Life changing realization

[infinitenrgy]

I have been understanding Leo's videos much deeper lately and have been listening to them in an order that I believe led me to having a very life changing realization. This realization is probably the most profound one I have had since I started listening to Leo, even though I have had many others before. This one has changed the way I am thinking about my future and has allowed me to clear up many obstacles I had holding me back from taking real action right now. I'm sorry it is so long but I had to go into a lot of backstory in order explain exactly how my life got flipped inside out. Thank you for reading and please let me know what you think!

 

Since I was young I knew that my family was struggling with money and I built a very strong identity around the idea that this wasn’t going to be how my life would go. That I would do whatever it took in order to ensure I didn’t struggle with money because I saw how hard it made things for my family. We weren’t broke or starving but we were living paycheck to paycheck without tons of real meals. I saw how all this was affecting my mom and my step dad, their relationship and things I wanted to do in my life and I made a commitment very early on that this life wasn’t going to be my future. 

 

I had a friend in middle school who’s dad was a manager and said when we were old enough we could both be bus boys at the restaurant. For all of middle school I had long hair down to my shoulders and I died it all kinds of colors, I loved my hair and I was very attached to it. When it came time to get the job in 9th grade 2016, they told me I needed to cut the hair bc it was a very nice restaurant with specific dress code. I don’t think I would’ve cut my hair short again for any other reason than I knew I wanted to start making some money, and I didn’t hesitate. I got a buzz cut for that job and saved my first grand to put towards a car. 

 

My big thing was that I knew part of the reason my family was struggling was bc they could never get ahead with the bills enough to start saving any money, always going into the negative and playing catch up. This led me to thinking that saving as much money as possible was the most important thing I could do so that I have it when I need it. I also knew there was no chance of anyone buying me a car like a lot of my friends were getting, so it was very important to me to save as much as I could. I was 15 years old saving 80% of everything I made.

 

Eventually me and my friend cut ties which meant I couldn't work there anymore so I had to find a new job. June 2017 I got a job at a waterslide rental place for the summer. This was a good job and I was able to save 3 grand to put towards my car. I bought my first car in February 2018. I continued working at the moon bounce company on the weekends in the summer of 2018 while starting my electrical job and working there during the week. This was a hustle and I saved everything extra I made at the waterslide company. I did the same thing in the summer of 2019 and eventually quit the waterslide job during that summer because it was starting to be too much for me to work that many hours and I started to value my free time more than the extra money.

 

In 2019 is when I graduated and started working full time at my electrical job and I immediately set it up to out 20% of everything I made into a savings account. Eventually I had to spend a little more than half of what I saved for a new car, which led me with around 4,000 left over. Since then I have saved up a total of 16 grand that I have today without really budgeting too much and just being carful with how much I was spending. I started my electrical job at 9$ an hour in the summer of 2018. Only two and a half years later and I am now at 17$ an hour in 2020.

 

Now back to the main point about my family. Up until this past week I have held this mindset of saving as much as possible to have security for my future. My family has still been struggling this entire time and during 2020 things turn a turn for the worst. My step dad and mom got divorced and he moved out (this had been coming for years, they have had a toxic relationship since I was little). Covid 19 is what drove them to their limits and they couldn't stand each other anymore, while at the same time my stepdad was losing his job also because of the virus.

 

I did lots of arguing with him and my mom over the bills trying to help by teaching them things I learned about saving money and lowering bills because I didn't think the problem they had was lack of money, I thought it was lack of management. I worked out a plan for all the bills with my mom and stated that as long as my step dad was sending the money he promised every month then everything should be fine and she would have plenty of extra money too. Sadly this didn't work out and he hasn’t been sending money for months now.

 

Eventually I got to a point during this where I decided this was my life and I didn't want anything to do with their problems. I had to make sure that I was saving as much money as possible for my own future and it wasn't up to me to help either of them with the bills. I had this grand idea that if I saved as much money as I could to build a foundation for my life, got out of this house asap, and then eventually found my life purpose down the road, then I would be able to help 10x as much as I could now. I have always had a vision of myself as being rich one day and doing whatever it would take to do it so I feel very strongly that if I put my mind to it then that will become reality. 

 

The problem is that living at my house is really toxic and I have been wanting to leave since my step dad moved out. The money problems, the divorce problems, the house is always a messy disaster from my 3 brothers and my mom bought 6 cats through the years. I also have my German shepherd dog and girlfriend living with me in a small bedroom. It is very hard to be focused on personal development and growing myself with all of this going on but my options for leaving are very limited and if I did leave it would probably largely be because of my terrible relationship with my mom (mainly because I blamed her for all of these problems) and we would never talk again.

 

I had a plan to leave for awhile with a place to go set and ready, but eventually came to realize this wasn't a good idea because I would be paying rent and be in a unfamiliar area even further away from my job. I also didn’t want to leave because part of me knew I would never talk to my mom again after all of this. Me and my girlfriend talked a lot about this together and eventually decided we would be much better off building our futures if we were able to stay right where we were at. This was a hard thing to come to grips with because of all the obstacles in the way of doing personal development and just being happy at home. 

 

Together we put together a plan to talk to my mom about all the changes we needed to see happen and I finally stopped blaming and hating her so much. Part of this plan was for us to knock down a wall in the house to get a bigger room (we put the wall up to separate one room into two, so we will be knocking it back down to have the rest of the room we originally needed for my step dads office), and I also decided to start giving my mom 200$ a month for rent instead of paying the one 80$ bill I was paying for her (I should have been more grateful I haven't been forced to pay them much at all this whole time). Before this I had been ignoring everyone in the house because of how much I hated being there so I had no idea if my step dad was still sending money or not. During our talk I was made aware that he hasn't been sending anything and the mortgage is 6,000$ behind along with a couple other bills and my mom is currently 700$ negative.

 

Literally a day later I listened to Leos video about goodness and it hit me really hard that I should definitely not be saving all this money and just holding onto it for my future and that I should now take charge not only with getting everyone to clean up and having better relationships with them, but also with paying the bills and helping my mom get everything paid on time. I haven't set up a budget yet or done the math on how much I will be able to give her while still saving some money for myself, but I definitely want to give her as much as possible. I now vision a future where I help my mom get her money situation straight before I do anything else for just my future.

 

I was at work when I listened to that video and that realization that helping her is what I should be doing hit me like a hammer in the head. It felt like that part of me that wants to save all this money for security for my future had to be let go and had to die and this terrified me. I cried half of the day because of this and I felt terrified about all the work this meant I had to do. Questions surfaced like what if I will never make it out of this house because I wont be able to save nearly as much money anymore? What if I help her and she doesn't do her part with the money and still asks me for more? What if I help and it is still not enough? How will I be able to save enough to buy a house to leave this place and then build my future career? It felt like my life had just flipped upside down, and it did.

 

See my original way of thinking was that I needed to get out of here asap in order to be focused on my personal development enough to figure out what my life purpose is and to start working on it. I thought that escaping was my only option for a good future. Leo changed the meaning of good for me that day, I no longer saw helping later when I am rich and it wont hurt as good. I now see that sacrificing myself now to help everyone around me in this time when they really need it as good. My intuition has showed me how terrible I will feel in the future when I left my whole family behind to pursue my future without thinking much of them at all.

 

The thinking that held me back from this realization was the blaming on my mom and the world for the family that I grew up in. I didn’t think it should be my problem to help her because I didn’t choose to have this family or life and that I should focus on getting out of it. Now I realize that I have just been rejecting the reality of my life and that even though I didn't choose it, it is still my responsibility. Just because on some enlightened level my family isn't even real is no excuse to treat them the same as any other people. I grew up with these people and they will always have ties to my life, I want these relationships to be as good as possible, not forgotten and left behind.

 

This realization also allowed me to see how much action I CAN take right now to change my life and I no longer have to wait to leave to start pursuing my life purpose. If I take this route of helping her, then I will still be living here for a few years which means I can actually start figuring out my life purpose right now. I'm still scared about what this means for my future, but it is clear to me now that even though this move is extremely counterintuitive, my higher self's intuition says that this will make me way happier in the end even if it means sacrificing my old future plans and having to create new ones with a new path. Even if it means I have to work my shitty electrical job for longer then I originally planned, that’s the real hustle. Not getting to the finish line asap, but taking my time to make sure I'm doing it right and creating real happiness through that.

 

I know this was really long so thank you for reading and please let me know what you think about this. I'm curious what others will think about my realizations and if anyone can relate to having one feel like it turned your ego inside out. Lastly I want to thank Leo for his work, I found him about a year ago now and I knew it was a gold mine from the beginning. If anything will be the reason I don't let my ego fuck up my life it will be because of Leo. I would still be lost and confused without you, thank you so much and I can't wait for more!

[GroovyGuru]

Man, I have to be honest it's a bit tough to relate because I was blessed to have been born in a family without much financial struggle. I'm guessing I'm right around the same age as you, and although I have expenses of my own (especially my 30k student loans), I've never really been in a situation where I actually need to seriously financially contribute to my parents bills else we starve.

I have a friend who was actually in a similar position as you. He was living with his incredibly lazy mother and brother who he had to really help provide for after his father's death from cancer. Although his situation wasn't as dire as yours, he actually decided to do the opposite and he quickly got out of there and got his own house as soon as he could. I'm not quite sure how his mom and brother are doing without his help though.

All I can really say is that I admire the position you took because that takes courage, commitment, sacrifice, and definitely a lot of goodness as you said. I am not sure whether it is the right or wrong decision, hopefully others can provide you with insight on that. However, if I was in your shoes, I would also try to step up and be a man and do the right thing but also make it an absolute priority of mine to share the knowledge I've gained with my siblings and mother to help them get their act together. I would try to get them to step up and make them realize that you can't spend your entire life cleaning up after them and paying their bills. You have your own aspirations and goals. I would even go so far as to literally verbalize that to them.

Best of luck in the future my friend.

[infinitenrgy]

@GroovyGuru Its funny because for awhile when I was in the mindset of leaving I was preaching to them everything I was learning and basically trying to force them to grow so I didn't have to get to this point to help financially. Now I feel like the only way I can truly help them learn from me and grow is by showing them my own growth and selflessness through helping with the bills and setting up systems that show them how we can all clean rather then me forcing them to or being angry about it. Thank you for your reply and good luck with your student loan debt, check out Dave Ramsey! 

[Nahm]

@infinitenrgy

Amazing. ?? 

[flowboy]

@infinitenrgy  And after you are done figuring it out for your mom, you can go become an online budget coach, helping people with poor self-control by managing their bank account for them. There's plenty of people with ADHD for example who make decent money, but just are extremely impulsive with it, thus willing to pay you a nice monthly cut to manage it for them. I know some of these people. You can message me.