When you stop chasing money and start focusing on doing what you love, it creates a profound paradigm shift that's hard to contain, and you feel compelled to share with others what you've discovered from the depths of your life. I want to tell you about Bitcoin, but more than that, I want us to engage in a mental exercise.
This idea came to me while navigating the waters of Stacker News when @cryotosensei shared a reflection on mental health and Bitcoin from a fresh perspective. Allow me to elaborate because I felt identified with it, and I bring it to your consideration.
Mental (un)health
Bitcoin, like the dollar, peso, or ruble, is a form of energy. See it this way, okay? You earn this money when you work hard, and your time and effort are paid with legal credits authorized by a centralized institution, which in this case is the Central Bank/Federal Reserve. But what happens? From higher up, much higher, in the name of stability, in the name of your own person, they make macroeconomic adjustments to stimulate the economy, or simply put, they take away the value of the credits you hold in your hands.
So what do you do? You start to worry and ask yourself, what happened? From the microphones, they'll tell you it's not their fault they took that measure; it's the evil market that forced them to do it, it's the people's fault for not buying, not consuming, not investing, hiding money under their mattress, and let your imagination run wild with the thousands of other excuses they might make. And then you say, okay, maybe if I work more, I can reach my goal.
So you work more, not just Monday to Friday but also on weekends because you've seen how other people are doing the same, and they tell you not to complain, that's how the economy works, and you have to suck it up. Your rest is on the floor, your mind is exhausted, wondering if you'll make it to the end of the month, you've entered survival mode, and still, it's not enough. You see how your savings in your bank simply lose value. That 1,000,000 from 10 years ago today doesn't even cover half your needs. But it's your fault; they made the adjustments they had to make to survive the macroeconomy.
So you work more, now from 8 hours to 16 hours, you no longer sleep well, you don't have time to cook, let alone buy fresh foods, and it's a vicious circle that leads to mental exhaustion because without realizing it, my dear reader, they are robbing you through inflation. And it affects your mental health. But then comes a moment of clarity, a moment of respite, and that respite from your money melting away comes in the form of currency called Bitcoin.
Mental switch
And you start saving in Bitcoin, you see your savings fluctuate in the short term, which worries you, but then you zoom out and see that Bitcoin has a strict monetary policy fully encoded in its own protocol, and you no longer make any effort to save your money because now your money is shielded against inflation.
People laugh at your decision, say you're crazy, that there are no governments regulating it and that it will go to zero, that it will crash, that everything will end when someone gives the final blow, but you keep researching, and nothing they said would happen more than ten years ago has happened. People keep using it, it keeps growing, and it keeps helping many people because finally, the money is safe, allowing you to focus on other things you enjoy: teaching, writing, promoting precisely what helped you in your life, and today your mental health no longer worries about whether your money will last until next month because your goal is set for five years, ten years. You can plan for a future because you see it.
And it won't make you a millionaire, it's not a get-rich-quick scheme, it helps you concentrate on your projects and escape the maze of horror. Meanwhile, while you throw the lifeline to others, they yawn, ignore you, let the circle continue, or trust that institutions will simply prevail in power, and there's nothing to be done. But maybe they can, they just don't want to anymore. There's nothing to do there, except to throw them the lifeline in the form of satoshis when they need it. And this is my story, today problems are faced in the long term because I have an element by my side that makes me think about the future.
I recommend the same to you, my friend, think about the future. Buy satoshis.