I saw something funny on a friend’s Facebook page the other day. It was a meme featuring the Will Smith in his Fresh Prince role from the 1990’s. The meme was captioned “how did you find God?” at the top. At the bottom was the opening line to the theme of Fresh Prince of Bel-Aire.

        “I’d like you to take a minute and sit right there as I tell you how I became the Fresh Prince of a town called Bel-Aire.”-Theme song to Fresh Prince of Bel-Aire. (1990-1996).

Before the Awakening

The meme got me thinking about everything I lost the last few years since my Awakening started in 2011. I used to be ambitious in my 20’s. I was going to church on my own for the first time. I also noticed most spiritual/religious types appear to be less ambitious. 

I too started losing my ambition and spent much of my 20’s and into my 30’s struggling with mental illness. On top of my growing lack of ambition, I had the spiritual insight that even the entire mental health field was just a game and had enough conviction to avoid medications.

This separated me from the church I was going to and ended up resulting in the end of my first marriage in my mid 30’s. Further spiritual growth led to a loss of religious zeal (like I ever was much into religion in the first place). I also shifted further to the left in my ideologies and discovered “liberalism” wasn’t such a bad word after all as I felt a sense of freedom, or liberation.

Then I discovered the Middle Way. This was a Buddhist concept, but in a world that politicized everything we call it Libertarianism these days. That’s another topic entirely.

After the Awakening

After I experience brief homeless, I had the privilege of discovering that there were many people who chose homelessness as a way of simply opting out of the economy. Some just did day labor for money and paid for their smartphones (which basically have all you need on them anyway).

In a sense, a homeless shelter was basically an intentional community. I could have gotten into the life and been just as fulfilled writing on my blog at (http://dailyevotionals.wordpress.com) whether I made any money or not.

I already found my purpose in my life as a writer. It’s not about the money. Capitalism is all about raising your standard of living up. It is also basically a giant game of Monopoly.  It’s not inherently a bad thing, except for turning your life into a game. Although you can spending so much time maximizing wealth that you miss out on life entirely. Not to mention ruining your health because of all the stress.

Relationships have gotten so shallow and empty because everyone is so focused on money and materialism that no one really cares about anything deeper. And if you are not a materialist, you will probably have a hard time being a capitalist.

All is not lost

I am not entirely lost with my lack of ambition. I just work for basic needs now. The simpler life means I am healthier. To this I discovered that even health insurance does not cost as much without insurance and even more negotiable. Many urgent care centers have payment plans.

I am still ambitious but my ambition is more practical. It is still empowering being able to work to pay for your own place and enjoy the privilege of driving a nice car. Building a business, or a ministry, is fulfilling in itself.

Men like to build things.

Like it says in the Bible, everything that man builds in the tree of knowledge of good/evil (material world) will be thrown down and burned up. Only spiritual fruit designed to better serve humanity will last forever.  You can still get rich but maybe not as rich if you primary focus is creating family and community.

You might even be called a Socialist! Although I’m sure the Kingdom of God is beyond any earthly kingdom.