I Will Be Free One Day vs. I Am Free Now
“Now this is the story all about how
My life got flipped, turned upside down” – Fresh Prince Theme Song
If you’re working a shitty job now purely for the money it provides, and you’re trying to save enough to start a side hustle or business or investment to ultimately save you from having to work that shitty job, then this article is for you.
In this article, I want to show you the difference in these two thought patterns as it relates to work and career, and how to move from feeling, living, and thinking “I will be free one day” to truly feeling and living “I am free now“. This article come from lots of exploring of both sides. I have lived both extremes, and I feel like I can help someone transition from one to the other. Neither one is good or bad, they’ll just take you in two very different directions.
I Will Be Free One Day
You attract what you think and feel the most. If you consistently think and feel “I will be free one day”, then you must experience more of “I will be free one day”. Your reality will shape itself to fit that story. In this scenario, you’re never free and you never will be – you’ll always and forever be chasing freedom one day. It’s like the sign that says “Free Beer Tomorrow”.
If you’re in a shitty job you hate, and you’re thinking and feeling “I will be free one day”, I feel where you’re coming from.
I would think, “I’ll be free one day” all the time while I was working at all the different jobs I was working at. I would always be working on a side business or dabbling in investing or trying to learn about passive income – all for the sake of escaping my current reality. I would be working a job I hated then think thoughts like…
- “If I could save up some money, then I could put it in an investment, make a lot of money and leave this job”.
- “If I could build a business on the side, I could work on that business that would make a lot of money and leave this job”.
This line of thinking was the root cause of me living like I was stuck running around in circles. I kept finding myself lacking money, needing a job to maintain some semblance of independence, and silently saying to myself “I will be free one day and escape all of this bullshit”.
I’ve seen other people have similar thoughts. Here’s a popular one:
- “If I could hit the lotto, I would win a lot of money and leave this job”.
The common denominator in these lines of thinking is escape from a current job…a current reality that you don’t want to be in. It all stems from the thought – “I’ll be free one day”.
I Am Free Now
At any point you can inject being free now, and it works the same way. Even injecting a little bit of embodying your freedom now will make an impact. If you consistently think and feel “I am free now”, then you must experience more of “I am free now”. Your reality will shape itself to fit that story too if that’s your predominate thought.
One of the biggest insights that came from sitting in my own freedom was that I wouldn’t do things I hated just for the money. If I’m really free, then I could just drop that whole line of thinking. As a result, money comes in very easily because I’m not as needy with it. I’m not sacrificing so much of myself for it.
Also, so many more options become visible. An infinite amount of options are always available, but they become visible to you because you’re looking for them, and not spending so much time slaving away at a job. For example, if you’re having problems with money, you can sit down and have the space to learn all about it. You can sit down and learn about credit, business, the history of money, investing and being early in projects, neediness vs abundance, living well within your means, earning more, scaling, stocks, crypto, passive income etc. You can go exploring down any avenue you want! What a badass feeling!
Living “I am free now” will lead to questions like:
- “What do I want to do today?”
- “Where does the energy want to go today?”
- “What needs to be done today?”
- “What rabbit hole do I want to go down?” (lengthy periods of freedom allows you to explore things way deeper than you can when your focus is split working a job)
In relation to your work, this way of living might elicit questions like:
- “What is my audience needing from me right now?”
- “How can I connect with my audience?” “
- What do I need to be at peak performance?”
Even while you’re working a shitty job, “I am free now” can elicit questions like:
- “How do I enhance the small amount of freedom I’m experiencing when I’m not working?”
- “What’s one step I can do now that truly expresses and embodies my freedom?”
- “How can I do express and embody this freedom consistently?”
Where did this line of thinking come from?
I can tell I learned “I will be free one day” from my mother. She probably learned it from her mother. Ultimately, I believe it comes from slavery – at least for me. When I look at slavery in the United States, it wasn’t that long ago, we were slaves for a LONG time (350+ years), and there hasn’t been a sufficient bridge to freedom internally. Even after the declaration to free slaves, there was still so much post-slavery slavery going on. Former slaves had access to nothing as newly free people, so they had to keep working to survive. I wonder at what point did we drop the frame of being slaves trying to escape?
To me, the internet has been the best bridge. Through the internet, I can now deliver value to anyone in the world who has access to the internet. Still, the problem is internal. I can still create my own shitty job even on the internet if I’m still feeling like “I’ll be free one day”.
Resources that helped
- The Illusion of Money – Audiobook (and physical) by Kyle Cease
- 10 Reasons You Should Never Get A Job – Article by Steve Pavlina
- The Courage to Be Disliked – Audiobook (and physical) by
Do you feel free now? Why not? What is a step you can take today to move towards being free now? How can you embody freedom in this moment?