How to Change the World
written by Višnja Željeznjak on August 15, 2012
Recently I have become fascinated with what the future will bring. After reading Abundance, I have learned about what is possible in the next 25 years. I want to be a part of the movement which will make this abundance happen.
The abundance line
There’s a line above which the abundance starts.
Above it, humans have the time to collaborate and work creatively towards solving humanity’s problems.
Below it, humans have the time only to survive. This is no way for an intelligent species to live.
Where’s the problem, exactly?
I have identified that our most important problem is the need to work to just barely survive.
Nobody should spend their life to just barely survive. This is my deeply held belief.
We have to work 40 hours a week, 40-50 years a lifetime to get:
- water
- food
- shelter
- clothing
- medicine
- education
All of the above needs to be free or nearly free. This world is possible. It may sound unbelievable to some people, but after reading www.abundancethebook.com, I believe.
I have learned that the quickest path towards the abundance is to generating squanderable amounts of energy. When we have achieved that level, we will have developed technologies to create water, food, shelter, clothing and medicine almost out of thin air, almost for free. We’re now in the process of experimenting with energy.
We’ve already achieved the level at which we now have squanderable amount of nearly free education. It is called the internet. My internet costs $41 month. If all other bullet points I mentioned cost $41, I could survive with only $246 a month. Average net salary in my country today is exactly $899 a month (data for May 2012). This means that on average, people in my country would only have to work 6 days a month to have their basic needs met. The other 15 days a month we’d spend as we saw fit.
Today we work 21 days a month. Yes, we do afford to buy a little bit more than just basic needs. We buy smartphones, tablets, computers, vacations and school books for our children.
But the abundant world of the future I’m talking about is even cheaper to afford than a whopping $246 a month.
Being part of the solution
Before each and every one of use can start solving the world’s problems, we must first stop being the problem ourselves.
I can’t participate in solving world hunger if I have to work 40 hours a week just to feed and dress myself.
I personally have to achieve freedom first.
How do I achieve personal freedom
Right now, my streams of passive recurring income cover only a part of my expenses. I co-run a business and my business generates passive recurring income, but not enough. And I have to show up for work every day, 40 days a week just like everybody else, to maintain the current level of my business. I plan to change that in the future, but let’s go back to what a person without an existing business can do.
I personally need multiple streams of passive income which demand only the smallest possible fraction of my time to maintain them.
So phase one of being able to change the world, is to create anything that brings in the minimum amount a month just to survive, recurringly, passively.
When I have achieved that, I can stop “working” and I can start creating. Humanity has no use of me if I’m not creating. Humanity wants me to achieve my personal freedom, no: humanity demands I do it. There’s the purpose of life somewhere in the previous sentence.
I have identified a digital product business to be the solution to my personal freedom. All I need to do, is create a profitable one or more digital products which bring in a certain amount of money monthly. Currently I’m publishing an exclusive-to-Google+ post series describing the necessary features of my perfect digital business. Visit my Google+ About for links to the published posts.
After I have achieved passive recurring income, I can start participating in solving the world’s problems.
How do we change the world then, again?
Each and every living human changes the world by first achieving personal freedom from mandatory work for survival.
We’re not doing this to squander our life watching TV and partying all night. People are not a lazy species. People are a curious, imaginative, creative, fun and intelligent species. Suspend your disbelief for a second and kindly accept the idea that our current 40-hour work-sleep-work regime is killing everything creative in us. This regime is creating an illusion of people being lazy. We’re not lazy. We’re just exhausted.
Most people do nothing creative at work and that’s the main problem. I am not against work, I am against meaningless work. I plan to work till the day I drop dead. I don’t need to retire, ever. Why would I want to retire from anything I am passionate about?
Imagine if you didn’t have to work a day in your life any more, while having all your basic needs met. Do you honestly see yourself watching TV till the day you die? You’d be bored after a month and your creative powers would kick in naturally.
You could be the next hotshot entrepreneur. You could be the next Elon Musk. Hell, I could be the next Elon Musk!
But not before I’m free from things Elon Musk was free from before he sent a rocket into space. I cannot simultaneously work on rocket science and thinking about where my next meal would come from.
So, first we need free time. We will later decide what do we want to dedicate it to. There’s no shortage of problems to work on.
Me personally, I want to dedicate my free time to participating in making abundance for all humans possible. Abundance will lead to people devoting their lives to achieving longevity. We will soon upgrade ourselves to Human 2.0 - technologically, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. We will have matured into a civilization able to conquer the Milky Way.
Creative Commons image credit: pasotraspaso
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Comments
Nice post. Though I think the real problem is that people want FAR more than what they just need. Most people I know are not working 40-60 hour weeks just to get by, they're working their lives away so they can have a bigger house, a nicer car, or to buy something new and shiny. As an experiment, over the past 8 months I have actually managed to survive (relatively comfortably) on about $3000 USD all while living only 30 minutes away from Manhattan, one of the more expensive places to live in the world. We can survive on relatively few resources, but most people have no interest.
Martin on August 25, 2012
Višnja, very good and interested post. But I must criticize it because your conclusions are very idealistic. Partly it is because you are talking about your dreams and ideals, partly because it’s written from your (in terms of this post - above average) perspective.
It reminds me to an interview on Croatian TV with investor Nenad Bakić I saw several weeks ago. Guy was so passionate and idealistic about today’s state of humankind – we have access to the free education and free knowledge on the internet, we have access to the great cheap (“just $300-$400”) gadgets like ipads we can use for collaboration, sharing, etc, etc. We can go to the “higher spheres” reading great books and analyzing fine arts…
He is so lost… World is almost perfect from his perspective. Loads of free time and money are screaming from him. TV host tried to put him down telling him this is not possible for most of Croatians, but Bakić didn’t understand it at all. He told us how he was also poor one in socialism of ’80-is. He and his family lived in flat of “just” 70 m2 and other people he knows lived in the bigger ones. His father was just “some director” in some socialist firm. Oh my God! Guy was living the privileged life from the beginning, while most Croatians lived in spaces half from that size, having parents who were just “some workers” working whole days in factories or serving meals and drinks to socialist directors of that time… Great kick start to achieve what he achieved and to continue to live in the clouds.
Lets go back to your post. There are many people who achieved your goal. By being born, by pillaging from society (not talking about house or bank robbers) or by their own devotion.
They are called capitalists.
They have freedom, they have time. And they want to conserve that state for as much long as possible. Current world’s setup – where most of the people work (for them) all the time just to barely survive – is their perfect world. Where you can contemplate about fine arts and browse the net through the newest cheap ipod (which some 15-year old Chinese produced for you). Or you can drive fast cars, sail on great yachts, travel around the world, partying, eating fine drugs, whatever, depending of your interests.
In ours world money controls the way we are heading to. Freedom for all will never happen, because it will hurt the ones who achieved it already. Who will serve your morning breakfast and clean the bed on the yacht if that barely surviving people are given the freedom?
Would there be free sailing routes on seas if 7 billion yachts would go for cruising? Freedom for masses also means the decrease in Earths limited resources...
Free access to the education still isn’t achieved. Middle class like you have it, but ones below you don’t. They are working just for the real survival, not yours meaning of survival. They don’t have time for education (even if they have computers and internet access which mostly they don’t have). It goes for Croatia too, not some really poor countries…
Then idealizing people will go to change the world if they get personal freedom… It is also something from yours perspective and you are obviously on higher level of intelligence and spirituality then average humans are (both masters and slaves). Most people wouldn’t start to be creative, the will just consume creativity which is served to them: spending more on the stuff, watching tv, playing games, betting and gambling, drinking, etc
Tip for your passive income – employ others to work for you. It is most used and most efficient leverage out there. To achieve own financial freedom and free time.
Mr. Don’t Have Freedom on October 29, 2012
Thank you Mr. Don't Have Freedom. I understand your argument, and I can tell you that you and me are both privileged, just based on the fact that we have an internet connection. We both belong to the top 5% richest people in the world.
I want to say that if you look at it this way, there's always someone below and above your standard of living. I don't care about most people because I can't change them. I can change only myself.
We can't perceive the exponential growth because we're living in it's vortex. I guess I want to preserve this blog post until at least 2030 because many good things can and will happen in 18 years. I'd still be healthy and young in spirit in 2030. Just look at how much the world has changed in the past 5 years! There was no iPhone. Two and a half years ago, there was no iPad, imagine that?!? We're taking progress for granted, but most of us only see the bad stuff.
My parents were workers in the socialist Yugoslavia, no executive positions in my family until I became an entrepreneur by my own choosing :) My parents' parents barely had personal income and jobs, or had none. I'm an entrepreneur, so in two generations, my family traveled from workers in the field to entrepreneurs who choose their own destiny.
I'm keeping an above-average positive attitude, and I'm grateful for your contribution to my little blog ;)
Visnja Zeljeznjak on November 22, 2012
Great post, Višnja.
We as humans have thousands of years of experience living from a place of scarcity. The fact of the matter is this is an outdated world view. There is more food, clean energy, money, etc than ever before.
This reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from the Upanishads,
"All this is full. All that is full.
From fullness, fullness comes.
When fullness is taken from fullness,
Fullness still remains."
Thanks for the post.
Noah Lampert on August 15, 2012