your cage
Success is a matter of environment. This is what I’m learning from observing my failures. Willpower, discipline, how much you fear losing, these things mean nothing compared to your position.
You may think you’re free — but your environment, not you, dictates your powers and restrictions. Where you live determines where you work and how you get there. Who you know determines your opportunities in a world run by people, not by systems. Your country of residence shapes your social freedoms and tax agenda. Your family history and ethnic background often set the stage for your socioeconomic play. With all these control structures, and all these decisions, what freedoms are left to the striving victim of circumstance?
Small freedoms
For one, we’re afforded the power of consumer preference. We can choose what we buy and it feels powerful! We can express who we are through the consumer decisions we make on what to buy. Above just being another rational agent for survival we apportion disposable income for cash-assisted self-expression. Consumer freedoms let us change our environments momentarily, but permanent changes lie just out of reach of everyday means.
So given consumer preference, discipline, willpower and working until exhaustion only stretch so far, what can we actually do to change our environments?
Large freedoms
It all starts with location. Everywhere there are different stories to be lived out. If you live in Christchurch, New Zealand like I do, your location dictates you pay over $100 in rent each week. You eat the local food, drink the local water and socialize locally. The food is passable, the water clean and the people genuine but in winter your story will be punctuated with remoteness, rain, dark days and being uncomfortably cold.
So location determines the rules of your game to a large extent. No wonder the wealthiest among us place such importance on being able to move about quickly. They know that location trumps wealth for being able to exercise freedom of choice.
Location isn’t everything though. Summertime in Christchurch affords the experience of jandals, missions, long warm nights, smiles and deep appreciation of the outdoors. Would you want to live here? Only in the summer months. Where affords you nothing without a well selected when.
So the most important freedoms we can claim are choosing where we’ll be and when we’ll be there. When people are punished for crimes they may be fined but the most severe of punishments is having these freedoms revoked. The working condition of self-imprisonment sacrifices much for gaining false financial stability.
In a recession this is even more evident. Those with jobs are searching the horizon for dry land while the ship sinks beneath them. Sometimes you have to swim for a bit but then it’s all palm trees and tropical cocktails, or snow and sheep depending on your refuge.
Where is the success?
What does success boil down to then? Assuming the benchmarks for achievement are clearly defined, it’s all a matter of where and when. You may not be able to enjoy work and life in the same place. Sometimes the perfect combination is impossible but people are seldom in their environment by conscious choice.
Changes of location aren’t permanent and what exists now will fade in time wether you’re there or not, so why not explore more while you’re free to?