How to Make a Positive Contribution in Your Profession

I learned today that historically mental health and substance abuse diagnosis have been treated separately. New programs have been launched, with the help of government sponsored grants, that have started integrating treatment for these conditions. While I am supportive of the integration, I am skeptical of the influence of fiat money. 

Arguably medical professionals have seen the connection and need for integrated treatment for years, but their practices have been limited by the opinions of insurance companies and other monied interests. While doctors, nurses, therapists, psychiatrists, and case workers have a myriad of motivations for why they joined the medical profession, it seems that good healthcare workers would judge the quality of their work by outcomes, their practice’s integration with the truth, and the net contribution they are able to make to a more positive, healthy, and prosperous world. It doesn’t seem like counting the number of dollars they were able to accumulate by earning the approval of insurance companies and government bureaucrats would be the measuring stick of success, though many people across all professions conflate these two. I remember seeing an example of this conflation in The Big Short. Skip to 5:19 to get the fusion of value and dollars brought to you by a Wall Street executive.

The Big Short (2015) - Mark Baum (Steve Eisman) Meets a CDO Manager [HD 1080p]

M. Chau to Mark Baum: “You think I’m a parasite don’t you Mr. Baum? But apparently society values me very much. In fact let’s do this. I’ll tell you how much I’m worth if you tell me how much you’re worth.”

Are Dollars A Good Measurement of Value to Society?

My belief is that individuals, inspired by truth and the hope of a better world, aligned voluntarily with others who are also inspired, are a far greater source of creativity, innovation, and wealth than well-trained and compliant professionals who measure their success and worth by how well they please insurance companies and government bureaucrats. I believe we must choose to make our contributions to society (whether it be in the fields of medicine, food production, energy, housing, technology, or any other profession) outside of the captured interests of insurance, government grants, or any other form of dollar denominated monied interests. We must value our contributions in terms of a positive, healthy, high-quality, durable, nutritious, and prosperous world and trade our gifts, talents, capabilities, and resources in exchange for that better world. Trading in dollars only strengthens the blind, incompetent, and potentially malevolent interests of those who can print dollars or those who can influence the makers and the taxers of those dollars. That world looks like corruption. We may have more dollars in that world, but the world we will spend them in is increasingly decaying away into mental health disorders, substance addictions, homelessness, domestic violence, gun violence, riots, school shootings, broken homes, terrorism, disease, obesity, consumerism, and death. Who cares if the government and insurance companies are finally getting around to integrating treatment for mental health and substance abuse when they are contributing to the environment that causes these illness in the first place! I am reminded on this point of the pictures I saw of Aleppo a few years ago. Before the outbreak of the Syrian war, Aleppo was a historic metropolis, declared an "Islamic Capital of Culture". Now it’s a city of ruins as you can see from the picture below. Military contractors were awarded millions of dollars to destroy Aleppo. Now they have millions of dollars but Aleppo is gone…

What good are dollars in that world? 

What does it profit a military contractor to earn a billion dollars yet destroy the city he lives in?

What benefit is it to be an admired, well paid professional in a world gone mad? 

Are we so blinded by consumerism and comparison that we can’t see that we are competing to have the nicest house in a city of ruins?

If we are to make a positive contribution in our professions and build a prosperous, honest, authentic, and beautiful world, we must commit to putting up boundaries around our relationship with fiat (eg dollars). We must treat our relationship to the dollar and other forms of fiat as an addiction. The pleasure we get from making a buck is like the buzz we get from a drink or the high we get from injecting heroin into our veins. It’s not the same as real pleasure and joy!

We must diagnose our relationships to the regulatory and governing bodies powered by the dollar as unhealthy, abusive, and co-dependent, and leave that relationship, separating from the abuse. 

Otherwise we are inviting our own destruction and handing our children over to a world of rubble and decay. 

How do we do this? 

First, Affirm yourself and speak your being forward

Affirmations: What are they good for?

1. I am capable of making a lasting contribution to my world
2. I am wealth and magnetically attracting my wants and needs 
3. I am capable of making those around me strong, aware, grateful, and successful
4. I am able to value the exchange of my work in terms other than fiat dollars, collaborating with others so that I feel inspired to shops up for others and they feel inspired to show up for me
5. I am capable of expanding my vision of what’s possible for myself and others 
6. I am able to identify gifted and resourceful people to help me achieve my goals and motivate their brilliance and eagerness to help 
7. I will maximize my gifts and share them with boldness, courage, confidence to myself, my family, and my community 
8. I am able to define and deliver good services and good products without the dictates or opinions of a third party
9. I will be shockingly successful 
10. I am willing to take on any challenge with grace and resiliency 
11. I am capable of thriving in an environment absent an authority dictating morality, value, and definitions of money or wealth 
12. I am considerate of myself and others by practicing expressing my freedom creatively, socially, and politically in my thoughts, speech, and actions 
13. I use my freedom to build wealth for myself and a world of peace and prosperity, free from fear and mindlessness.  

Second, gather your community with the vision of a better world

The dollar has a way of isolating us and treating each other like vending machines. A world of prosperity, peace, and wealth is one of authenticity, respectful, and inspiring relationships where we do good things for each other simply because we want to live in a world where our gifts are allowed to be manifested. The best way I can see doing this initially is through hosting community clubs that read books that explore the power of vulnerability and authentic living like The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown or the nature of quality money like The Bitcoin Standard or the Fiat Standard by Saifedean Ammous. This is what I am doing as soon as I can walk from my ACL Surgery. I encourage you to do the same within your community. 

Here is a fuller explanation of that strategy: Goals and Strategies: What I Am Doing To Build A Better World

Third, ask people if they are able to pay you in something other than dollars. Explain why.

• I’ve written about Why dollars aren’t my favorite form of exchange here. Sometimes all you need to do is tell the truth and ask if you can pay them some other way.
• You can send them the Declaration of Monetary Independence to see the larger community of honest money advocates.
• You can ask them if they are able to pay you in another type of money like gold, silver, or bitcoin
• I buy my gold and silver from https://www.apmex.com/. 
• Consider a form of barter like Chiropractor adjustments for Beef or babysitting for a hosted meal at your house. Remember, there is value all around you and community is a benefit!
• Be generous with your talents, resources, and gifts. Sometimes we will have an opportunity to make a contribution to a world of wealth, health, and prosperity and living in that world will be our sole reward. For those opportunities, I like what Brene Brown says in her book The Gifts of Imperfection 
• “We all have gifts and talents. When we cultivate those gifts and share them with the world, we create a sense of meaning and purpose in our lives.
• Squandering our gifts brings distress to our lives. As it turns out, it’s not merely benign or “too bad” if we don’t use the gifts that we’ve been given; we pay for it with our emotional and physical well-being. When we don’t use our talents and cultivate meaningful work, we struggle. We feel disconnected and weighed down by feelings of emptiness, frustration, resentment, shame, disappointment, fear, and even grief.
• Most of us who are searching for spiritual connect spend too much time looking up at the sky and wondering why God lives so far away. God lives within us, not above us. Sharing our gifts and talents with the world is the most powerful source of connection with God.” (142, 143)

Fourth, help those who want to build a more prosperous world break free from the dollar.

I think it would a good idea for someone who can build a website that allows people to describe their gifts, resources, talents, and capabilities and also discuss what they want in life would be a really useful tool for this burgeoning community. It would be like a social media site where people could sort by talents but also search by people who need certain things. Maybe you have a bunch of eggs and you need someone to come cut your grass. You could search for people who need eggs and see if any of them offer lawn mowing services. 

Eventually, I am sure that people will start accepting and trading in forms of money that are durable, divisible, portable, and scarce like humans have always done when free to choose their own form of money. Until then and until the monied interests of fiat lose their influence, we will likely need to be creative in our exchanges. 

Fifth, as much as possible, don’t trade your services or product for dollars knowing you are starving the destructive power of fiat. If you sell a car, a home, oil, medical services, or food for fiat, you are empowering the system of money printing and captured special interest. If no one is willing to trade dollars for goods, no amount of money printing or taxation will increase the influence of government or those who corrupt and benefit from government influence. Withholding your gifts only for non-fiat is the only way to imprison fiat dollars where they belong. 

Final note, 

Thanks for reading this far!!! Right now I see there being a congruence of criticisms of the current capitalist state coming together and I feel like we are living in a time of absurdity before things start to change. I hope to provide some words to usher along my small community on the edge of the movement ◡̈