Sarah Nyhan

I had a wallet for over fourteen years. Surprisingly bought it from Walmart way back when. The words on the front of the wallet are: “money doesn’t grow on” and then there is a picture of a tree. Ironic to me that it is only now starting to break down and need to be replaced. Maybe I’m finally learning the lesson.

How did I get to this point?

A vocal majority of my family were all wage earners for the most part. Where you get the most education: Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Ph.D.’s. Then you go work for one company, preferably the federal government or some other government-affiliated entity. Score your retirement. Then go on and do other work. And maybe go start some side businesses.

Super industrious people. Very hard workers. But also very risk-averse. Which can be a good thing sometimes.

But I feel like a major shift happened in my generation.

I heard all my life to go to college and get a government job, I think that stunted my growth a bit as it pertains to how much the world changed from the time that worked for my grandparents until my time.

I went into these companies expecting them to be invested in me. And appreciate me. I went into the office each time hoping this would be the one I could retire from.

But I learned the hard way. And I think that was really discouraging.

I am expendable. I am a line item on a balance sheet for most of these corporations. Unless you find a mom and pop with some rare level of care, you can be sure these big corporations are working full-time to figure out how to get as much production out of you for the least amount of money. And ideally how to replace you with technology.

Forget getting the retirements our grandparents have been vacationing in Florida with for the past three decades. Those days are gone for most.

On one hand I’m for capitalism and respect the game. It is what it is. But there’s something inherently unfair about executives not even paying their employees a living wage. While the executives pilfer the profits for millions and millions of dollars a year in compensation. And then manipulate the market to inflate prices to take back the few measly dollars they doled out to their slaves.

Honestly, after keeping track of every single dollar I spend, my guilt over my financial state has been almost completely erased. Because I realized I almost NEVER spend any money on anything other than the absolute necessities for survival. I don’t even buy new clothes unless they are for work.

But otherwise, almost every single dollar I spend goes to one of three categories: a roof over my head, vehicle expenses so I can work, and food expenses so I can have the energy to work. That’s literally it.

And I can’t get ahead because wages are basically still at the prices they were when I was in high school. But the cost of living has nearly quadrupled since then. And that’s, in my opinion, a direct result of greedy executives and incompetent and/or greedy corrupt politicians.

What is the answer?

Well, I’ll give you what I think is the real answer first.

The only way I see out is to become stronger. To work smarter, not harder.

To either find some money and figure out how to invest it at a higher rate of return than inflation.

Or to find a need in the market and create a business to solve a problem. The good news being that there are SO MANY opportunities left open by greedy corporations in that respect. Honestly, in some ways things being bad as they are is the best time to start a business. Because if you can find a way to relieve people’s points of pain then when the word gets out, business will be booming. Just ask those in the pain med business – illegal or otherwise subsidized by the government.

Drugs destroyed the United States. No great surprise that they say the flood of fentanyl is from China. What a great way to disable your competition! Just keep them all so busy chasing dope that they are distracted and immobilized when it comes to maintaining their lead and continuing the race.

We got caught. But we’re still America in the sense that at least on paper we still have our freedoms. Which those of us born here frankly don’t appreciate enough. As much bad as we think is embedded here, people are STILL risking their lives every day all day to do whatever it takes to make it to this country. That should say something like: WAKE UP, AMERICANS!!! All is not lost, there is still opportunity to get back in the game!

But I think religion has been one of the biggest hinderances to that effect. And I didn’t fall victim to drugs, but I certainly got caught up in the church. I think that’s actually one of the biggest factors in why I am where I am financially.

I was thinking the other day that it’s incredibly convenient for preachers to push faith so hard. I mean you gotta push faith to make people give you their money every paycheck just in return for sitting and listening to you speak.

I personally think it’s crazy to spend hundreds of dollars to go to Coachella or to a Beyonce or Taylor Swift concert. But then I looked back in my old records to find that one year I gave over four thousand dollars to Joel Osteen and I wasn’t even going to his physical location. And then I think he even had the audacity to charge for copies of his talks if you wanted to download them.

But it’s not just Joel. I roll through the most dilapidated parts of towns and guess what I see on almost every major street corner? A church building. All denominations, but mostly Protestant here in America. For all they rage about other faiths, at least in this country it is the Protestants I see pilfering the communities who are struggling the most. Big old buildings surrounded by communities mostly losing the battle of survival.

Is it any wonder than in the most affluent parts of town, it is the business people versus the preachers who are living the best?

How in good conscience can a preacher ask people for money to finance his lifestyle when the people’s houses and cars are literally falling apart, their families are barely able to eat, etc.?

Maybe shame on Joel sitting up in his big house and taking a dollar from anyone whose standard of living is less than his. But maybe shame more so on the great majority of lesser-known preachers who do this on maybe millions of street corners all over America every day. Because we should be smart enough to see someone like Joel and walk away. But it’s a bit more deceiving when it’s your own brother. You’d think you should be able to trust them to be looking out for you.

But how are preachers any different than the local hood drug dealers? The dope dealers live more extravagant lifestyles by ruining their communities. Sure, the poverty of the churched is more socially acceptable, but how are the hope dealers that much different? Each exploiting people’s pain.

Preachers do it differently; not so unlike the old travelling snake oil charlatans. Preachers tell people to finance their religious organization in exchange for some day God coughing up financial rewards if they prove themselves enough.

And the preacher always has some new excuse for why you gave the preacher a significant chunk of your time, labor, and the funds for your survival and God hasn’t returned the favor yet. How convenient.

And let me break it down for you: the preacher’s excuse is always that you aren’t doing enough. After you’ve done what they told you was necessary to manipulate God into solving your problems, and it hasn’t worked, their answer is always: do more, give more. Whether that be financially, physically, emotionally, etc.

At the end of the day, if you had just redirected all of that energy towards ACTUALLY making it in the real world of business, versus the lottery of giving your efforts to the preacher, then you would have LONG since been financially and otherwise successful. Your problems would have already long since been solved.

But then the preacher would have had to go out and get a job if he wasn’t so busy telling you to take from your family to give to his. Gasp! Or he’d have to go beyond preaching theory to people and actually do the great amount of effort it takes to make it in the cutthroat world of business. Rather than just standing at a podium and getting paid to pass judgement on everyone else without actually having to prove themselves in a real and fair competition.

There are probably a handful of preachers that actually have successful careers and businesses. But the majority I see are just talking heads. A lot of men who failed to make it in the market. But somehow each figured out how to manipulate people into providing for them by peddling a lot of false hope to those looking for Jesus and spiritual relief.

I’m not saying it’s wrong to express your thanks to someone who has blessed you. I’m talking about a whole culture of religious people who have been taught that the way to solve their financial problems is to give preachers a significant chunk of resources they really don’t have to spare in order to manipulate God into magically providing for you at some unknown time in the future. And if God hasn’t provided yet then that just means you need to give more.

That’s mainly why I am where I am. Because I had a lot of faith in God. I was so sure He Loved me. And if all I had to do was prove my devotion, then I was all for that.

And it wasn’t just giving the preacher my money, labor, and time. No, it was going the extra mile to show I wasn’t dependent on “worldly” things at all. Not even emotionally. I didn’t need friends or love. You could have it all. My opportunities for marriage and children. For some rest in my old age. For a Saturday night on a a beach somewhere just enjoying the ocean and a good margarita. No, that was selfish. Didn’t I care about people burning eternally in hell?!

Meanwhile I’m no damn good to anyone because I don’t even have enough for myself. Oh, I can preach you to death, though. Following right in their footsteps without even realizing it.

The biggest surprise to me was that God wasn’t going to bail me out. For good reasons that I could go on and on about another time. But let me save you the trouble I’ve been through: God will allow you to get as far down as it takes for you to wake up. And for me, that took almost losing everything. Sleeping my car, not even having enough money for food.

I finally told God that I didn’t have enough faith when I didn’t even have enough money to buy gas in order to go work. That was my bottom. That’s when I woke up.

Because I didn’t think it was anyone else’s responsibility to provide for me when I clearly had the ability to work. And that was the next step: asking someone to support a grown ass adult. No, I didn’t think that was right at all. That couldn’t be Jesus. That’s when I woke up.

I’ve experienced miracles before. Of people providing for me without even knowing my need. Without me even asking. That was Jesus.

But me getting so far down that I have to ask people for money or help. When I have the ability to work. No, maybe you can but I cannot see that as Jesus. I’m a grown adult. I think we inherently feel a deep level of shame that is correctly associated with not providing for ourselves when we know we could have if we had put in more effort.

I think God Loves me so much that He let me get that bad. Because that’s what it took to get all that stinking religious thinking out of me. So that I could live a better life in the long run. So that I would feel more empowered, more confident when I realized the world was completely open to me in accordance with how much effort I wanted to spend to get what I want.

And actually the news is even better. To know that God is on my side is a competitive advantage. Not that God isn’t on the side of my competitors also. But if they count Him out of the equation then I can’t help but win. Because I have the best consultant available to help me succeed when I go to God for direction in business. Tons of ideas come to me that I wouldn’t have otherwise had. Because God is for ALL of us!

You want to know the grace of God?! I have basically had no housing expenses because God helped me cross paths with someone who told me about how to do housesitting professionally. So while I was working all this other religious shit out, God had my back before I even knew I was going to need it so bad. So while I am struggling to understand how money and work factor into my faith, God gave me a safe and very comfortable place to land and work from. Other people’s beautiful homes even though I don’t have my own. Now, THAT’S God! That’s mercy.

But people don’t want God. Not the god preached by the hypocritical preachers. For good reason. So they walk away, but there is still a huge organic void where the real God should be. So they look to politicians or businessmen or celebrities or even their own families – biological, spiritual, and otherwise – to fill that space. And that’s exactly why we are where we are. Locally, nationally, and globally. We are looking for everyone else to solve our problems.

That’s why God let me get here. To help me see my value and my worth. To help me find my confidence and strength. When the preachers expressly discouraged me from doing so.

Guess what I found out?! When the preachers told me my only hope was God, God told me that my real hope is myself. In that every single human being on this planet is valuable. Every single human being on this planet is needed. Every single human being on this planet has something of value to contribute to the rest of the planet. And that’s how things are going to get better. If every single person values themselves. If they realize that what they individually bring to the table is what is going to save us.

I think people like Elon Musk have either through desperation or the more unlikely situation – encouragement from others – discovered their strength and power. And what we need right now is a world of Elon Musks. A world of people to wake up and stop waiting on God to bail us out. We need a world of people to realize their potential is more than to sit in front of a screen and cry enough to get someone else to dish them out enough crumbs so that they aren’t in absolute distress.

What would the world look like if everyone showed up? What would the world look like if the kid who can’t sit still in Sunday school class was given free reign carte blanche to go explore his strengths without any shame?

What if the chief end of man is not sitting around singing hymns and paying preachers to remind us that some day God might drop a few dimes; but until then keep sitting and waiting, reminding other people to sit and wait also?

What if God gave us these brains and muscles to USE! These hearts and bodies to LOVE! In real time with real results! With REAL benefits and rewards. With real compensation.

How could it be wrong for people who love the REAL Jesus to be running the world financially? How could that be detrimental?

Somehow God doesn’t stop people with no regard for others to make it financially. Somehow they are able to figure it out. So, why not you?

This glorification of poverty is bullshit and I am completely over it. There is nothing spiritual about it for the sake of.

You’ve been lied to. I’ve been lied to. And we get to decide when we’re done with this song and dance. With this dog and pony show of religion.

I haven’t lost Jesus at all. Much the opposite. But I finally found myself. Created to do and be so much more than I was ever told before.

We need each other. And I want you to also wake up to how much more you are than you ever knew!! That’s how things are going to get better. That’s the only way.

Or you can keep paying your preacher to live comfortably as he tells you to keep looking up at the sky hoping to see some magical deliverance descend from the clouds one bright morning.