And Freedom For All…
It’s like an old horror movie where the vampire is hiding behind the curtain: we know he’s there. The secondary character in the movie sees him there. The main character misses all the cues that proves he’s there. Yet, with panicked sobbing and tears streaming down her face she limps forward slowly creeping up on his hiding place. We pan in on a close up of our damsel with her knife held high and shaking as she sobs even louder, choking her breathing. We flip between her close up and the villain’s. Her desperation and his evil anticipation reach a frenzied pitch as the violins and drums beat louder and faster whipping us into a heightened sense of panic and…
Cut scene. We’re brought out of the theater and into today. You’re sitting at your computer in your fuzzy slippers sipping coffee that’s gone a little cold and more bitter as you read this article.
“Me? What the heck do I have to do with this?” You think.
I’ll tell you: we’re in a horror movie. Our world is full of vampires, deceit and broken promises for our growing class of the working impoverished. Don’t think you’re part of that class? Ask yourself one question: if I lost my income today, how long before I begin to fall into debt. It doesn’t have to be massive “My house is being auctioned off and I’m going to be on the street with nary the clothes on my back.” No, it could be paying your bills with credit cards, making minimum payments, adding revolving debt or taking out a loan just to bridge the gap. If you would fall into that category within 6 months then you’re broke.
Ouch! That’s pretty harsh. Well, yeah. But so is reality. I believe our system is broken and we’ve entered into a vicious cycle. Jobs are not getting us where we want to go. College teaches us to get a job instead of starting our own business and impoverishes us in the process. We graduate and take jobs paying far less than they thought they would. And then we start to default on our student loans making taxpayers pay off the debt we left… And we are now also the taxpayers! Colleges and corporations are the vampires. We are the damsels in distress. The top 2% income earners are the supporting characters.
In my opinion the system needs an overhaul. College is a joke for many people. It doesn’t teach any skills that couldn’t be learned in 6 months on the job with a good mentor. (Now, if you’re studying medicine you’ll need some extra study time because if you’re going to open my chest and perform open heart surgery I’d prefer you to have an education level that’s better than watching a few episodes of greys anatomy). I believe instead of school we should be allowed to take a job in our field of study, even as an unpaid intern, doing the job we want as a career. We should be assigned a coach or we could hire a private business coach. Then, with the help of our coach, we can start our own business. Maybe that coach continues to help us and earns a type of franchise fee, say 5% of the business profits. Terms and further dealings are easy to figure out.
How would this help? We’d have a bunch of people who run successful businesses and coaches who want them to succeed. There’s a financial interest in both parts. The new business owner gets 95% of the profit (there’s motivation) and the mentor gets 5% (more motivation). This leaves the coach to then help another newcomer and collect an additional 5% fee from another business. The mentor would eventually earn enough residual to create financial independence. By this time the newcomer is no longer a newcomer and has started the process of mentoring new newcomers. And on and on. This could create a system of paying it forward where everyone’s success is tied together and we all live happily ever after.
It’s a dream. It’s riddled with many challenges. But as a whole who’s to say it’s not an effective alternative to what we’re doing now?
Fire away on the opinions.