Don't Like Capitalism? What if we just stopped performing it.

I know what you’re thinking: “But we can’t. It’s ubiquitous. It’s all around us.”
Yes, it is all around us.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t stop performing it.

Let me explain.

Capitalism Is Not All That Clever

Capitalism, like the tech bros who live and die by its dictates, is really not all that clever. It depends on one simple premise that no one really even believes:

Money > everything else.

Capitalism demands that we believe money to be the best thing ever and the way to “win” in life is to spend all of the energy we have–personally, professionally, and environmentally–to collect more money. And if you win capitalism, you get to live on your own private island while the world burns.

I’ve never met anyone who wants to win that game. Yeah, yeah. I know. Bezos and Musk and Zuckerberg and Trump and tech bros do. But I’ve never met any of them. Nor do I want to.

I like hanging out with good, decent people. And dogs.
So I repeat: I’ve not met a single person who wants to win that game.

When reduced to this simple, yet stupefying premise, it's a wonder that something that makes so little sense has gained such a foothold. Somehow, it has managed to seep into our collective conscience as an unavoidable truism.

Permission to Just Stop Performing Capitalism. Full Stop.

Contrary to what 'they' want you to believe, however, capitalism is neither unavoidable nor inevitable. In fact, it's not even all that powerful. Most of us perform it only half-heartedly anyway. The people I know, the people with whom I love spending time, care more about their families, communities, giving something back, paying even more forward, and creating a better world than they do about money.

Why is it, then, that we all labor on with heavy hearts and extreme exhaustion performing capitalism while we wait for the “powers that be” to give us permission to stop.

I genuinely have no idea. There is no reason for it.

So, while I may not be a “power that be,” I am now giving you permission to stop performing capitalism.
Better yet, I’m going to give you a framework for doing it.

The New Framework: Energy > Money

Instead of being motivated by money, be motivated by your energy.

That’s it. That’s the whole framework.

The New Framework: Explained

I see that you’re intrigued, and you want more, so let me explain.

Think about how decisions are made when we perform capitalism: ROI.
Everything is all about ROI.
Do more of the things that make us more money; do less of the things that don’t make us more money.

The carrot at the end of that energy- and life-draining stick is that, once we have enough money, we can start doing things that make life worth living.

The capitalism framework in a nutshell:

• Wealth
  - Spend energy that would otherwise go to health, self, and relationships to maximize ROI on money.
  - Use that money to buy back our health, self, and relationships.
  - Reinvest renewed energy from health, self, and relationships into making more money.

• Health:
  - Spend money to recover the health we lost while making money.
  - Gym memberships, sleep aids, buying healthier foods, actually cooking those healthier foods, hiring a private chef???? (don’t I wish).
  - Reinvest renewed energy from health to maximize ROI on money.

• Self:
  - Spend money to recover from the loss of self resulting from pretending to be someone else 8+ hours a day while at work.
  - Self-care, therapy, vacations, anything to “recharge” from the grind that is work.
  - Reinvest renewed energy from recovered sense of self to maximize ROI on money.

• Relationships:
  - Spend money trying to recover the connections lost because we’re at work 8+ hours a day.
  - Movies, social media, video games–anything to make us feel like we’re not alone or, even worse, make us forget that we are.
  - Reinvest renewed energy from pretending we have relationships to maximize ROI on money.

What if we flipped it.
What if, instead of viewing wealth as an abundance of money and a prerequisite to a life well lived, we viewed wealth as an abundance of energy and the result of a life well lived.

Maximizing the ROI on energy instead of money looks like this:

• Health: The ROI on energy invested in yourself.

• Self: The ROI on energy invested in authenticity.

• Relationships: The ROI on energy invested in others.

• Wealth: The abundance of energy, in any form, that you can use to create.

Notice anything interesting?

When we de-center money, the first three things on the list don’t cost any. You can maximize the ROI on health, self, and relationships without spending a dime. They simply require an investment of energy.

The last thing on the list, wealth, includes energy in any form. Abundance of energy from health, abundance of energy from a strong, authentic sense of self, and abundance of energy from thriving relationships. And, yes, it also includes money, but as a by-product of a creative life well lived, not because we've sold our lives to collect it.

The best part of this system is simple. You don’t have to make any big changes. Just a subtle, yet effective mindset shift:

Is this thing I’m doing worth the energy I'm giving it?
The question applies across the board: health, self, relationships and, yes, wealth...which includes but isn't centered on, money.
If not, what adjustments can I make?
Simple adjustments, compounded over time, will reshape everything.

And then what?

In the coming weeks, I’ll be diving deeper into what adjustment looks like in each of these three areas. You'll see that you don’t have to quit your job and sell all your things (though I cannot promise that you won't want to).

The shift is subtle and you can keep on keeping on pretty much as you are. Simply making that internal mindset shift and watching how it changes everything around you will be change enough. Once you get the feel for it, you'll be ready for more.

To replace capitalism, however, we don’t need some cataclysmic event or cosmic permission. We simply need to stop performing it and to stop performing it, we need to stop believing in it. As more and more of us come to realize that there are better, more meaningful ways to spend our energy the trash that is capitalism will take itself out.

Here's to creating something better. See you next week.