How late is too late?

"Hey, do you want to....."

You hesitate, just briefly, to consider all the pros and cons of the proposed idea and without fail money always crosses your mind. Can you justify spending more money this month? Should you? 

Money makes the world turn, and whilst I don't profess to even remotely know much about economics or stock markets or anything of the sort, what I do know is that we are so limited by the money we possess. 

I've seen a lack of money completely destroy someones life, I've seen someone finally get a job and prove themselves and pull themselves up from the lowest point in their life. It's so, so bittersweet but one thing remains and that is the ability for money to control every aspect of your life. 

I hate it, I hate the idea that a number dictates so much about us as a person, that this number represents so many things about our lives. I hate that it's possibly the single most limiting factor of most people's lives too. There are people with talents, people with skills that wish they could show, that they wish they could use to pay their way through life, but the sad point is that talent doesn't always guarantee you money. 

At what point did the world become so completely dependent on money that people could no longer enjoy their lives? Why is it that we are forced to slave away for 50 odd years jumping through jobs, trying to find our place, but never really feeling like we're getting anywhere? 

Money, money money money. 

The world is so vast, so wonderful and I see so few people on various forms of social media travelling the world and seeing it for all it is. I see so many pictures of beautiful, beautiful places and I get so sad knowing that I'll only get to see these places if I take some of my carefully calculated holiday days. Once upon a time people could easily save money, could easily travel the world, could easily just up and leave their job and do something completely new. 

Now? Now there's a record high of people living with their parents until they're 30+ because it's so expensive to move out. Now if you want to travel the world, if you want to quit your job and just be free for a while, you need to plan so well because you're sacrificing so much to do it. I know money doesn't buy happiness, I believe there's definitely an element of truth to that, but at the same time I fail to see how working ourselves into the ground just to be able to live is happiness either.

I say a lot that sometimes I'd love nothing more than to just delete everything and move to a new country and start life over. I'd love to just start again, surrounded by new people, taking a new career path, learning new skills and being a new person because sometimes I think that it's the best way to get out of this trap of being stuck "working for a while to save up some money" to do something I really want to do. 

I keep promising myself I'm going to do my masters, I keep promising myself I'm going to travel more and get out of the country but I'm always too worried to shoot myself in the foot by making any hasty decisions. My generation especially can't afford to NOT have experience in relevant jobs. We NEED to have a strong CV to have any hope of getting anywhere in life, so if we do strike gold and manage to get into a decent career, leaving that job too soon would be a massive risk, and one we just can't afford to do. 

So where does that leave us? How can we win?

We've got people taking degrees in things they feel they have to rather than things they love in the hope it'll get the a well-paid job so that they don't have to worry about their future. Surely that's completely backwards? People getting themselves into massive amounts of debt just to try and remotely secure their future?

How long do we have to put our dreams on hold before we feel financially secure enough to do something we really want? Hell, why the fuck is financial security even a thing and why does money control every part of our damn lives?

I guess the solution is to remember how much free beauty there is in the world, in the simple things such as exploring new local places, in hanging out with friends in their bedrooms and watching 10 films in a row. The simplest things often bring the most happiness I think.

Just don't lose yourself. Don't get sucked into the same trap that so many people don't realise they're in. Don't settle for a job you hate just because you feel like you'll never be able to get anywhere else because the last thing any of us want in our lives is to look back in 30 years and realise that we'd spent too much time working to enjoy ourselves. 

How late is too late? 

Well, I don't think it can ever be too late, nor can it really be too early. 

Money might make the world go round but stand still and you'll never get anywhere and I'll be damned if I'm going to sit around and watch the next however many years of my life pass me by because I was too scared to travel, or look into new directions for my life or because I was too worried about what would happen if I travelled for a while instead of working and saving. 

The world is your oyster, and though I've never understood that saying, I guess it's appropriate here.  

Thanks to anyone who reads this and suffers through my nonsense writing.