“Rent is too high”, “Bills too High”, “Salary too low”, “Can’t make it here'”…

I have many friends and acquaintances who have had a tremendous amount of difficulty “making it” here in Israel. Let me be clear as well, I also have many friends and acquaintances who live in the US who are also having difficulty “making it”. So although I sit here in Israel and understand that being here comes with its unique challenges, the principles discussed below are relevant anywhere in the world.

Life is hard

So what is going on? Many of these people are working full time, working hard…This is what we were told growing up; “Go to college, get a job/career, Work hard, and the economic dream will hug you like a soft teddy bear full of love and everything that is right in this world will happen to you.

Unfortunately there is an alternative reality…our reality. The first generation of people who are earning less money than their parents.

The career path of being with the same company for 25 years until retirement is no longer. We get jobs in order to pay our bills only to dread waking up in the morning and doing the same thing everyday. There is a generation of people who can honestly say that when they wake up in the morning, they are not living the life they thought was for them.

And you know what? Perhaps that is okay. Life is not always the way we plan. We need to be flexible and open to different avenues which will bring us to a different place which we would also be happy with.

Here in Israel I hear the same mantra over and over again. “Rent is too high”, “Bills too much”, “Salary too low”, “can’t make it here'”. But there is the harsh reality. Throughout the history of mankind on this earth, only in the last 50 some odd years has a work week been just 40 hours.

If you have a job which you earn a salary and only work 40 hours, that means you have another 15-20 work hours a week which you can ‘steal time’ to find additional channels of revenue for you and your family. That is just 3 to 4 hours per day. And anyone thinking “I don’t even have that time”. Well you are reading this article right? Anyway, for the last 6 years I have not seen a work day less than 12 hours long ,so I can put my money where my mouth is.

So what are we doing with our time?

Studies have shown that the average person spends 23 hours on the Internet a week….23 hrs…TWENTY-THREE HOURS.

Clearly there are many factors related to the struggles we have in this poor economy and many of these variables are out of our control. But 23 hours on the internet every week? This is something we CAN control. Even in a stable economy if you take a productive person and put him/her on the internet for 23 hours a week, he/she will see a negative effect.

So when I hear repeatedly the same mantra over and over again. “Rent is too high”, “Bills too much”, “Salary too low”, “cant ‘make it here'”. The answer is not from outside, it is inside.

Can you honestly say you are dedicating yourself in a manner fit for someone who is successful?

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