Beautiful. Just Beautiful

Thanks to Beppo Grillo for this Robert Kennedy video and his speech about Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

I remember hearing this speech years ago. It coincided during my concerned awareness and disillusionment with the financial services industry.

My practical senses tell me that up to a point it is important to measure the "financial health" of our nations. However, it felt like overkill at times. The excessive jargon and analysis was simply brutal and might I add gave the sense of a false sense of importance. It gave the impression that people were just inventing terms to justify they exist or their salaries.

My spiritual, critical and intellectual thoughts made me wonder just what exactly what we were looking for. They say everything should be moderation. It's the same with work.

In my opinion, we've been conditioned to believe "our careers" come first. As a result, we fail at the game of life. We need to take a step back, take a deep breath and go spend time with the family. Go walk on the beach. Hangout with friends. They do this in many parts of the world - though here too one can get a little excessive in enjoying life a little too much sleeping under that apple tree. You don't want to be too relaxed either.

Then I saw this speech and it crystallized further what was incubating in my mind. So what the market capitalization is x-amount for certain nations? Impressive as it is in many ways it's not the only thing we need to look at. Quality over quantity! No?

I'll close with this. Following a long day, I once had a conversation with my former partner. We were sharing whiskey and he took the opportunity to peruse my mind. What followed during the chat showed how we were far apart in our philosophies on life.

He asked me, "If your wife got sick during work hours what would you do?"

I knew where he was going with this. It was a set up. He knew what I was going to say and without admitting it he would use it against me as "proof" that I was not "committed" to the business. It was all part of a ploy to not pay me my cut which was owed to me. I can't prove this of course but it was pretty clear. Despite setting up a funnel of lucrative referrals for him that remains to this day.

I didn't bite on his trickery. I proceeded with the truth.

"I would go and tend to her. I would do the same for anybody else close to me." I continued to make my case. "We are accorded a luxury. You have a successful practice that runs itself. All we need is to steer it with wisdom, respect and hard work. It gives us the ability to take advantage of certain things people are not lucky enough to have."

He didn't agree. He wanted to show he was all "business."

"But you would return to work?"

Aside from the absurdity of the question - I lived 40 minutes from work - I decided to play along.

"Yes, I would."

But I didn't like uttering those words nor did I believe them.

I left displeased of my situation about my career and life. I've been searching ever since.

Still, with the economic set up as it is what can one do? It's not easy to build a life outside the rules of the game. How many people are trapped this way? Made to feel guilty in wanting to live?