat.” --John Lehman, Ex-Navy Secretary

“Those carried away by power are soon carried away.” --Malcolm Forbes

pure will power

Dear Friend,

Willpower is an inherent quality of every single person. You don't have to acquire it.  You just need to discover your willpower. It's not at all that difficult. Chocolate for instance, is willpower pure.

Have you ever sat in a movie theater, munching away at a mega size bag of popcorn?  Seeing the full bag and looking at your belly, you know it is impossible to merge the two. While watching a film, however, you are able of working the magic.  Almost anything fits into your stomach, plus a bag of M&Ms.  The trick is not to think.  Bypass your mind and you'll be amazed what you are capable of doing single-mindedly. Willpower, pure willpower gets that popcorn into your abdomen.

If you can smoke, you got willpower. Obviously, not everyone can smoke a pack of cigarettes or two every day. The ability to smoke a lot is reserved for a lucky few. Habits are proof of willpower. May everyone else call them weaknesses.  To me, habits are willpower in disguise.  Fight them, call your habits weaknesses, make yourself wrong, feel guilty, and allow idiots to call you a sinner.  That's what we do to kill what works. For most of us, our fights against habits are uphill battles and they last forever.  It's frustrating and for a good reason. We are trying to get rid of something that actually works.

The normal approach is to make ourselves look bad and to do everything in our power to get rid of those nasty habits.  Since our habits are expressions of our greatest powers, we can't get rid of them, of course. We could decide to use our powers for noble purposes but oh, no:  we invent a HIGHER power, artificially, to break our own spine and to beat ourselves into the ground. You think I'm kidding?

See for yourself in the original Twelve Steps, freely modified by me, the evil one. First step: “We admitted we were powerless over our power.”  Duh.  Swiftly, we invent a god after our own image and bestow the powers on him that we want to get back so badly. Eleventh step: “Sought to improve our conscious contact with that self-made god, begging him to tell us what we really want and for the power to carry that out.”  That's so cool!

We think our power stinks and sucks, and we must filter it through a sacred sieve. Then, we can permit ourselves to apply the spiritually recycled and purified form of power.  We get rid of our raw power because it's evil and then we kneel down to be blessed in return with a fuzzy kind that's prechewed and predigested for our humble souls.  Give me a break!  We make ourselves believe people are crap but their creations are holy. Hey, if you're worth crap, so are your ideas and creations, including--but not limited to--the anti alcohol gods and their crappy powers. Yeah, yeah, I know it works and it has saved crappy and worthless souls for 70 crappy years. But you got to admit, the AA “success” is based on a mind fart.

More out of the twelve steps to God given--and approved--alcoholism: “2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” That's so cute because the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) can't define sanity. There is not a single sane person in our or in any other society, not even in the esteemed and sober twelve step community. See, sober doesn't necessarily mean sane.  Anyway, “we believe that a Power greater than ourselves could” do this or that means:  let us (the crappy ones) make ourselves a crappy power greater than our crappy selves.  Let's bungle away and make a crappy god or two.  Onwards:  “3. Made a decision to turn our crappy will and our crappy lives over to the crappy care of God as we understood/made Him with our crappy minds.” 

That recipe worked well for our ancestors some 30,000 years ago in the bush, why should it not work for us? Of course it works, so what? It turns upstanding alcoholics into sorry sob stories and into limp wet rags. Please accept my apology! I did not mean to say that.  I'm sorry.  But I do mean that the filthy habits you maintain, your sins, can give you a clear idea (or a blurred one, depending on the type of your habits) of the powers you have and of their potential, should you decide to unleash that stuff in uninhibited fashion.

No wonder our habits cause problems. All true strengths do. Positive or negative, it doesn't matter. Habits work, smoothly, well oiled, and efficiently. If you can do it repeatedly, all the time, and even against other people's will, it must be strength.  We call it weakness only as long as we haven't figured out its use. Your lack of creativity and imagination is not at all a lack of willpower. You got plenty of it, just don't question its value. The most devastating activity individuals engage in is the fight against themselves:  self-questioning. If that had any merit, your well developed self-doubt would have kept you from doing a lot of stupid things in your life. Tell me if I'm wrong, but most likely your self-questioning has stopped you from doing a bunch of fun stuff, but it has not saved you from making embarrassing mistakes. Self-doubt or self-fight--whatever you choose to call it--is not only useless.  It prevents success.

Now, you have identified a fine habit of yours.  Your family may disapprove of it and even you may have begun to believe something is wrong with you.  Screw your family for the moment and scrutinize your habit.  How often do you do it every day, for how long? Do you do it randomly throughout the day, or is it triggered by certain events or key situations? Beautiful! There you have your successful pattern of willpower. Instead of transforming smoking into chewing nicotine gum, do something useful:  adapt the structure of your oh so nasty habits for the purpose of desired action.  What do you want to do really bad?  Don't ask what you want to have.  That's a worn-out question for get rich suckers and for multilevel dupes.

What do you want to DO, baby?  Yeah, that's it.  No reason not to become an addict, an efficient this-is-what-I-want-to doaholic. Knock yourself silly.  If others have the ability to find 20 – 40 seven minute segments in their day to smoke a cigarette, you can find 20 - 40 time slots per day to do what you truly desire.  Don't trust me. Trust your obsessions.

Your abominable habits are your compass, pointing towards happiness, success, and to your personal power resources. What's there not to like? 

Egbert

P.S.: Call me naïve, but the more you do what you want to do, the less interest you may find in self-destruction anyway.  But hey, what do I know?  I just work here.

P.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.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.