#you can ask stuff ig but I probably won’t look into the inbox for a while lol

[aeternitas-cvau]

Idk anything about yugioh but I had to make a trading god with our own made up gods for my Color Theory/21st Literature project and you know damn well imma go out and drop a lore bomb to my professor (which is required lol fjnfuchdkcdnc)

(Tynan isn’t done yet, alongside another guy, but maybe I’ll post after this sem’s done just one more W E E K)

#i hate being an anim student /j :’))) #you can ask stuff ig but I probably won’t look into the inbox for a while lol #hetalia au #hetalia oc #chessverse au #aelia the night’s beloved #nyo 2p england #2p nyo england #2ptalia #2p hetalia

[icecreamscoup]

hi friends, you guys gotta stop letting the toxic milkvans get to you :( i keep seeing asks in this tag along the lines of “the medicines saw our proof slides and laughed at them so what do we even have anymore :((“

guys, we have the same thing we’ve always had. we have a non canon ship that has a decent chance of becoming canon two whole years from now. byler is only canon from one end currently and there’s decent evidence to suggest that ig could become requited in s5.

magnifying glasses laughing at some doc someone made for our ship does not mean shit. they’re just trying to intimidate you because the only backup for their claim is that the ship is canon. their arguments are always either “it wouldn’t make narrative sense because m1leven has been built up since s1!” (it makes narrative sense for relationships to take unexpected turns and it happens a lot), “mike said he loves her!” (it took eleven on her deathbed for him to say it in a kind of shitty way), or “mike is straight!” (not confirmed). none of their arguments disprove that byler can happen. it’s still possible that it won’t, but you guys aren’t crazy for looking for stuff in the background that the creators of the show told us are there. milkvan enjoyers don’t write the show and neither do we, it’s anyone’s game.

They’re so obviously insecure about byler possibly going canon already and our numbers on this platform are probably threatening for them. There are literally tens of thousands more of us and they’re flooding our inboxes with hate, which is not something ive seen happen to them, even though it could on a way bigger scale due to our numbers (please don’t go harass them though, that would make it worse). their whole community is made up of insecure bullies that are going to keep doing whatever they can to take any fun away from us that they can, ex: the byler proof slides.

don’t let them ruin things for you because they’re scared they won’t get what they want. just block their tag and have fun :)

#byler #don’t waste your time on them

[mallowstep]

okay, i got an ask about an alternative to the misty au where leopardstar helps rescue the mistyfoot and featherpaw, so tigerstar ends up punishing her instead, and here's my answer:

cw: sexual assault, parents/children being involved in sexual assault

I had a horrible no good about the Misty AU where Leopardstar helped them escape and....Tigerstar took one of her lives, then...sexually assaulted her while making Mudfur watch until he was sure she was with kits and then he told Mudfur: "Maybe she'll go the same way as her mother." (If this is too dark I apologize immensely.)

hello, anon. let's talk, shall we?

cursory things out of the way, i generally don't mind what people put into my inbox. that said, if you're unsure, you can always ask first. i try to answer "housekeeping" qs as soon as i can.

now, onto the ask itself.

god DAMN is this an idea. poor mudfur. he doesn't deserve going through this. nor does leopardstar.

but like. here's the THING. we were talking about tigerstar's power a while ago and -- he's actually not maximizing his usage of it.

see, he has a thunderclan pov. in thunderclan, leaders and deputies are supposed to be -- a team. that's why they're so often mentors and apprentices. because they're supposed to fight side by side. it's supposed to be a very close relationship.

if you read mtbnsof,

"They will be slaughtered," he said, and really, she should have learned her lesson, because he lunged again, and this time, it wasn't for her shoulders — it hurt, blinding, and her eyes shut — and opened. Squirrelstar was bleeding, but she was still alive. Rosepetal had tackled Bramblestar, before he could complete the blow.

that's like -- the model thunderclan deputy. you're supposed to pick a deputy who you are that close with.

that's (part of) why tigerclaw's betrayal hurts bluestar so much.

but in riverclan -- the leader represents all of riverclan, and the deputy is, their enforcer, perhaps?

they're still a team, and still one of the very close relationships, but you're more likely to see friends and siblings chosen, with the goal of -- balancing each other out.

a thunderclan leader and deputy should not publicly disagree. but a riverclan leader and deputy might.

so -- when tigerstar has stonefur killed, he's trying to prove that he has such power over leopardstar that she wouldn't even intervene to save her own deputy. which does work, but it's not the most effective way to control riverclan.

the most effective way to control riverclan would be to get both leopardstar and stonefur on his side, and then have leopardstar defer to him.

uh. so uh. what's the best way to do that, then? well.

tigerstar just has to threaten mistyfoot and the apprentices to keep stonefur obedient. "just has to" i mean ig what i'm saying is. if your family's lives are on the line, you're pretty damn willing to go along with things.

but -- how does he. win leopardstar.

he has kits with her.

because -- well First of All if riverclan's leader is riverclan, then the leader's kits are -- the future of riverclan. so if leopardstar has kits with tigerstar, then riverclan's future is tigerclan. yeah?

Second of All leopardstar is known to not want kits and not like toms, right? like -- riverclan leaders are under a fair amount of pressure to have kits because that is the future of riverclan.

and she's not leader for long enough for that all to play out, but she was the deputy for a while, and -- riverclan knows her. they know how she feels.

so. no matter how well tigerstar hides it -- riverclan will know that it's not voluntary.

and -- leopardstar is riverclan.

but like i just -- okay so god. this is. fljksd;lal;f; j. back on topic to the actual ask -- it's a very very interesting story. not something i Personally would write i don't think, because. i'm not sure i would do a very good job of it? i don't think i am -- sufficiently visceral, i suppose.

and this feels like something where. you'd want mudfur's realizations.

i think it'd be a punishment for him too, wouldn't it? he must have helped them escape. he must have known.

i think for me. like when i was writing "after the foxes have known our taste," one of the...one of the sections i was most -- invested in? was these two paragraphs.

"To talk." Leopardstar sits next to him, pulling herself in, like if she makes herself smaller, she will absolve herself of the guilt she carries. (And he knows she carries it. He was barely her deputy for a season, but he has known her his whole life. She will never say it — and because she never will, Mistyfoot will never forgive her — but he sees it in her shoulders.) "We used to be friends."

and then

Leopardstar nods, draws herself together. She looks like herself, again. Regal. Not for the first time, Stonefur thinks that Leopardstar would have made a more striking image on the Bonehill.

i think. leopardstar makes the decisions she makes for the good of her clan

(and oh, tigerstar would use that against her.

"Don't you care about the future, Leopardstar? There are no more kits in the nursery.")

and so in that moment with stonefur, she's...turning to who was supposed to be her counterbalance, and trading all of her pride and strength for vulnerability. and when stonefur -- not rejects her, but tells her he's not ready, she returns to Leopardstar of Riverclan.

but mudfur is her father. the moment of vulnerability with him in denouncement is

"Come with us," she says, pleading. She feels like a kit, begging her father to let her leave camp. "There will always be a space for you in RiverClan." "I thought I taught you better than that," he says, and there is warmth in his voice, like sun on water. "There is no point in keeping spent bones." Leopardstar cracks. She presses her muzzle into him, breathing his scent, past the herbs and illness that clings to him. "Please don't leave me," she says, even though she is the one who is leaving.

and -- while that's not misty au canon, there's a reason that at the end of "the blood is rare and sweet as cherry wine," mudfur tells leopardstar she has work to do.

because by the time mistyfoot and featherpaw do escape, leopardstar has already, in mudfur's eyes, transgressed far beyond the forgiveable.

but now -- his daughter is hurt. and she's -- does she want his comfort? or does she try to be leopardstar of riverclan?

yeah. that's. some good emotional stuff to dip into.

i have -- tawnypelt to explore these ideas with. uh. tbisrasacw contains. sufficient implications but -- mistyfoot's treatment is uncomfortably public.

that's gonna come up again later, i think, but in tawnypelt's first fic, which i'm still toying with official titles for, but has the provisional title of "see them starving in the street," but uh there's a few ideas that it tackles.

all of these tackle -- several ideas. "heaven and hell were words to me" is probably the most, singular plot line of the fic. there's a reason i started with featherpaw's fic and not mistyfoot's.

tbisrasacw balances featherpaw and mistyfoot, and atfhkot is sliding between all of these different cats with moments of what stonefur feels peaking through.

i'm still deciding if i'm publishing "i didn't care much how long i lived" (feathertail) or "like this morning reveals to me" (stonefur) tonight, but idcmhlil is about featherpaw's relationships to other cats, so it naturally pulls in a lot of ideas, and ltmrtm is mistyfoot from stonefur's perspective, which means it necessarily pulls in many ideas.

but stsits is -- one character, many threads. tawnypaw's want to be accepted contrasted with her instictive horror contrasted with her belief that there is no going back contrasted with grappling with the fact that her father is -- uh. mistyfoot.

yeah.

and i don't know. i think. if tigerstar were to punish mudfur via leopardstar, that's one thing. but another thing is like -- depending on his precise interpretations, he could -- force mudfur to. be on "his side."

isolate him from leopardstar.

after all, the reason tigerstar fosters mistyfoot and featherpaw together is because it allows him to win mistyfoot's unthinking loyalty. but tigerstar has all of riverclan to threaten.

("You'll have my kits," he says, smirking. "Do you know why, Leopardstar? Because if something happens to this litter -- I'll take your worthless apprentice and kill her.")

he could -- turn mudfur. not actually, but make leopardstar believe he is.

("You deserve this," Mudfur says, and he is going to hell for this.

Tigerstar doesn't respond, and Leopardstar's ears pin back.

"Tell me, Mudfur, was her mother this pathetic?"

I'll take every last life from her, Mudfur, Tigerstar had threatened. Maybe I'll make you take one. Test me. It'll be fun to see her bleed again.

"Yes," he says, and Brightsky won't forgive him. I'm sorry, he thinks, but it's too late for that.)

i think -- in the misty au, tigerstar takes leopardstar's den. but he'd share it with her.

one of my favourite moments in tbirasacw is

She turns her head, meeting his eyes. He leans back, exposing his stomach, and Mistyfoot takes a moment to consider how easy it would be to tear him open. But she won't, and that's the point.

which you know. the forced intimacy and kindness.

(Tigerstar licks Leopardstar's cheek.

"Leopardfur," he purrs, his tail tucking around her.)

and more name shenanigans, because of course he would. if you've learned anything from this, it's that matthew likes contrasting kindness and violence, and matthew likes name shenanigans.

name shenanigans he would definitely pull mudfur in on.

("You'll call her what I tell you to call her," Tigerstar growls. He puts his paw over Mudfur's. "If I tell you to call her Leopardfur, you call her Leopardfur. You should be grateful I'm not telling you to call her a whore.")

i dunno What everyone would do when tigerclan was over. riverclan would have a Hell of a time.

leopardstar would probably appoint mistyfoot deputy and they'd -- grow closer together.

mistyfoot gave everything she had for featherpaw, and leopardstar paid the same price for the both of them. i think that is -- an apology in its own way.

(Mistyfoot sits with her when she gives birth. Mudfur reminds himself Brightsky was sick. That she did not die because of the kitting. Most queens don't.

Stonefur sits outside the den. Mudfur waits in his own, because he thinks he can't bear to know what he has done to his daughter.)

hm. yes. interesting idea to explore. i appreciate this ask.

<3

#ask #anon #misty au #or adjacent #technically not misty au but like #it's related #it's relevant #if you're in the misty au tag you might be interested #leopard au #look it has an au tag now

[dukeofonions]

hi so i.found ur blog and its honestly like a breath of fresh air to look at so if its ok i might just fuckin,,vent here.

so. ik a lot of other people have been talking abt how pof was really straining to watch and i am.very late to the party but i need to talk abt it bcz holy fuck. when i first watched it i was in a way better place mwntally, also the general excitement of wow,content kinda overrode the headache and the eye hurty and the just. bad. but i was rewatching it recently because i was basing a fic off it and i just. i couldnt finish it because all of it was just so much and there was no fuckin warning?? so that was pog ig

next thing because i have. a lot of thoughts. ive been in the fandom for not-very-long, i joined in the middle of 2019 or something.and it just kinda sucks because im only still here for the fandom. i love the series but i can only watch dwit and compilations of logan/roman being sad so much before i can basically recite them off the top of my head. but i reallyreally love writing for the fandom!! it makes me so happy to do the writing, its just the fact that im not as invested with the series that makes me feel,,idk man guilty ig?? anyway thats too deep for a rant so im.a move on

god so tw me not liking post aa virgil and me talking abt toxic friends but hoooly fuck man. i just. pre aa virgil was fun because he was snarky and sarcastic and i could actually stand the nagst because his character made sense?? he was the 'bad guy' and he wasnt as woobified back then and he was honestly a solid vibe. but post aa virgil gives off the vibe of that one friend who fuckin, gets angry at you when you bring up any of your mental health issues and then blames their outburst on their mental health issuea and its like?? no i hate that character dynamic. people say bad things when the feel bad, sure, ik i have, but its the vibe of 'im gonna threaten you and then blame it on my mental health but if you so much as look at me wrong while ur having sensory overload or something i will smite you with the force of one thousand suns' and i am just.so tired. also ithink someone else said this but we should just call the series 'virgil sanders and the rest' because thats what it is now ksbdjqkbsq

also (all ofthese are my opinions btw and im not trying to say im rigbt im just tired honestly) the way. in pof the way patton's whole thing is 'you need empathy' is not funky fresh for both people with low empathy and high empathy 😎 bcz ppl with too much/too little empathy are always told theyre 'cold' or that theyre 'oversensitive', the whole 'there is an average amount of empathy and if u dont have that fuck you actually' is icky and bad and gross. i do think patton's character is really well done in the series but that episode jjust personally. ick.

and finally the moment uve not been waiting for bcz this is probably really tiring to read but the moment youve been waiting for-fwsa.just. why. its cute and stuff and i love nico. nico is a vibe. also bathroom man john is great. but shouldnt roman still be on shit terms with thomas?? like lk we're just gonna sweep away the whole 'i thought i wad ur hero' shizz? cool cool, glad to know romans arc still aint happening. also i get it, we needed to cement that virgil is a light side now. but like..did we?? actually bcz this is so long im gonna send in a second ask (im sososorry if this clogs up ur ask box if u tell me to stop i will i just. many thoughts) abt how even though i hate virgil, his arc should have been done. so differently. just gonna put like,, a mushroom emoji here so u can put the 2 asks together if u want 🍄

You’re always free to vent here! Sorry it took so long to respond but life has a cruel habit of getting in the way of things I need to do. 

So for starters, the POF problem should be talked about more so I can assure you that you’re not late to the party. It never really got the amount of attention it deserved so I am more than willing to bring that back up and trust me, you’re not alone. 

And again, you’re not alone in this either! Plenty of people still enjoy creating content for these characters. You don’t have to feel guilty for not finding the actual series interesting because honestly, I’m kinda losing interest too. But I still love these characters and I love that the fandom is still creating stories with them through different mediums.

Honestly I agree with just about everything you said about Virgil and I do eventually plan on tackling a lot of this in a future post. You know, if I ever force myself to just sit down and write the dang thing... 

Oh my gosh I’ve been waiting for someone to talk about this because that whole thing about empathy in POF really ticked me off because you’re absolutely right, not everyone is 100% empathetic, and some people can be empathetic to a point where it hurts themselves. Like I get what they were trying to say but it came across as, well, like you said. “If you’re don’t have this exact level of empathy then eff you I guess you’re a bad person.” Maybe that actually wasn’t their intention but it sure came across that way and maybe I’ll go into it a little more in another post because now that I’ve been reminded of it again I kinda wanna talk about it more. 

Okay yes, FWSA on its own is a good episode. Heck, it’s one of my favorites. It feels closer to a season one episode than ATHD that’s for sure. The problem with this episode isn’t the quality but the fact that it comes right after POF. And I’ve basically gone over this in my “Problem With Asides” post and how it affects both Roman and Virgil’s current arcs so I won’t go into much more detail here but just know that I pretty much agree with all of this. 

Also don’t worry about cluttering up my inbox. It’s here for people to share their thoughts and that’s exactly what you’re doing! Hope to see your part two soon mushroom anon! 

#dukeofasks #ts criticism #virgil criticism #pofaffair

[isitandwonder]

I’ve seen so much shit go down these past few days and I really don’t need stuff  like that at the end of this fucked year. I’ve been talking back and forth with mutuals over the last several days, I’ve seen the mess unfold on Twitter, people came to my inbox to ask what was happening.

Yet I didn’t want to give this unsubstantiated, rather silly and exaggerated accusations room on my blog. I hoped it would die down. I’m also only lurking on Twitter and IG and would never get involved with fandom there cause those sites stress me out.

This whole mess also made me enormously angry so I needed time to calm down.

Now I only like to say a few things and then I hope I can be done with this.

I think this whole shit show is a perfect example for the dark side of social media, how things get inflated, facts messed up and allegations thrown around. It shows that for a lot of people it’s all about performative behavior. I doubt these accusations would’ve been aired if it had been John Smith from next door who behaved badly. I’m also shocked by a culture that completely disregards facts and proof and judges entirely emotional. Where’s your brain, people?

Of course, you never know with celebs, but the balance of probability still applies to them as well. Someone against no other complains have ever surfaced, who loves his mum and sis, talks very respectful of female colleagues and even donated his salary to an anti-sexual violence charity must truly be rather cunning to be a secret abuser.

When there are allegations of sexual misconduct, you should believe the ‘victim’. Okay, I’m totally with that. But that ‘victim’ doesn’t have to give you any proof for anything they accuse another person off, probably destroying their livelyhood with just a few words? Not even a coherent account of what they’re accusing someone off? Like, what the fuck??? Are people out of their minds?

If you choose to go public with heavy allegations, of course you have to give some facts of what happened to you. Not sordid details but facts that can confirm and explain what you’re hinting at. Like a date, proof you were where you said you were, or a general outline of what happened so other people can comprehed and consider if your allegations are believable. Because we’re all aware of false allegations esp against celebs. We’re also all aware that this is usually no fun for the alleged ‘victim’. So it’s for their own safety and integrity that they have to share some facts. Esp in a case where the allegations started vague with ‘bad experience’, then morphed into ‘sexual assault’, to end up as ‘harassment’ or ‘attempted sexual misconduct’. If you accuse someone of these offences you have to give at least some facts as to what transpired. Otherwise those big words are baseless which doesn’t mean they won’t do harm to both the accuser and the accused.

I believe a ‘victim’ if they have some sort of proof for what they say they were subjected to or can at least give a consistent account of what happened. To describe yourself as a ‘victim’, something objectively harming has had to have happened to you. Sorry, but otherwise it all frays out into a subjective feeling of discomfort, which then is on you and on no one else.

Without some details, simply nothing happened and all this is a storm in a tea cup.

No one forced the people who brought these allegations up to post on social media. They said nothing physical happened and they don’t want to press charges. Why did they even post it then? To warn other women? But to warn someone you have to tell them what you’re warning them about. Did they want to cut Tim down a nodge? Did they want attention and clout? Were they still angry and just wanted to vent? Whatever, social media is not the best place to work through trauma. Get a therapist or a councelor or a lawyer. But just putting unsubstantiated accusations out there is the worst way for everyone involved.

There is no proof this person ever even met Tim. There is no proof anything happened between them. Not that I don’t believe them that he acted like a douche, but if it’s just their word and no proof for anything or details are needed even I could claim the same this woman does (and I have proof I ‘met’ him twice). So you see where this ‘believe the victim’ leads us. Nowhere. The ‘victim’ has at least to proof that there was possible victimisation.

I get it, the girl who met Tim presumably at a party during HSN filming had experienced some form of sexual abuse in high school (her post from 2018 was not about any celebrity afaik but about a guy she went to high school with. I’ve also never seen proof that she accused any other celeb. This was Twitter running amok imo). As nothing physical happened between her and Tim, I assume he said something to her that made her uncomfortable.

He was 19, maybe drunk/high. She was a bit older. He chatted her up, she said no. He backed off but might have said something nasty.

I’m not denying this could’ve happened. But that is life, not assault. It can make you angry and you might post about this incident to show he’s a douche. But label this sexual assault or sexual misconduct? We don’t live in a perfect world. She didn’t feel threatened or violated, just uncomfortable. But of course sexual assault gives you more clout than telling the story of a 19yo wannabe Hollywood star hitting on you and then getting pissy when you turned him down. I mean, water is wet, right? But assault? Misconduct? Harassment? Now you’re talking...

Maybe the incident was more traumatizing to her than it would have been to other people because of her previous experience in high school. We don’t know. As she doesn’t say what happened, we can’t make up our minds. Which doesn’t stop people from throwing all kinds of shit around.

But, please, a guy saying some shit to you isn’t the same as a guy raping you. Is there no awareness of nuance anymore? Have you all gone mad? Yes, trauma differs for everyone, but come on. Men shouldn’t behave vile against women, but there’s still a difference between verbal insults and physical assault. Nobody is perfect and those without sin cast the first stone.

I’m sure this wasn’t Tim’s finest hour. If she’d just said what happened we could all have handled this better.

But Tim’s not a Kevin Spacey ffs.

I know we’re all bored out of our minds. But can we please keep a sense of proportion here? Stop leveling everything to look woke. It’s insulting to real survivors.

Tim is not a predatory rapist and that woman is not a pathological liar out to destroy celebs. The truth lies in between and for sure is much more pathetic, petty and boring.

#timothee chalamet #the current mess #tw assault

[twdmusicboxmystery]

Open Credits Clues. Again.

First of all, I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to get this together. It's just a time crunch thing. These Asks have been in my inbox forever 

and @wdway contributed most of the stuff on this topic weeks ago. I also need to credit other people as well because it's something we had long discussions on our group. And it's definitely worth making sure everybody knows this. (So, creds to @wdway, @frangipanilove, @lilly.loup (IG), @bluesandbeth, and @thegloriouscollectorlady)

So here we go. I wanted to start by repeating something @frangipanilove said, which was that everything in these opening credits is abstract. We won’t see these images literally in the show moving forward. Many of them are reminiscent of things we’ve seen in the past, but we probably won’t see Daryl’s motorcycle with ivy growing over it at any point in the show. It’s not meant to be that literal.

This sequence is more about impressions and the emotional reaction the images are meant to evoke in the audience. Just keep that in mind.

Many people noticed that in the B part of S9, the opening credits changed subtly. Not surprising in and of itself, as Angela Kang told us there would be some changes as we went along. The first changes came with episode 9x12, The Guardian.

At the end of the opening credits sequence, the camera zeros in on a particular walker. We start with a close-up shot of his eye, which looks like it has 6 in it. There’s also a green insect crawling on it. (Actually, if you look closely, there’s a double line on the 6, but I’ll discuss that in another post.) When the camera swings around, we are suddenly behind him and moving away. 

Starting with episode 12, some things were added to this part of the sequence. There are now three walkers, rather than just one. The other two are behind him. On his right, if you look closely, it's obvious this walker is a Whisperer. You can see the stitches in the back of his mask. The other walker is a female that has no left arm, so we have to assume she's a real walker because a Whisperer probably wouldn't be missing their arm.

So why do we think these are important? Well, some interesting things here. Obviously, the mask, which names the one walk a Whisperer is there to symbolize the advent of the Whisperers and the Whisperer war. But why include the missing arm on the female walker? Feels like an important theme or symbol to me. Remember Beth had her arm in a cast in S5, and Rick had a similar bandage on his arm all through S4. So we’ve definitely seen this theme before.

In addition to that, there’s been a recurrent theme about losing one's arm. Rick lost his arm in the CBs, but the show decided not to do that. But we’ve seen this symbolism often, and we did see Aaron lose his arm in S9. So again, a recurring theme.

@thegloriouscollectorlady also pointed out that, when the opening credits first changed to these, Tara/Alanna’s name card was shown when we saw the skull with the pitchfork. Now, pretty much everywhere, the skull is a representation of death. It’s hard to use that as foreshadowing in TWD because the entire show is about death, so we didn’t read too much into it. I also think the pitchfork is a representation of Hilltop because they are the main farming community. So, this was actually an Easter egg that the leader of Hilltop (Alana/Tara) would be killed in this arc.

A bunch of us also talked about the white flowers looking like Cherokee roses. The odd thing is that they aren't used with Melissa McBride’s title card, so we weren't sure if they were meant to be Cherokee Roses. But consider this. Carol lost another child this season and Henry had ridiculously massive parallels to Sophia. So, I think these are supposed to be Cherokee Roses, to show that Carol would lose another child, and they were placed with Alanna/Taras title card because he died in conjunction with her. In other words, they both died on the Whisperer pikes. See how the opening credits foreshadow things?

And while we're at it. I just want to give you guys a screenshot of something @thegloriouscollectorlady said back on March 7, which was between 9x12 and 9x13 a month before the finale). She's a great forecaster and a great reader of symbolism and every single thing she said here came true by the end of the season.

A couple of other things of note that @wdway found. There's this walker who looks like he's wearing a mask. 

Of course there's the Whisperer theme this season that could be part of it, but more specifically it looks a lot like the mask that Morgan was wearing in 5x01. 

Since we still think Morgan is entwined with Beth somehow, and I still think they might use Morgan’s S5 template to reintroduce her, this is significant. I won’t say a ton more about this right now except that I'm going to be mentioning it in different theories as I go along. So just keep it in mind.

Finally, and perhaps the most exciting thing are the birds flying across the screen. Again, this was something @wdway noticed. Many birds fly across the screen, especially near the end of these credits. Some are white and some are black. Some of them looked distinctly yellow. So, first remember that black and white are a theme around Beth and Daryl (X).

We've also seen Beth seen Beth being symbolized by the yellow finch, a small yellow bird that we saw in the on the wallpaper at the funeral home. And of course she wore that yellow polo in flash in the old credits.

Let me emphasize that this is hard to see. The shot I’m going to show you is blurry because the yellowish bird flies across the screen so quickly. Very much like the Beth flash from S5-S8.

Now we have a distinctly yellowish looking bird flying across the screen. It's not the same thing as the flash in the earlier opening credits, but we think that this might be representative of that flash. 

So when the credits changed, lots of people asked me if I was bothered by the fact that the Beth flash had disappeared. I truly wasn’t and still am not. I think that flash was in all the seasons of her disappearance arc (S5-S8). Now we’ve entered the multi-season arc where she’ll appear, so the flash has gone. But we’re thinking that this yellow bird flash represents her. In other words, the yellow polo flash was changed out for the yellow bird flash.

The top bird has what looks like a hook on its beak. We’re not sure, but it may be a worm that it’s holding in its beak, which would connect it to the worm theory.

I may go into this later, but it’s important that it’s been changed to a bird. I’m especially remembering something from Fear where the two people in a very Bethyl-ish love story (John and June) were separated, birds were a big symbol, and the they reunited. (Below = bird wings in opening credits.)

So, I think there are clues here that represent the Beth will be in this arc. Armless walker + Whisperer could represent Beth in the Whisperer arc. Masked walker like Morgan could represent Beth/Morgan entanglement. And of course the yellow flash.

I have a lot more to say about opening credits stuff, and I’ll be tying what I’ve said here into other things moving forward. Bottom line, the opening credits definitely work in our favor. ;D Thoughts?

#beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusional #team defiance #beth is almost here #bethyl

[evan-hand-soap]

I have a sudden burst of motivation that’s been gone for months! Woo-

I’m doing writings, like I always have. STILL A MUSICAL FANDOM ACCOUNT BUT OTHERS ARE HERE TOO! I’m clearing out my inbox and starting from scratch(sorry if you never got a ship answered) I’m accepting scenarios/hc’s as well as ships/matchups!

Fandoms I’ll write for:

Dear Evan Hansen

Bnha/Mha(Boku No/My Hero Academia)

mAyBE some mcu Spider-man. I used to write mcu for fun a while back

(I’ll probably start writing for other musicals once i get back into the feel of writing a lot more)

Fandoms i might/will post for(including the ones i won’t write for right now):

Be More Chill

In The Heights

The Prom

Dear Evan Hansen

Sander Sides

Marvel

My Hero Academia

Rules and such stuff:

I will NOT do NSFW cuz I’m not comfortable with it

Will 1000% write for LGBT+ if asked/requested,, especially considering I’m part of it... heh

My accounts just character x reader things for now-

I’ll write angst things that involve abuse or self harm but will put warnings and, it’s fiction so PLEASE DONT DO IT

My writings will be mostly a fem! reader unless specified, only bcuz it’s a habit

If you specify to have gen. neutral, I’ll be happy to do that

You can request multiple characters/ppl for one scenario/hc but it might take longer than others

Max characters per hc/scenario thing is probably something like 4 until further notice?

I’ll write with curse words, if it’s not obvious

That’s bout it :)

Rules for matchups/ships

Feel free to throw in things about what you look like; ex- Hair color, height, eye color, etc.

Necessary things are like personality, hobbies, zodiac(ig), intrests, sexuality/gender preference, attitude(like shy, easily aggrivated, tired a lot, always anxious, witty/sarcastic, etc etc etc etc)

If it’s a request for bnha/mha let me know if you’d like it to be a student, pro, teacher, villain etc.

Something that also might help me out is if you like PDA, like affection or cuddling and stuff like that, or don’t like it and yeah..

Names and Ages aren’t really necessary but if you feel like putting it there, go ahead

I’ll also accept plantonic ships as well so feel free to send those in!

You can send multiple asks if it all doesn’t fit on one ask

Give me as much information as you’d like as long as i have the things I asked for with it

❤️

#connor murphy #dear evan hansen #dear evan hansen ship #dear evan hansen fluff #dear evan hansen x reader #dear evan hansen headcanon #desr evan hansen scenario #bnha #mha #bnha x reader #mha x reader #my hero academia #buko no hero academia #mha ship #mha fluff #bnha fluff #marvel x reader

[valeriemperez]

Candice's answer about Iris' journalism, how at a time like what we have when journalists are being stomped on was perfect. She worded that so eloquently. The power of words and reporting the truth couldn't be more important than today. I especially enjoyed Tom C nodding in agreement. He was seriously right there with her on that. Lastly, I enjoyed Grant pumping his fist for reporter Iris on ET. You can count on him to be enthused about anything canon comic related. Costar support at its best.

Aww, I loved all these moments too! This con was pretty lowkey, but we got some lovely cast interactions and responses. Definitely got me looking forward to the season.

Do you know if Keiynan will be back for S4 of LOT?

Sadly, he will not be. It sounds like he won’t even be in the premiere, if their responses are anything to go by. He’ll be in 3 episodes of Flash, though.

Do you think Alex Danvers will ever appear in the DC comics universe like John Diggle or Chloe Sullivan?

Yes, I think that’s very likely. It might take some time, since Rebirth had the opportunity to introduce her and didn’t, but I’m sure she’ll eventually make her way in there one way or another.

What do you think of the Birds of Prey movie news? I’m kind of sad Barbara Gordon won’t be in it but also excited that Cassandra Cain will. I have mixed feelings about Harley tho.

I’m on the same wavelength as you about it. Of course I’m thrilled about Cassandra Cain - and Renee Montoya presumably playing the Jim Gordon equivalent of the film - but I will miss Babs. Dinah, Cass and Helena will make a great trio though. I wish Harley wasn’t a part of it, that’s kind of random. Unless she’s the villain, I guess? 

I read on another Tumblr blog (and I forgot which one 😬) “People always thought it [SB] was going to be a romance, because every year Caitlin dates the new white guy on the show,” Sawyer said" Then it hit me that they’re probably talking about Hartley Sawyer. Like, 😳 WoW

That quote was from Hartley himself, lol, but he was talking about people thinking Ralph/Caitlin would be a romance and not SB. Love his awareness about the story though, lol.

Hello. I don’t know if you know the answer or not but I thought I’d ask you because I think if anyone knows it’s you. Is Candice’s dog Zoë a rescue dog from a shelter or from a breeder?

I don’t know the answer, sadly. My friend Jess says maltipoos are usually from breeders, but I did Google and found that they are available in LA shelters as well. She doesn’t use the hashtag #AdoptDontShop for Zoë, but she has promoted shelters on her IG recently. So really it could go either way. 

I like W*stallen more but I hate how the fandom online is so anal about only shipping W*stallen. Like if you ship Barry or Iris with anyone else it’s being racist or bad for CP. they tried to say I was faking shipping W*stallen???? that makes no sense. I think the fandom is pushing people away by being so militant. I kinda wanna stop posting Flash stuff because of the hate I get. It’s really frustrating and I’ve never experienced this before.

It’s definitely your prerogative to ship Barry with anyone else you want in addition to Iris, and I personally would love to see more people genuinely shipping Iris outside of Barry. Usually what I see is people paying lip service to multi-shipping Iris, but pretty much ignoring her other ships in favor of pairing Barry with others.

That being said, I’ve found that most fandoms I’ve wandered into get into fights about multi-shipping. I mean, when shipping non-canon ships it’s rarely an issue, but in the SM age where fans can berate content creators about changing shipping lanes and where endgames are seen as prizes that can be won by who’s the loudest online, it makes sense that some people are threatened by canon multi-shipping.

But no one needs to put up with attacks in their inboxes or on their positive posts/gifsets about another character or ship. The only thing I can suggest to you is to block anyone who does that and go about your business and your enjoyment. 

#the flash #legends of tomorrow #supergirl #birds of prey #tatiana's thoughts #anonymous #long post for ts #more asks under the cut #negativity for ts

[relaxandlaughatyourself]

Recap of Ika’s IG Lives July 20, 2018.

She did two lives (the first one paused and ended) totaling about an hour and a half.

She has a meeting today and is getting ready. She did ger her phone fixed so she can do lives again. She notes that she feels rusty because she hasn’t done a live in so long.

She thanks everyone so much for supporting the youtube channel, she can’t believe how much it’s growing.

At her meeting today she’s going to be doing videos and pics today so she needs to look good. She has some cool stuff coming up, “I’m designing…something lol”

She really doesn’t like her brows and is trying to make the microblading go away; she says her brows remind her of Super Mario.

Dem is posting the youtube video tomorrow, and she is scared. She usually edits the videos but Dem is doing it tomorrow. She says we won’t believe what he did to her. He won’t let her watch it, he told her she can watch it with the rest of us. Whenever she edits, she edits and then Dem oversees it and makes some changes; they usually watch them together before they’re posted.

That was her last skin treatment the other day.

She rants a bit about her skin (body skin, she loves her face) and how it’s always dry and how she’s gotten irritation lately. Notes that Dem’s skin is completely flawless and it drives her crazy. “I like Demetres’ body skin. He has such nice body skin.” 

Swaggy is in the live (driving and watching), and Ika says she likes him, it sucks he left. She adds him but we couldn’t hear him. Ika says if Swaggy didn’t go early, he would have went far.

She caught up on BB this morning and saw Winston go home. She said that she wouldn’t be too public about her like and dislike for people this year on bb20, but she still has the people she likes and dislikes. She tries to be neutral.

Ika does note that her and Dem got a place in Tornoto, but he has a few deals to close in Edmonton, so he’ll be there for the rest of the month and they have a wedding there in early August so she’s going there early August (not their wedding lol) then there’s another wedding at the end of August so she’ll be there then too.

Someone commented about how she said once they’ll get married in secret. She said that when her and Dem get married they won’t tell anyone “we’ll be married and be like ‘two years ago we got married’”. And it would be a very small wedding. “Probably Karen and Bruce and that’s about it; they’ll be the witnesses.” It would be a small, private one.

Someone asks what’s the point of getting married if no one knows? “It’s for us. We were just talking about this and marriage is now about the wedding. We’re not getting married for centerpieces and flowers.” They should get married because they love each other. They’re not getting married for anyone else, to show off, they’re getting married for themselves.

She says she feels comfortable with BB fans, but with youtube, she feels weird with them. Someone asked if she was Ika from youtube and it was weird. She feels that BB fans know her, know her personality, etc. Youtube is different. People are asking about her real hair and if she always wears makeup, and she’s not as comfortable with it yet.

She takes rude comments on youtube differently than other platforms; it’s easier for her to brush off because the person’s thoughts on her is because of that one video and she knows what they’re saying isn’t true. People aren’t forced to watch the video and leave a comment, whereas they have to watch her on BB because they’re watching for other people. She doesn’t fault the BB fans because they had to watch her. She also notes that on youtube they get a lot more love on youtube than hate. BB fans have a pretty good idea of how she is because they watched her on live feeds and the show, it’s different than youtube fans, and because of that she feels more comfortable with BB fans.

They never expected to have this many subscribers. They waited a year to start it because their relationship comes first, everything else is secondary. They wanted to make sure they were solid before they do anything as a couple.

They knew they’d have our support, but they didn’t expect to get people who didn’t know them. The video that got them a lot of the subscribers is the three rules video, which they didn’t think would do well. It’s the most fun they’ve ever had filming and for some reason they thought it would be the least successful. They filmed a video filming the hair that they unboxed on youtube. After they filmed that video, Dem suggested filming the rules because he had to learn them and they ran with it.

It paused and ended, then she started another live.

Dem will have her looking crazy if he does her makeup, someone suggested that.

Divas Wigs sent her six boxes of wigs. She’s thinking that her and Dem should do a “Boyfriend rate my wig” video. There’s a blue one, a blonde one, a kinky one, an ombre one, one with bangs. Dem hasn’t seen them and she thinks doing a video where he sees them for the first time.

Divas Wigs are expensive and she remembers first watching them on youtube when she first started wanting to wear wigs; she reached out to them to ask if they would send her one and they did. She loves their wigs so much. Ninety percent of her Dem and her’s inbox for business inquiries is filled with hair companies offering to pay them to do reviews. They thought it was so cool and she decided to work with two other companies and they sent her wigs, but they decided not to do the review because the wigs weren’t good, she’d rather lose out on the money; they do not even compare to Divas Wigs. RPGShow also sent her stuff and she didn’t like that particular wig, it didn’t fit right. She reached out to Divas Wigs again, and they sent another (they let her choose the wigs, the six they sent she did choose them because she wanted different ones). She would love if they would pay her to promote the wigs as they’re her favorite.

She got her phone upgraded but she might have to take it back cause she thinks they gave her one with less storage.

Dem said they should do a giveaway and he said they should giveaway the wigs because they get so many offers. They’re trying to think of a cool giveaway. She’s thinking maybe her skincare stuff too because people are always talking about that; she’s in talks for that.

She says that she has hung out with Erica twice, it was genuine and good conversation; they just didn’t post on social media.

Ika says that on youtube, 22 percent or so are Canadian and the majority of subscribers are American. Whenever she sees a Jamaican person or Canadian person comment she gets so excited.

Mentions a vlog will be up tomorrow. They’re trying to post on Saturdays. Ika says again how she’s so nervous for the video and she doesn’t know why she agreed to it.

She says she very reluctant to doing The Amazing Race because it’s so hard.

Ika says she feels as though she’s chill, when people meet her in real life who know her they are almost scared of her because she is so calm and chill. People always seem to think that she’s going to yell at them or go off. “Dem is always like ‘yeah… she doesn’t yell lol.’” Ika says she’s quiet when first meeting people and people are always side-eyeing it. Her and Dem always talk about that, how she’s not as loud and crazy as people think. But she can’t control her facial expressions.

She says she will hold a grudge for Demetres, even if he has gotten over it. He had someone who did something to him, “who does something to him, he’s the nicest person.” They apologized and wanted to be cool again. This was last year in Edson. They showed up to visit, and Ika barely said hi to them and then she went inside to watch TV and left them outside; she acted uninterested. Dem came inside to get beers and he picked up the kind that he likes and Ika told him to put it back, the other person can drink the cheap kind. A year later Dem messaged her that he’s going somewhere with this person and Ika got quiet… the person was with Dem and said hi to her through the phone and Dem told this person that Ika said hi and she didn’t lol. A year later Ika doesn’t like this person and she doesn’t care if Dem forgave the person, she does not. Dem also called her and said a couple guys were staying over at his place and she asked who and he named three people “that’s a few people, you said a couple, there’s not room for that other person.” She did like the person before she met them, Dem had told her about him, but after the show “he really tried my boyfriend” and she won’t forgive him.

Someone was dead wrong to both her and Dem, and Dem forgave the person, and Ika is being cordial, but no. Dem wants Ika to like the person so he tells her that the person asked about her and was complimenting her, essentially telling her the person changed but she doesn’t buy it.

Ika says that someone has to really show their ass for this to happen, not everything is unforgivable. If it came from a deep-rooted place that is the issue, if it was not malicious or was a one-time thing, it’s fine. If it’s revealed that this person has been feeling some way for a long time but has been essentially faking it, no. It’s hard for her to like people how she liked them before if something like that happens; Dem will forgive. “I am not going to risk getting laugh lines for you. They are reserved for my boyfriend, my kids, you guys, my friends.” She’s not going to risk getting any lines, her face will be stone with most people and things. When she explains these things to Dem he says she’s nuts and crazy. “I’m nuts and crazy and well preserved.”

She says she has to go, and she wouldn't be surprised if Dem is secretly watching the live

#ig live

[kennethherrerablog]

The Ladder of Freedom

I was walking home from the gym in NYC and I had to stop and take a video of this. 

I call it HELLSCAPE ON EARTH.

Watch the entire video here

Looking at this building full of people working at 7pm, what do you feel?

I feel TRAPPED. Ever since I was a kid, I never wanted to work in a cubicle with fluorescent lights. I certainly never wanted to have people walking outside in the fresh air, looking at me through the glass in my conference room window like a zoo animal.

I know it’s irrational, but I’ve hated this since I started working at 14 years old. 

Now, I don’t mind working hard and I don’t mind putting in lots of hours when times are busy. But I hate the idea of HAVING to go into an office. 

“Dear Boss, can I please take a 2-day vacation? Can I please use the bathroom?” NO!

I remember telling my college friends this. They all looked at me like I was insane. We were all going to go work in cubicles…that’s what you do, right? 

Actually, no. You don’t have to.

When I was offered a job at Google, I ran the other direction. I took a massive pay cut, lived in a house with 4 other guys, and chose a different path. 

YES — it’s an amazing privilege to even be able to think about what “our path” is. So many people have to work at whatever job they can find to provide for their families. My immigrant parents came here and my dad took what job he could get. But together with my mom, they learned enough to give the next generation — my siblings and me — enough freedom that we could choose what we wanted to do. 

I’m very grateful for that opportunity. And now I get to share what I’ve learned with you.

As I’ve met more IWT readers, I’ve asked what your Rich Life is. I’ve learned it’s not simply to make more money (not even $1 million per year).

It’s also to choose the LIFESTYLE you want. For me, it was never having to go into an office with fluorescent lights and people wearing Patagonia vests. What is it for you?

Is your Rich Life…

Never having to wake up to a blaring alarm clock?

Being able to travel for 3 weeks at a time — and flying business class?

Being able to buy something without worrying about the price?

Here’s what I decided for my Rich Life.

I run my business from my home office — no commute, no fluorescent lights. I can wake up, have a leisurely morning, and walk 10 feet to start working.

BTW I splurged on a dual-monitor setup:

I HAVE FINALLY MADE IT

I wanted the freedom of traveling now, not 40 years from now. So I built it into my life. Every year, I travel for 6 weeks. 

Here’s my office for the day at The Oberoi Vanyavilas in India.  I worked for one hour per week — over a 6-week trip — and my business kept growing.

Fun fact: When the picture was taken in India, I checked on the daily sales for my business. Here’s the sales receipt from the previous day that was waiting in my inbox:

On that day in India, my business brought in $14,591 No office, no conference rooms

I know this is unusual — but it’s not an accident. 

It’s the result of building a business that supports my Rich Life. 

What would yours look like? Would you have a home office? Would you travel more? Would you take the afternoons off to spend it with your kids or a workout class?

Your Rich Life is yours. But it means you have to decide, then create it.

This is a totally different way of thinking about lifestyle. Most people take a random job, look around longingly at travel pics on Instagram, dream of “freedom,” then shrug and walk into a brown-carpeted conference room with lukewarm coffee and a conference room speakerphone. That’s my personal hell.

We wonder why we have a hard time getting out of bed and motivating ourselves to get things done. No, taking a 2-day vacation to “recharge” won’t change anything. 5 minutes of meditating won’t change it, either. You have to be courageous enough to confront the system you exist in…and decide to change it.

We all want freedom. We all want the flexibility to be spontaneous. We all want the ability to say YES when someone or something we love comes along. 

Are we willing to make the changes to get it?

Once you start, you’ll discover there are lots of different levels of freedom. And you choose where you want to be.

I call this The Ladder of Freedom. 

LEVEL 1: Freedom from $3 worries

This is the ability to stop sweating the small stuff.

A reader told me about taking a taxi in NYC and staring at the taxi sign ticking up by $0.50…block after block after block. 

“God,” he said. “I could see the price going higher, knowing I was going to have to skip lunch the next day. I was thinking to myself, ‘Should I just get out here? I could probably walk from here. But it’s raining…’”

I remember being in my early 20s and thinking EXACTLY the same thing. I went to a restaurant and saw an appetizer that looked so good…and then turned the page and just got an entree.

For lots of people, that’s just how life goes.

It’s easy to be worried about small expenses when we’re surrounded by so-called “experts” lecturing us about how our $3 lattes will destroy our lives. (Which is why it’s still surprising to most people to find out that you could cut back on $3 lattes all day…and even over 50 years, it wouldn’t add up to much. You can see the math in my post about multimillionaires lecturing you about avocado toast.)

At a certain point — as you get older, as you earn more, and as your time becomes more scarce — we all reconsider the calculus of is it worth it? For example, my mom would have NEVER bought pre-cut vegetables: They were too expensive. Now, I do. An extra $2 means nothing to me, and the 20 minutes saved is valuable.

Put another way: Would you worry about the cost of a $0.25 piece of candy? No, because it would have no effect on your life at all.

Same with $3 expenses. 

This first level of freedom is freedom from worrying about $3 expenses. You never have to worry about coffee or appetizers or picking up a round of drinks for your friends — because the money will not affect your life at all.

LEVEL 2: Freedom to ask $30,000 questions

This is the ability to buy the things you love, guilt-free.

At this level, you’re not worrying about $3 questions — you’re actually leaning into $30,000 questions. 

You don’t have to cut back on tiny expenses. Because you’re keeping your eye on the Big Wins, tiny $10 or even $100 expenses are irrelevant. 

In fact, you can splurge on the things you love:

Not just getting flowers once a year for your anniversary — getting a fresh bouquet delivered every week

Traveling for 3 weeks every year — and sorting your flight by “direct flights only,” not by “cost”

Treating your friends to dinner, saying, “I’ll get this”

I talked about moving beyond $3 questions for CNBC

If you could spend $5,000/year on something you love, what would it be? Get really specific. Don’t just say “travel.” Say: “I’d fly to Mexico for 10 days with my girlfriend, fly business class (points), stay at this resort I’ve been keeping my eyes on, and take a tequila tour.” 

Now think bigger: What if you could spend $50,000/year on something you love? What would you do? Most of us have never thought about this because we’re mired in the $3 weeds. But at this level, you can think bigger. 

Here’s what I did:

How about you?

If you had freedom from $30,000 questions, what would you spend more on? What’s the thing you LOVE spending on? Eating out? Travel? Fitness?

LEVEL 3: Freedom from location

This is the ability to work and live wherever you want. 

At this level, you have the ability to travel anywhere. You could work from Starbucks or a home office. Or Japan. 

And you’re not locked into any location, no matter how cool it is. You can work from Spain for a month, then try someplace else.

You’re not limited to two weeks of vacation a year, either. 

Here’s how I use this level of freedom:

Annual CEO trip: Every January, I take a trip with a small group of CEOs. We get a house with a chef and a view, then spend 4 days planning out our year, talking about what worked/what didn’t, and share advice with each other. (If this isn’t your thing, you could do it with a group of friends.)

Annual CEO trip, where we ask for advice, share our lessons from last year, and plan out this year

6-week extended vacation: At the end of every year, my wife and I take a 6-week trip. The trip gives us time to connect with each other, reflect on the year, and most of all, eat the world’s best food!!! I’ll post food pics on my IG account later.

India, Kenya, Italy, Japan…and more trips coming up. Each year, I work with my team to set up more systems that allow me to be off the grid. Last year, I only checked in for 1 hour a week. The rest was pure vacation.

Don’t be limited by my choice. What would yours be? Some would love a beach trip…others would move to Colorado for ski season…and others would take their kids to Europe for the summer. Dream big!

If you had freedom from location, where would you go?

LEVEL 4: Freedom from time limits

This is the ability to do what you want, when you want to do it. 

No endless string of meetings that you didn’t schedule. No alarm clocks. No having to remember “that one thing” to buy from the store.

At this level, you can use money to buy back your time.

Note that if you still love something, you can still do it! For example, I love reading emails from my readers, so I continue to read every single one (though I can’t respond to every one). I also love ironing my clothes. But I hate having to sort through travel options, so I’ve outsourced that.

Here are 30 examples of things my assistant handles and that I no longer have to spend time on thanks to my assistant and the systems we’ve built:

Altogether, this saves me 20 hours every week. 

If you had freedom from time, what would your mornings look like?

LEVEL 5: Freedom from expectations

This is the ability to completely craft your own Rich Life.

Maybe you want to buy a house — or not.

Maybe you want to have kids — or not.

Maybe you want to travel around the country in a trailer!

I love this!!

It’s not my Rich Life — I live in a Manhattan high-rise — but it’s Steve and his wife’s Rich Life. 

This is true “freedom from expectations.”

Guys, if I had followed society’s expectations, I would be wearing an ill-fitting XL t-shirt working at Cisco Systems. That’s my idea of hell on earth.

Freedom from expectations means you’ve mastered the $3 level, the $30,000 level, the freedom from location, AND the freedom from time limits.

This level is the culmination of the others — the top of the ladder — because you’ve truly earned the right to be free from expectations.

Now you can choose the life you want.

Here’s how this worked in my life: When we were planning our wedding, my fiance (now-wife) Cass and I were out to dinner with some friends. We were talking about wedding planning and our friends asked us what we were thinking for a honeymoon. 

I told them we were probably going to go on a safari for 7 or 8 days. It was classic American thinking: we’re probably going to go for 7 to 10 days, have a nice time, come back, go to work. We were excited! 

Our friends were excited too. One of them said, “That sounds amazing. You know, when we went on our honeymoon, we took three months off and it was amazing.”

Cass and I looked at each other. What? 

Then the next couple (also older than us) told us that they took a year off and traveled the world when they got married.

Cass and I walked out of that dinner looking at each other, saying “What the hell just happe—”

We thought they were normal people. But who the hell takes that much time off?

Then we asked another question:

What if?

What if we decided to take a different path than the usual 7-day honeymoon?

What if we decided to stay at some of the world’s most amazing places…and also visit locals and eat street food?

And what if we brought our parents with us for part of it — to create memories we’d truly never forget?

In retrospect, I feel a little dumb because my entire business is advising people how to think bigger, but when it came to our honeymoon, I “bought into” the usual 7-day trip like everyone else. 

But I’m so glad we had that dinner. And I’m so glad we asked that magical question, “What if?”

We realized we could do this, too. We have the flexibility. We have the finances. We just needed the courage — and the mindset of freedom from expectations — to say YES.

On a horseback safari in Kenya, surrounded by giraffes. Our relationship rule: If we’re ever on the fence about doing something — a dinner party, an event — we just say YES.

We ended up taking a 6-week honeymoon to Italy, Kenya, India, and Thailand — and having the time of our lives.

One of the big mistakes that people just starting out make is assuming they have to accomplish all of these rungs at the same time. Wrong! You can start methodically and slowly. These can take a lifetime to truly master, and each step up is a win.

Now I want to hear from you:

I shared some of the changes I’ve made moving up the Ladder of Freedom. I’ll share mine on Instagram, too. 

Where are you on the Ladder of Freedom?

Where would you like to go?

Be specific — is it visiting a certain place? Is it never doing your own laundry again? Is it spending 2 hours volunteering every Wednesday evening?

Send me an email (I read every one) or post on Instagram and use the hashtag #ladderoffreedom. That way we can all find and learn from each other.

See you on IG,

-Ramit

The Ladder of Freedom is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

The Ladder of Freedom published first on https://justinbetreviews.tumblr.com/

[samuelfields]

The Ladder of Freedom

I was walking home from the gym in NYC and I had to stop and take a video of this. 

I call it HELLSCAPE ON EARTH.

Watch the entire video here

Looking at this building full of people working at 7pm, what do you feel?

I feel TRAPPED. Ever since I was a kid, I never wanted to work in a cubicle with fluorescent lights. I certainly never wanted to have people walking outside in the fresh air, looking at me through the glass in my conference room window like a zoo animal.

I know it’s irrational, but I’ve hated this since I started working at 14 years old. 

Now, I don’t mind working hard and I don’t mind putting in lots of hours when times are busy. But I hate the idea of HAVING to go into an office. 

“Dear Boss, can I please take a 2-day vacation? Can I please use the bathroom?” NO!

I remember telling my college friends this. They all looked at me like I was insane. We were all going to go work in cubicles…that’s what you do, right? 

Actually, no. You don’t have to.

When I was offered a job at Google, I ran the other direction. I took a massive pay cut, lived in a house with 4 other guys, and chose a different path. 

YES — it’s an amazing privilege to even be able to think about what “our path” is. So many people have to work at whatever job they can find to provide for their families. My immigrant parents came here and my dad took what job he could get. But together with my mom, they learned enough to give the next generation — my siblings and me — enough freedom that we could choose what we wanted to do. 

I’m very grateful for that opportunity. And now I get to share what I’ve learned with you.

As I’ve met more IWT readers, I’ve asked what your Rich Life is. I’ve learned it’s not simply to make more money (not even $1 million per year).

It’s also to choose the LIFESTYLE you want. For me, it was never having to go into an office with fluorescent lights and people wearing Patagonia vests. What is it for you?

Is your Rich Life…

Never having to wake up to a blaring alarm clock?

Being able to travel for 3 weeks at a time — and flying business class?

Being able to buy something without worrying about the price?

Here’s what I decided for my Rich Life.

I run my business from my home office — no commute, no fluorescent lights. I can wake up, have a leisurely morning, and walk 10 feet to start working.

BTW I splurged on a dual-monitor setup:

I HAVE FINALLY MADE IT

I wanted the freedom of traveling now, not 40 years from now. So I built it into my life. Every year, I travel for 6 weeks. 

Here’s my office for the day at The Oberoi Vanyavilas in India.  I worked for one hour per week — over a 6-week trip — and my business kept growing.

Fun fact: When the picture was taken in India, I checked on the daily sales for my business. Here’s the sales receipt from the previous day that was waiting in my inbox:

On that day in India, my business brought in $14,591 No office, no conference rooms

I know this is unusual — but it’s not an accident. 

It’s the result of building a business that supports my Rich Life. 

What would yours look like? Would you have a home office? Would you travel more? Would you take the afternoons off to spend it with your kids or a workout class?

Your Rich Life is yours. But it means you have to decide, then create it.

This is a totally different way of thinking about lifestyle. Most people take a random job, look around longingly at travel pics on Instagram, dream of “freedom,” then shrug and walk into a brown-carpeted conference room with lukewarm coffee and a conference room speakerphone. That’s my personal hell.

We wonder why we have a hard time getting out of bed and motivating ourselves to get things done. No, taking a 2-day vacation to “recharge” won’t change anything. 5 minutes of meditating won’t change it, either. You have to be courageous enough to confront the system you exist in…and decide to change it.

We all want freedom. We all want the flexibility to be spontaneous. We all want the ability to say YES when someone or something we love comes along. 

Are we willing to make the changes to get it?

Once you start, you’ll discover there are lots of different levels of freedom. And you choose where you want to be.

I call this The Ladder of Freedom. 

LEVEL 1: Freedom from $3 worries

This is the ability to stop sweating the small stuff.

A reader told me about taking a taxi in NYC and staring at the taxi sign ticking up by $0.50…block after block after block. 

“God,” he said. “I could see the price going higher, knowing I was going to have to skip lunch the next day. I was thinking to myself, ‘Should I just get out here? I could probably walk from here. But it’s raining…’”

I remember being in my early 20s and thinking EXACTLY the same thing. I went to a restaurant and saw an appetizer that looked so good…and then turned the page and just got an entree.

For lots of people, that’s just how life goes.

It’s easy to be worried about small expenses when we’re surrounded by so-called “experts” lecturing us about how our $3 lattes will destroy our lives. (Which is why it’s still surprising to most people to find out that you could cut back on $3 lattes all day…and even over 50 years, it wouldn’t add up to much. You can see the math in my post about multimillionaires lecturing you about avocado toast.)

At a certain point — as you get older, as you earn more, and as your time becomes more scarce — we all reconsider the calculus of is it worth it? For example, my mom would have NEVER bought pre-cut vegetables: They were too expensive. Now, I do. An extra $2 means nothing to me, and the 20 minutes saved is valuable.

Put another way: Would you worry about the cost of a $0.25 piece of candy? No, because it would have no effect on your life at all.

Same with $3 expenses. 

This first level of freedom is freedom from worrying about $3 expenses. You never have to worry about coffee or appetizers or picking up a round of drinks for your friends — because the money will not affect your life at all.

LEVEL 2: Freedom to ask $30,000 questions

This is the ability to buy the things you love, guilt-free.

At this level, you’re not worrying about $3 questions — you’re actually leaning into $30,000 questions. 

You don’t have to cut back on tiny expenses. Because you’re keeping your eye on the Big Wins, tiny $10 or even $100 expenses are irrelevant. 

In fact, you can splurge on the things you love:

Not just getting flowers once a year for your anniversary — getting a fresh bouquet delivered every week

Traveling for 3 weeks every year — and sorting your flight by “direct flights only,” not by “cost”

Treating your friends to dinner, saying, “I’ll get this”

I talked about moving beyond $3 questions for CNBC

If you could spend $5,000/year on something you love, what would it be? Get really specific. Don’t just say “travel.” Say: “I’d fly to Mexico for 10 days with my girlfriend, fly business class (points), stay at this resort I’ve been keeping my eyes on, and take a tequila tour.” 

Now think bigger: What if you could spend $50,000/year on something you love? What would you do? Most of us have never thought about this because we’re mired in the $3 weeds. But at this level, you can think bigger. 

Here’s what I did:

How about you?

If you had freedom from $30,000 questions, what would you spend more on? What’s the thing you LOVE spending on? Eating out? Travel? Fitness?

LEVEL 3: Freedom from location

This is the ability to work and live wherever you want. 

At this level, you have the ability to travel anywhere. You could work from Starbucks or a home office. Or Japan. 

And you’re not locked into any location, no matter how cool it is. You can work from Spain for a month, then try someplace else.

You’re not limited to two weeks of vacation a year, either. 

Here’s how I use this level of freedom:

Annual CEO trip: Every January, I take a trip with a small group of CEOs. We get a house with a chef and a view, then spend 4 days planning out our year, talking about what worked/what didn’t, and share advice with each other. (If this isn’t your thing, you could do it with a group of friends.)

Annual CEO trip, where we ask for advice, share our lessons from last year, and plan out this year

6-week extended vacation: At the end of every year, my wife and I take a 6-week trip. The trip gives us time to connect with each other, reflect on the year, and most of all, eat the world’s best food!!! I’ll post food pics on my IG account later.

India, Kenya, Italy, Japan…and more trips coming up. Each year, I work with my team to set up more systems that allow me to be off the grid. Last year, I only checked in for 1 hour a week. The rest was pure vacation.

Don’t be limited by my choice. What would yours be? Some would love a beach trip…others would move to Colorado for ski season…and others would take their kids to Europe for the summer. Dream big!

If you had freedom from location, where would you go?

LEVEL 4: Freedom from time limits

This is the ability to do what you want, when you want to do it. 

No endless string of meetings that you didn’t schedule. No alarm clocks. No having to remember “that one thing” to buy from the store.

At this level, you can use money to buy back your time.

Note that if you still love something, you can still do it! For example, I love reading emails from my readers, so I continue to read every single one (though I can’t respond to every one). I also love ironing my clothes. But I hate having to sort through travel options, so I’ve outsourced that.

Here are 30 examples of things my assistant handles and that I no longer have to spend time on thanks to my assistant and the systems we’ve built:

Altogether, this saves me 20 hours every week. 

If you had freedom from time, what would your mornings look like?

LEVEL 5: Freedom from expectations

This is the ability to completely craft your own Rich Life.

Maybe you want to buy a house — or not.

Maybe you want to have kids — or not.

Maybe you want to travel around the country in a trailer!

I love this!!

It’s not my Rich Life — I live in a Manhattan high-rise — but it’s Steve and his wife’s Rich Life. 

This is true “freedom from expectations.”

Guys, if I had followed society’s expectations, I would be wearing an ill-fitting XL t-shirt working at Cisco Systems. That’s my idea of hell on earth.

Freedom from expectations means you’ve mastered the $3 level, the $30,000 level, the freedom from location, AND the freedom from time limits.

This level is the culmination of the others — the top of the ladder — because you’ve truly earned the right to be free from expectations.

Now you can choose the life you want.

Here’s how this worked in my life: When we were planning our wedding, my fiance (now-wife) Cass and I were out to dinner with some friends. We were talking about wedding planning and our friends asked us what we were thinking for a honeymoon. 

I told them we were probably going to go on a safari for 7 or 8 days. It was classic American thinking: we’re probably going to go for 7 to 10 days, have a nice time, come back, go to work. We were excited! 

Our friends were excited too. One of them said, “That sounds amazing. You know, when we went on our honeymoon, we took three months off and it was amazing.”

Cass and I looked at each other. What? 

Then the next couple (also older than us) told us that they took a year off and traveled the world when they got married.

Cass and I walked out of that dinner looking at each other, saying “What the hell just happe—”

We thought they were normal people. But who the hell takes that much time off?

Then we asked another question:

What if?

What if we decided to take a different path than the usual 7-day honeymoon?

What if we decided to stay at some of the world’s most amazing places…and also visit locals and eat street food?

And what if we brought our parents with us for part of it — to create memories we’d truly never forget?

In retrospect, I feel a little dumb because my entire business is advising people how to think bigger, but when it came to our honeymoon, I “bought into” the usual 7-day trip like everyone else. 

But I’m so glad we had that dinner. And I’m so glad we asked that magical question, “What if?”

We realized we could do this, too. We have the flexibility. We have the finances. We just needed the courage — and the mindset of freedom from expectations — to say YES.

On a horseback safari in Kenya, surrounded by giraffes. Our relationship rule: If we’re ever on the fence about doing something — a dinner party, an event — we just say YES.

We ended up taking a 6-week honeymoon to Italy, Kenya, India, and Thailand — and having the time of our lives.

One of the big mistakes that people just starting out make is assuming they have to accomplish all of these rungs at the same time. Wrong! You can start methodically and slowly. These can take a lifetime to truly master, and each step up is a win.

Now I want to hear from you:

I shared some of the changes I’ve made moving up the Ladder of Freedom. I’ll share mine on Instagram, too. 

Where are you on the Ladder of Freedom?

Where would you like to go?

Be specific — is it visiting a certain place? Is it never doing your own laundry again? Is it spending 2 hours volunteering every Wednesday evening?

Send me an email (I read every one) or post on Instagram and use the hashtag #ladderoffreedom. That way we can all find and learn from each other.

See you on IG,

-Ramit

The Ladder of Freedom is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

from Finance https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/the-ladder-of-freedom/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[andrewdburton]

The Ladder of Freedom

I was walking home from the gym in NYC and I had to stop and take a video of this. 

I call it HELLSCAPE ON EARTH.

Watch the entire video here

Looking at this building full of people working at 7pm, what do you feel?

I feel TRAPPED. Ever since I was a kid, I never wanted to work in a cubicle with fluorescent lights. I certainly never wanted to have people walking outside in the fresh air, looking at me through the glass in my conference room window like a zoo animal.

I know it’s irrational, but I’ve hated this since I started working at 14 years old. 

Now, I don’t mind working hard and I don’t mind putting in lots of hours when times are busy. But I hate the idea of HAVING to go into an office. 

“Dear Boss, can I please take a 2-day vacation? Can I please use the bathroom?” NO!

I remember telling my college friends this. They all looked at me like I was insane. We were all going to go work in cubicles…that’s what you do, right? 

Actually, no. You don’t have to.

When I was offered a job at Google, I ran the other direction. I took a massive pay cut, lived in a house with 4 other guys, and chose a different path. 

YES — it’s an amazing privilege to even be able to think about what “our path” is. So many people have to work at whatever job they can find to provide for their families. My immigrant parents came here and my dad took what job he could get. But together with my mom, they learned enough to give the next generation — my siblings and me — enough freedom that we could choose what we wanted to do. 

I’m very grateful for that opportunity. And now I get to share what I’ve learned with you.

As I’ve met more IWT readers, I’ve asked what your Rich Life is. I’ve learned it’s not simply to make more money (not even $1 million per year).

It’s also to choose the LIFESTYLE you want. For me, it was never having to go into an office with fluorescent lights and people wearing Patagonia vests. What is it for you?

Is your Rich Life…

Never having to wake up to a blaring alarm clock?

Being able to travel for 3 weeks at a time — and flying business class?

Being able to buy something without worrying about the price?

Here’s what I decided for my Rich Life.

I run my business from my home office — no commute, no fluorescent lights. I can wake up, have a leisurely morning, and walk 10 feet to start working.

BTW I splurged on a dual-monitor setup:

I HAVE FINALLY MADE IT

I wanted the freedom of traveling now, not 40 years from now. So I built it into my life. Every year, I travel for 6 weeks. 

Here’s my office for the day at The Oberoi Vanyavilas in India.  I worked for one hour per week — over a 6-week trip — and my business kept growing.

Fun fact: When the picture was taken in India, I checked on the daily sales for my business. Here’s the sales receipt from the previous day that was waiting in my inbox:

On that day in India, my business brought in $14,591 No office, no conference rooms

I know this is unusual — but it’s not an accident. 

It’s the result of building a business that supports my Rich Life. 

What would yours look like? Would you have a home office? Would you travel more? Would you take the afternoons off to spend it with your kids or a workout class?

Your Rich Life is yours. But it means you have to decide, then create it.

This is a totally different way of thinking about lifestyle. Most people take a random job, look around longingly at travel pics on Instagram, dream of “freedom,” then shrug and walk into a brown-carpeted conference room with lukewarm coffee and a conference room speakerphone. That’s my personal hell.

We wonder why we have a hard time getting out of bed and motivating ourselves to get things done. No, taking a 2-day vacation to “recharge” won’t change anything. 5 minutes of meditating won’t change it, either. You have to be courageous enough to confront the system you exist in…and decide to change it.

We all want freedom. We all want the flexibility to be spontaneous. We all want the ability to say YES when someone or something we love comes along. 

Are we willing to make the changes to get it?

Once you start, you’ll discover there are lots of different levels of freedom. And you choose where you want to be.

I call this The Ladder of Freedom. 

LEVEL 1: Freedom from $3 worries

This is the ability to stop sweating the small stuff.

A reader told me about taking a taxi in NYC and staring at the taxi sign ticking up by $0.50…block after block after block. 

“God,” he said. “I could see the price going higher, knowing I was going to have to skip lunch the next day. I was thinking to myself, ‘Should I just get out here? I could probably walk from here. But it’s raining…’”

I remember being in my early 20s and thinking EXACTLY the same thing. I went to a restaurant and saw an appetizer that looked so good…and then turned the page and just got an entree.

For lots of people, that’s just how life goes.

It’s easy to be worried about small expenses when we’re surrounded by so-called “experts” lecturing us about how our $3 lattes will destroy our lives. (Which is why it’s still surprising to most people to find out that you could cut back on $3 lattes all day…and even over 50 years, it wouldn’t add up to much. You can see the math in my post about multimillionaires lecturing you about avocado toast.)

At a certain point — as you get older, as you earn more, and as your time becomes more scarce — we all reconsider the calculus of is it worth it? For example, my mom would have NEVER bought pre-cut vegetables: They were too expensive. Now, I do. An extra $2 means nothing to me, and the 20 minutes saved is valuable.

Put another way: Would you worry about the cost of a $0.25 piece of candy? No, because it would have no effect on your life at all.

Same with $3 expenses. 

This first level of freedom is freedom from worrying about $3 expenses. You never have to worry about coffee or appetizers or picking up a round of drinks for your friends — because the money will not affect your life at all.

LEVEL 2: Freedom to ask $30,000 questions

This is the ability to buy the things you love, guilt-free.

At this level, you’re not worrying about $3 questions — you’re actually leaning into $30,000 questions. 

You don’t have to cut back on tiny expenses. Because you’re keeping your eye on the Big Wins, tiny $10 or even $100 expenses are irrelevant. 

In fact, you can splurge on the things you love:

Not just getting flowers once a year for your anniversary — getting a fresh bouquet delivered every week

Traveling for 3 weeks every year — and sorting your flight by “direct flights only,” not by “cost”

Treating your friends to dinner, saying, “I’ll get this”

I talked about moving beyond $3 questions for CNBC

If you could spend $5,000/year on something you love, what would it be? Get really specific. Don’t just say “travel.” Say: “I’d fly to Mexico for 10 days with my girlfriend, fly business class (points), stay at this resort I’ve been keeping my eyes on, and take a tequila tour.” 

Now think bigger: What if you could spend $50,000/year on something you love? What would you do? Most of us have never thought about this because we’re mired in the $3 weeds. But at this level, you can think bigger. 

Here’s what I did:

How about you?

If you had freedom from $30,000 questions, what would you spend more on? What’s the thing you LOVE spending on? Eating out? Travel? Fitness?

LEVEL 3: Freedom from location

This is the ability to work and live wherever you want. 

At this level, you have the ability to travel anywhere. You could work from Starbucks or a home office. Or Japan. 

And you’re not locked into any location, no matter how cool it is. You can work from Spain for a month, then try someplace else.

You’re not limited to two weeks of vacation a year, either. 

Here’s how I use this level of freedom:

Annual CEO trip: Every January, I take a trip with a small group of CEOs. We get a house with a chef and a view, then spend 4 days planning out our year, talking about what worked/what didn’t, and share advice with each other. (If this isn’t your thing, you could do it with a group of friends.)

Annual CEO trip, where we ask for advice, share our lessons from last year, and plan out this year

6-week extended vacation: At the end of every year, my wife and I take a 6-week trip. The trip gives us time to connect with each other, reflect on the year, and most of all, eat the world’s best food!!! I’ll post food pics on my IG account later.

India, Kenya, Italy, Japan…and more trips coming up. Each year, I work with my team to set up more systems that allow me to be off the grid. Last year, I only checked in for 1 hour a week. The rest was pure vacation.

Don’t be limited by my choice. What would yours be? Some would love a beach trip…others would move to Colorado for ski season…and others would take their kids to Europe for the summer. Dream big!

If you had freedom from location, where would you go?

LEVEL 4: Freedom from time limits

This is the ability to do what you want, when you want to do it. 

No endless string of meetings that you didn’t schedule. No alarm clocks. No having to remember “that one thing” to buy from the store.

At this level, you can use money to buy back your time.

Note that if you still love something, you can still do it! For example, I love reading emails from my readers, so I continue to read every single one (though I can’t respond to every one). I also love ironing my clothes. But I hate having to sort through travel options, so I’ve outsourced that.

Here are 30 examples of things my assistant handles and that I no longer have to spend time on thanks to my assistant and the systems we’ve built:

Altogether, this saves me 20 hours every week. 

If you had freedom from time, what would your mornings look like?

LEVEL 5: Freedom from expectations

This is the ability to completely craft your own Rich Life.

Maybe you want to buy a house — or not.

Maybe you want to have kids — or not.

Maybe you want to travel around the country in a trailer!

I love this!!

It’s not my Rich Life — I live in a Manhattan high-rise — but it’s Steve and his wife’s Rich Life. 

This is true “freedom from expectations.”

Guys, if I had followed society’s expectations, I would be wearing an ill-fitting XL t-shirt working at Cisco Systems. That’s my idea of hell on earth.

Freedom from expectations means you’ve mastered the $3 level, the $30,000 level, the freedom from location, AND the freedom from time limits.

This level is the culmination of the others — the top of the ladder — because you’ve truly earned the right to be free from expectations.

Now you can choose the life you want.

Here’s how this worked in my life: When we were planning our wedding, my fiance (now-wife) Cass and I were out to dinner with some friends. We were talking about wedding planning and our friends asked us what we were thinking for a honeymoon. 

I told them we were probably going to go on a safari for 7 or 8 days. It was classic American thinking: we’re probably going to go for 7 to 10 days, have a nice time, come back, go to work. We were excited! 

Our friends were excited too. One of them said, “That sounds amazing. You know, when we went on our honeymoon, we took three months off and it was amazing.”

Cass and I looked at each other. What? 

Then the next couple (also older than us) told us that they took a year off and traveled the world when they got married.

Cass and I walked out of that dinner looking at each other, saying “What the hell just happe—”

We thought they were normal people. But who the hell takes that much time off?

Then we asked another question:

What if?

What if we decided to take a different path than the usual 7-day honeymoon?

What if we decided to stay at some of the world’s most amazing places…and also visit locals and eat street food?

And what if we brought our parents with us for part of it — to create memories we’d truly never forget?

In retrospect, I feel a little dumb because my entire business is advising people how to think bigger, but when it came to our honeymoon, I “bought into” the usual 7-day trip like everyone else. 

But I’m so glad we had that dinner. And I’m so glad we asked that magical question, “What if?”

We realized we could do this, too. We have the flexibility. We have the finances. We just needed the courage — and the mindset of freedom from expectations — to say YES.

On a horseback safari in Kenya, surrounded by giraffes. Our relationship rule: If we’re ever on the fence about doing something — a dinner party, an event — we just say YES.

We ended up taking a 6-week honeymoon to Italy, Kenya, India, and Thailand — and having the time of our lives.

One of the big mistakes that people just starting out make is assuming they have to accomplish all of these rungs at the same time. Wrong! You can start methodically and slowly. These can take a lifetime to truly master, and each step up is a win.

Now I want to hear from you:

I shared some of the changes I’ve made moving up the Ladder of Freedom. I’ll share mine on Instagram, too. 

Where are you on the Ladder of Freedom?

Where would you like to go?

Be specific — is it visiting a certain place? Is it never doing your own laundry again? Is it spending 2 hours volunteering every Wednesday evening?

Send me an email (I read every one) or post on Instagram and use the hashtag #ladderoffreedom. That way we can all find and learn from each other.

See you on IG,

-Ramit

The Ladder of Freedom is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

from Finance https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/the-ladder-of-freedom/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[paulckrueger]

The Ladder of Freedom

I was walking home from the gym in NYC and I had to stop and take a video of this. 

I call it HELLSCAPE ON EARTH.

Watch the entire video here

Looking at this building full of people working at 7pm, what do you feel?

I feel TRAPPED. Ever since I was a kid, I never wanted to work in a cubicle with fluorescent lights. I certainly never wanted to have people walking outside in the fresh air, looking at me through the glass in my conference room window like a zoo animal.

I know it’s irrational, but I’ve hated this since I started working at 14 years old. 

Now, I don’t mind working hard and I don’t mind putting in lots of hours when times are busy. But I hate the idea of HAVING to go into an office. 

“Dear Boss, can I please take a 2-day vacation? Can I please use the bathroom?” NO!

I remember telling my college friends this. They all looked at me like I was insane. We were all going to go work in cubicles…that’s what you do, right? 

Actually, no. You don’t have to.

When I was offered a job at Google, I ran the other direction. I took a massive pay cut, lived in a house with 4 other guys, and chose a different path. 

YES — it’s an amazing privilege to even be able to think about what “our path” is. So many people have to work at whatever job they can find to provide for their families. My immigrant parents came here and my dad took what job he could get. But together with my mom, they learned enough to give the next generation — my siblings and me — enough freedom that we could choose what we wanted to do. 

I’m very grateful for that opportunity. And now I get to share what I’ve learned with you.

As I’ve met more IWT readers, I’ve asked what your Rich Life is. I’ve learned it’s not simply to make more money (not even $1 million per year).

It’s also to choose the LIFESTYLE you want. For me, it was never having to go into an office with fluorescent lights and people wearing Patagonia vests. What is it for you?

Is your Rich Life…

Never having to wake up to a blaring alarm clock?

Being able to travel for 3 weeks at a time — and flying business class?

Being able to buy something without worrying about the price?

Here’s what I decided for my Rich Life.

I run my business from my home office — no commute, no fluorescent lights. I can wake up, have a leisurely morning, and walk 10 feet to start working.

BTW I splurged on a dual-monitor setup:

I HAVE FINALLY MADE IT

I wanted the freedom of traveling now, not 40 years from now. So I built it into my life. Every year, I travel for 6 weeks. 

Here’s my office for the day at The Oberoi Vanyavilas in India.  I worked for one hour per week — over a 6-week trip — and my business kept growing.

Fun fact: When the picture was taken in India, I checked on the daily sales for my business. Here’s the sales receipt from the previous day that was waiting in my inbox:

On that day in India, my business brought in $14,591 No office, no conference rooms

I know this is unusual — but it’s not an accident. 

It’s the result of building a business that supports my Rich Life. 

What would yours look like? Would you have a home office? Would you travel more? Would you take the afternoons off to spend it with your kids or a workout class?

Your Rich Life is yours. But it means you have to decide, then create it.

This is a totally different way of thinking about lifestyle. Most people take a random job, look around longingly at travel pics on Instagram, dream of “freedom,” then shrug and walk into a brown-carpeted conference room with lukewarm coffee and a conference room speakerphone. That’s my personal hell.

We wonder why we have a hard time getting out of bed and motivating ourselves to get things done. No, taking a 2-day vacation to “recharge” won’t change anything. 5 minutes of meditating won’t change it, either. You have to be courageous enough to confront the system you exist in…and decide to change it.

We all want freedom. We all want the flexibility to be spontaneous. We all want the ability to say YES when someone or something we love comes along. 

Are we willing to make the changes to get it?

Once you start, you’ll discover there are lots of different levels of freedom. And you choose where you want to be.

I call this The Ladder of Freedom. 

LEVEL 1: Freedom from $3 worries

This is the ability to stop sweating the small stuff.

A reader told me about taking a taxi in NYC and staring at the taxi sign ticking up by $0.50…block after block after block. 

“God,” he said. “I could see the price going higher, knowing I was going to have to skip lunch the next day. I was thinking to myself, ‘Should I just get out here? I could probably walk from here. But it’s raining…’”

I remember being in my early 20s and thinking EXACTLY the same thing. I went to a restaurant and saw an appetizer that looked so good…and then turned the page and just got an entree.

For lots of people, that’s just how life goes.

It’s easy to be worried about small expenses when we’re surrounded by so-called “experts” lecturing us about how our $3 lattes will destroy our lives. (Which is why it’s still surprising to most people to find out that you could cut back on $3 lattes all day…and even over 50 years, it wouldn’t add up to much. You can see the math in my post about multimillionaires lecturing you about avocado toast.)

At a certain point — as you get older, as you earn more, and as your time becomes more scarce — we all reconsider the calculus of is it worth it? For example, my mom would have NEVER bought pre-cut vegetables: They were too expensive. Now, I do. An extra $2 means nothing to me, and the 20 minutes saved is valuable.

Put another way: Would you worry about the cost of a $0.25 piece of candy? No, because it would have no effect on your life at all.

Same with $3 expenses. 

This first level of freedom is freedom from worrying about $3 expenses. You never have to worry about coffee or appetizers or picking up a round of drinks for your friends — because the money will not affect your life at all.

LEVEL 2: Freedom to ask $30,000 questions

This is the ability to buy the things you love, guilt-free.

At this level, you’re not worrying about $3 questions — you’re actually leaning into $30,000 questions. 

You don’t have to cut back on tiny expenses. Because you’re keeping your eye on the Big Wins, tiny $10 or even $100 expenses are irrelevant. 

In fact, you can splurge on the things you love:

Not just getting flowers once a year for your anniversary — getting a fresh bouquet delivered every week

Traveling for 3 weeks every year — and sorting your flight by “direct flights only,” not by “cost”

Treating your friends to dinner, saying, “I’ll get this”

I talked about moving beyond $3 questions for CNBC

If you could spend $5,000/year on something you love, what would it be? Get really specific. Don’t just say “travel.” Say: “I’d fly to Mexico for 10 days with my girlfriend, fly business class (points), stay at this resort I’ve been keeping my eyes on, and take a tequila tour.” 

Now think bigger: What if you could spend $50,000/year on something you love? What would you do? Most of us have never thought about this because we’re mired in the $3 weeds. But at this level, you can think bigger. 

Here’s what I did:

How about you?

If you had freedom from $30,000 questions, what would you spend more on? What’s the thing you LOVE spending on? Eating out? Travel? Fitness?

LEVEL 3: Freedom from location

This is the ability to work and live wherever you want. 

At this level, you have the ability to travel anywhere. You could work from Starbucks or a home office. Or Japan. 

And you’re not locked into any location, no matter how cool it is. You can work from Spain for a month, then try someplace else.

You’re not limited to two weeks of vacation a year, either. 

Here’s how I use this level of freedom:

Annual CEO trip: Every January, I take a trip with a small group of CEOs. We get a house with a chef and a view, then spend 4 days planning out our year, talking about what worked/what didn’t, and share advice with each other. (If this isn’t your thing, you could do it with a group of friends.)

Annual CEO trip, where we ask for advice, share our lessons from last year, and plan out this year

6-week extended vacation: At the end of every year, my wife and I take a 6-week trip. The trip gives us time to connect with each other, reflect on the year, and most of all, eat the world’s best food!!! I’ll post food pics on my IG account later.

India, Kenya, Italy, Japan…and more trips coming up. Each year, I work with my team to set up more systems that allow me to be off the grid. Last year, I only checked in for 1 hour a week. The rest was pure vacation.

Don’t be limited by my choice. What would yours be? Some would love a beach trip…others would move to Colorado for ski season…and others would take their kids to Europe for the summer. Dream big!

If you had freedom from location, where would you go?

LEVEL 4: Freedom from time limits

This is the ability to do what you want, when you want to do it. 

No endless string of meetings that you didn’t schedule. No alarm clocks. No having to remember “that one thing” to buy from the store.

At this level, you can use money to buy back your time.

Note that if you still love something, you can still do it! For example, I love reading emails from my readers, so I continue to read every single one (though I can’t respond to every one). I also love ironing my clothes. But I hate having to sort through travel options, so I’ve outsourced that.

Here are 30 examples of things my assistant handles and that I no longer have to spend time on thanks to my assistant and the systems we’ve built:

Altogether, this saves me 20 hours every week. 

If you had freedom from time, what would your mornings look like?

LEVEL 5: Freedom from expectations

This is the ability to completely craft your own Rich Life.

Maybe you want to buy a house — or not.

Maybe you want to have kids — or not.

Maybe you want to travel around the country in a trailer!

I love this!!

It’s not my Rich Life — I live in a Manhattan high-rise — but it’s Steve and his wife’s Rich Life. 

This is true “freedom from expectations.”

Guys, if I had followed society’s expectations, I would be wearing an ill-fitting XL t-shirt working at Cisco Systems. That’s my idea of hell on earth.

Freedom from expectations means you’ve mastered the $3 level, the $30,000 level, the freedom from location, AND the freedom from time limits.

This level is the culmination of the others — the top of the ladder — because you’ve truly earned the right to be free from expectations.

Now you can choose the life you want.

Here’s how this worked in my life: When we were planning our wedding, my fiance (now-wife) Cass and I were out to dinner with some friends. We were talking about wedding planning and our friends asked us what we were thinking for a honeymoon. 

I told them we were probably going to go on a safari for 7 or 8 days. It was classic American thinking: we’re probably going to go for 7 to 10 days, have a nice time, come back, go to work. We were excited! 

Our friends were excited too. One of them said, “That sounds amazing. You know, when we went on our honeymoon, we took three months off and it was amazing.”

Cass and I looked at each other. What? 

Then the next couple (also older than us) told us that they took a year off and traveled the world when they got married.

Cass and I walked out of that dinner looking at each other, saying “What the hell just happe—”

We thought they were normal people. But who the hell takes that much time off?

Then we asked another question:

What if?

What if we decided to take a different path than the usual 7-day honeymoon?

What if we decided to stay at some of the world’s most amazing places…and also visit locals and eat street food?

And what if we brought our parents with us for part of it — to create memories we’d truly never forget?

In retrospect, I feel a little dumb because my entire business is advising people how to think bigger, but when it came to our honeymoon, I “bought into” the usual 7-day trip like everyone else. 

But I’m so glad we had that dinner. And I’m so glad we asked that magical question, “What if?”

We realized we could do this, too. We have the flexibility. We have the finances. We just needed the courage — and the mindset of freedom from expectations — to say YES.

On a horseback safari in Kenya, surrounded by giraffes. Our relationship rule: If we’re ever on the fence about doing something — a dinner party, an event — we just say YES.

We ended up taking a 6-week honeymoon to Italy, Kenya, India, and Thailand — and having the time of our lives.

One of the big mistakes that people just starting out make is assuming they have to accomplish all of these rungs at the same time. Wrong! You can start methodically and slowly. These can take a lifetime to truly master, and each step up is a win.

Now I want to hear from you:

I shared some of the changes I’ve made moving up the Ladder of Freedom. I’ll share mine on Instagram, too. 

Where are you on the Ladder of Freedom?

Where would you like to go?

Be specific — is it visiting a certain place? Is it never doing your own laundry again? Is it spending 2 hours volunteering every Wednesday evening?

Send me an email (I read every one) or post on Instagram and use the hashtag #ladderoffreedom. That way we can all find and learn from each other.

See you on IG,

-Ramit

The Ladder of Freedom is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

from Surety Bond Brokers? Business https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/the-ladder-of-freedom/