Everybody is selling a course. I’m not exaggerating; everybody and their mother has the next best thing I need to make my first million, and I am not immune. Regardless of my disdain for the situation, I have taken some of this advice with a grain of salt and put in effort to match my desired results. But this has become a worldwide pandemic.

The rise of the information age offered a lot of benefits, especially for me, as I can sit from the comfort of my home and work in front of a screen. I do not need to toil and labour in the sun to have measurable results because most of it is monitored differently.

Except the rise of information has led to the death of many things, creativity included. Rest seems to be a penchant for bums and work-life balance, a fairy tale that was passed down from great-grandfathers regaling kids with stories of a time when housing was affordable, a job was not the centre of life, and money was not the absolute measure of adequacy. If I am a hypocrite, I am a self-aware one at least; I put in the effort and appreciate the money I earn. I, among others, long for financial freedom but bow the knee to capitalism all the same.

Herein lies my problem: the gentrification of hobbies. Enjoyment and simple pleasure have become a ridiculous notion. As though relaxation is a reward set aside for the rich, for those who have met a mark and have attained a financial status that surpasses everyone else. It’s not a subtle change; it is widespread. To tell someone that you care deeply about something and have dedicated a considerable amount of time to it is to expect the other side of the coin: “How much are you making from it? How much of your passion is convertible to cash? What does your love for this interest pay you in monetary benefits?”

To be bereft of millions while being in this position is to be considered a failure. A dream that serves no benefit to capitalism seems not to be worthy of its title; it’s a part of why the quality of life and society seem to be taking a downward slide. Everything except the primary goal of making money is a waste. The apparent decline in empathy, intellect, and the appreciation of the mundane is irritating. There seems to be no room for individuality; the path is set, and the road is defined. We absolutely need to make more money. And this goes unquestioned because the average person works off half of her life—or almost all of it—to attain this status.

Why can't joy be a reward in itself?

The beauty of freedom is choice, the choice to be set in a particular designated timeline without the restraint of single-mindedness, the choice to select a path and have no other options conflicting enough to cancel out the other. But it seems that, like everything else, the complexity of choice leads to a sort of overwhelm that borders on fatigue. The beauty of choice is maintained in diversity, no doubt. The possibility to be anything and everything, but the monetization of these much simpler structures, has become a bit of a nuisance.

The absolute belief that my fun desire to make poetry should be something that is honed into a craft and then sold is confusing to me because the freedom of choice is to be, but somehow society and many other structures that feel confusing to begin listing have twisted this so that even though freedom is offered, you have to choose the laid out path regardless. Like accentuating that although many options are given, the pre-decided option can be the only right one.

As a society, there need to be glaring reminders that many truths can exist in independence or co-dependency. To be human is not to be put in a box, but to traverse multiple paths in one lifetime. I understand the genuine desire to monetize. Really, I was not born into a rich family. I know how it feels to glimpse into the fringes of wealth and see what comfort looks like without having a chance to partake, but I genuinely do not know how to exist in only one direction.

On only a path that leads to financial gain, on some days, this scares me because what if I never get enough funding to chase my dreams? As wary as I am to admit that in today’s world, money is the currency of almost everything—including happiness—a society driven by financial gain is one that makes it much harder for a creative soul to thrive.

A person who does not want to follow trends and dance to the rhythm of a certain design is inevitably left behind; compromise has become law in some way. And so it goes on: an algorithm decides the ideas worth pursuing, the gain decides the measure of value for any idea to thrive, and the cycle repeats itself.

Over and over, I say I am not a writer because it makes me millions; it does not. I am one because I found a hobby that turned into so much more; I found something that gives me genuine joy and profound happiness. I could go on and on about how this has damaged the sense of living for many. I know many young people with the only goal of making money in life, who believe rest is ridiculous and joy is something that cannot exist in isolation. Some of it is true; most of it is lies. Life does not have to exist in absolutes.

I think we should begin again to normalize the mundane. For a few months in my final year, I did something that gave me immense joy. I would go to an old building, climb to the highest floor when the sun was about to set, and watch it do that. I would watch the grass sway and enjoy how the sunlight kissed me goodnight. It was a momentary escape from life. I just wish life wasn’t something that had to be escaped because of this infernal pursuit and desire to make everything monetized.

Joy should once again become regular, not a far-fetched thought, and be able to exist in the absence of money. All of this sounds like wishful thinking, like the notion of a child who still has wonder and has not ventured into the real world. But passion should be able to just exist as that once again. For now, I’ll keep at the routine, grasping at my little pieces of joy my life can afford me, but I long for a day when passion can exist as that, without the other thought niggling at the back of my mind, that voice that thinks, “Oh, how much can I make from putting hours into this?”