How Much Should You Sell Your Soul For?

7 min readJan 20, 2021

The Grave Dangers of Playing “The Game”

Get that degree. No, a master’s degree. Good. Now, work for 37 years as you raise a family, go through three divorces, consistently clock 60 hour weeks, and have two lower back surgeries from sitting slumped in your office chair twelve hours a day. Finally, when all those things are finished, if you haven’t turned to paltry ash or been completely defeated by life, then you can pursue your dream.

“Play the game, we all have to.”

Do you really?

The Lie Of The Game

Many of us are told we have to play the “game,” at least for a while. Do your time, as if imprisonment were a precondition for freedom. It’s only after spending years, even decades, doing what you “have” to do, does society permit you to do what you want to . . . as a hobby.

Most of us accept the terms of this deal, buying into the ideology of bootstraps and pulling ourselves up. But two questions arise.

1) Why can’t we skip all the years or red-tape and go straight to the source? Most of us learn to do what we love to do by . . . doing it. What are we waiting for? Permission?

2) Will the flame in your soul still burn after it’s been extinguished through years of neglect? We become who we act to become. How will we remember our flame’s desire if we spend years steering away from it? The more we steer away from it, the more the flame within us is extinguished, possibly replaced by another flame of a different, fainter color and more feeble heat.

Some say you should play the game long enough to get power. Once you get power, then you can change the game — “work” the system. But will you remember, when you have finally reached the top, why you set off in the first place? Will the years of exposing your youthful heart to the wolves of deception and malice leave you unharmed and, worse still, uncorrupted?

The Illusion Of Security

“A decision made from fear is always the wrong decision.” — Tony Robbins

Why do we play the game? We play the game because we are afraid. We are looking for the sure thing: security, predictability, and certainty. We take the beaten path because we want stability, and the value of “stability” is reinforced by all of society’s most zealous adherents — basically everyone.

We are convinced that danger and defeat are the only things that lie outside of the parameters of the game. Don’t do it like everyone else? Risk homelessness, poverty, ostracization, dejection, and a lifetime of regret. End up like one of “them”, we are told, as our parents and teachers point to the meth-head on the sidewalk. To pursue anything outside the game, we gather, is essentially dangerous, illusory, and stupid.

It is at this moment that we make our fatal mistake. Two in fact. The first is that we believe this without question. The second is that we fail to ask the question: Why?

Let’s start with the first mistake. Why should we not believe those who tell us to play the “game”? Look at their drives lives and decisions: fear, a scarcity-mindset, and the belief that you have to earn your worth as a human being.

They indeed have some of the things that everyone wants: a little wealth, a nice car, and enjoyable accessories. Those things are fine. But what they don’t have is freedom. They lack freedom not because they can’t afford it, but because their minds have been trained to not value it. They have become attached to the products of their slavery instead of the essence of life.

This leads us to the second mistake: failing to ask the question. Why? “Why” is an inflammatory word. It should be. Sometimes it holds an innate accusation, other times it demands further explanation. But all the time, it puts us in the driver’s seat. There is no place that society’s adherents want us less to be than in the driver’s seat. Being in the driver’s seat is our freedom and it means that we are aware, that we are conscious, and that we are dangerous.

If you look around at society’s adherents, very few of them ask “why”. They live their life from a mindset of scarcity, stuck in a cycle of cortisol-induced, fear-mongering anxiety which creates the need to always be “catching up” to whatever they are chasing.

They rarely look around, realize that they have enough, and think about why they are pursuing twelve sales clients this week. Most are unable to express gratitude for what they do have. The state of scarcity sucks joy straight from their veins and leaves them without breath in their lungs.

When we ask “why” — Why should I live that way? — the illusion begins to crumble. The values that societal expectations are built on are revealed, and all that is left is a choice: My way or their way? Will I be free or be a slave?

At that point, the choice is up to you. But we can’t properly make any choice — let alone see the choices available to us — until we can free ourselves from the fear that has been soaking into our minds since birth. “Freedom from fear” does not mean that we no longer feel afraid, but simply that we do not choose to act and live from a place of fear, but something else entirely.

From Fear To Freedom

We ought to be afraid. But we are afraid of the wrong things. If we fear not having security, surely we will never find it. What we search for in fear we will not find while we search for it. We will only find more reasons to be afraid. Consider Alan Watt’s thoughts on “Security”:

“To put it still more plainly: the desire for security and the feeling of insecurity are the same thing. To hold your breath is to lose your breath. A society based on the quest for security is nothing but a breath-retention contest in which everyone is as taut as a drum and as purple as a beet.”

What should we be afraid of then? We should be afraid of what we forfeit in our tireless search for security.

“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” — BF

Fear can only produce fear. The search for security is a search made in fear, and joy and love and happiness and fulfillment, and all the things that make human-life worthwhile, are sacrificed at the altar of our fear-induced comas. We will never be free until we ask “why”.

Shouldn’t we at least try to live lives that are meaningful and worthwhile? And risk a life that we can, dare I say, enjoy?

When we pursue something precious to us, we are trained to react with fear. Our first thought — What if it doesn’t work out? — is ingrained in us. But we forget to ask: What if it will?

What About The Risk?

Make no mistake, there is a substantial risk. The substantial risk is that we will die at the ripe old age of 95, having betrayed every value we once held as sacred and having ran scared from every opportunity that stirred awe and excitement in our gut. We may not die alone at 95, but we will be alone because we will have long forgotten who we were, only to remember who we have become. In our dying breath, we will be disgusted with who we have become, and see him as a traitor to who we once were. For this person, regret and loss will be synonyms for “life story”.

That is the risk. The risk is that we will slowly kill ourselves by suppressing the source of our own life: our purpose. And make no mistake, the only true happiness comes from our true purpose. NOTHING. ELSE. MATTERS.

What Do We Do With Society?

What do we do with society? Do we disengage entirely, move to the desert, clothe ourselves with animal skin and eat locusts and honey for all three meals a day? Perhaps. Some have elected to do this. Personally, I like the comforts of my own bed, having a fridge, grocery stores, and the like. I contend there is another option.

We must dictate our relationship to society, not the other way around.

I will not say we should ignore society completely. Most of us need food, a place to sleep, and the necessities of everyday life. Working in society does not necessarily mean we have given up on our dreams, and it is not necessarily an evil itself. Going to college to get a degree does not have to be an evil either. But it can easily become one.

The reason the “game” is dangerous is that it is so seductive, and it will ultimately destroy our souls. Look around, do you see many people living vitally passionate lives? Me neither.

We must ask ourselves, continually, what exactly we are after, and why.

Without an ability to ask important questions and without a connection to a purpose greater than our individual moment, our motives will change in a heartbeat once a drop of fear or a sip of deceit is absorbed into our bones. The only real security against fear is awareness. And awareness comes from knowledge, experience, and, eventually, wisdom.

Maybe some of you can endure the seductions of society without giving in longer than I. Perhaps I write this because I am aware of my own innate corruptibility. Even so, I cannot help but point out the vast majority of people I meet live fully asleep: disconnected from their most vital life source, pursuing something they think will make them happy, only to find that they have betrayed their only true and sacred self.

At the end of the day, whatever energy we pursue a goal with will be returned to us in the same energy. Fear begets fear. Deceit begets deceit. But love begets love. And riches beget riches. And life begets life. So, on this day, choose to live, and live for real.