When I opted out of the corporate rat race, I had achieved so many of the traditional success markers: university degrees, impressive job titles, a fat salary, and a gorgeous condo in San Francisco. I quit what I referred to in Regenerative Purpose as a “fake plant kind of life” because I realized that this competitive, consumption-driven lifestyle was sucking the life force out of me.
But oh wow, I see how this game of life is so tricky. Our ego patterns are so sticky.
Here I am — eight years older and wiser — with the same pattern parading before me, only disguised in a different form. I see how easy it would be to create the same trap again, in my new context.
We leave one matrix, only to enter a new one. We look down on the so-called “sheep” in the herd that we pulled away from, as we congratulate ourselves for getting out of that lower vibration reality. And in our self-satisfaction, we blindly build our new prison, while convincing ourselves that we’re getting free.
For years, I was fully subscribed to the success template of mainstream society. In that context, we were sheep chasing the false idols of big social status, big job titles, and big salaries. In that version of reality, this bundle of achievements was endorsed by society as the ultimate prize. This was treated as the panacea to cure existential fear; to combat the basic insecurity of being in a body.
Many have seen through that delusion it seems. But now there’s an entire subculture that has re-oriented to worship a new set of false idols — the new age success markers of passive income, location independence, and Internet fame.
We’re eating the same old scarcity salad, with new age dressing.
We’re playing the same old competition game, with a spiritual name.
Passive income is a false idol, because it is dead money. It is not generative; it is not life-affirming. The essence of this false idol is survival. Passive income can have a place as a supportive means for creative contribution. But if we desire to live life fully, this will not be the endpoint because on its own, it is unfulfilling. If we manage to reach it, our aliveness will naturally compel us to do something else. We must take care not to sacrifice participation in the present as a trade for security in the future.
Location independence is a false idol, because it is isolating. It is not grounded; it is not connected. The essence of this false idol is separation. It is nice to have freedom of movement, and to be able to move between different geographies easily. But if we never stay in one place long enough to build a sense of community, we will starve the part that needs intimate connection to thrive. Humans are tribal animals. By nature, we need to nourish and be nourished by relationships to feel safe being in a body.
Internet fame is a false idol, because it is outsourcing. It is image focused; it is disempowering. The essence of this false idol is other-orientation. It lulls creators into the dopamine dependency of external validation, and contracts them to maintain a public image suitable for consumption. It pulls followers into the distraction loops of consuming another’s experience instead of participating in their own. Whether we are the influencer or the influenced, it is a filtered reality that tempts us into inauthenticity and disconnects us from inner authority.
Now matter how the rules change, and no matter what forms the achievements morph into, our experience comes from the way we show up to play. It doesn’t matter what path we find ourselves on, if we move from ego identity, we will end up with the same result every time. When we unlock achievements from the force of personal doing, our winning can only leave us hollow and unfulfilled inside.
Emptiness, by contrast, invites us to inhabit true power as vessels for Source energy. We touch that elusive edge where we know ourselves as master creators, and we also know that we are the pieces being played. In that mystical and mythical place of (non-)existence, we can find peace in our individual insignificance and feel ease in the benevolent holding of interdependence.