Imagine having enough “talking back” money or the ability to live life exactly according to your own standards – a life without ethical compromise or stupid adherence to the idea that selling one’s personality in exchange for cash is a great way for all of us to squander our lives. I’m going out on a clichéd limb here and speculating that much of our lives would look nothing like what they currently resemble if each of us had sufficient “talking back” money.

(“Talking back” money is an old idea that indicates that you have enough resources to do what you want, despite circumstances trying to align to force you to do what you don’t want to do – usually associated with employment.)

My point isn’t so much toward what type of work we are doing, as work tends to be the unifying factor in our lives, whether we like it or not. It is the attitude that all mature adults must adopt, the attitude that forces us to swallow our natural instinct to not waste our own lives doing meaningless, unethical, or simply stupidly repetitive activity. 

Imagine if we could be honest with all of our friends and loved ones. Not cruelly honest, but respectfully honest. What would your social life look like? Who would you choose to be around? How would you spend your allotted time in life?