Yesterday, while on the toilet, I suddenly realized a question: what is the greatest wealth of the rich and powerful in this world?

Is it cash? Is it bank deposits? No.

Because money can be printed and is essentially worthless; for instance, Zimbabwean currency. As long as you are happy, you can add a few zeros to the currency, and everyone can be a billionaire, yet still live in poverty.

So why is everyone so interested in money?

Because money can buy food, drinks, entertainment, and necessities. It can pay people to give you massages, haircuts, deliver packages, bring takeout to your door, dance for you, sing for you, tell jokes to make you happy... and all of these require people to do them:

Someone has to endure the scorching sun to sow seeds, weed, and water; someone has to work on assembly lines to create various products; someone has to rise early and stay late, using their time to run errands for you... At this point, you should understand that the upper class's greatest wealth is not cash, but the labor and time of the poor.

If everyone lies flat, does no labor, produces no products, and provides no services, even if you have money, it is of no use because the money in your hand cannot be exchanged for any physical goods.

A person's life is only about 70 years, and the time available for labor is about 40 years. The value created by these 40 years of labor and the precious 480 months of life span are the greatest wealth of the upper class. In the past slavery era, slave owners used whips to force slaves to work. The value produced by slave labor was the greatest wealth of the slave owners.

This method is simple and crude, but it is also very naked and can easily lead to resistance and apathy. Now the game has changed; money is used as a medium, currency as a general equivalent to measure the value of your labor and to monetize it, paying you for your work in exchange.

The cash you earn through labor can be exchanged for the value of other people's labor, which can be food, goods, or services like haircuts and massages. This method seems fair, but there are many tricks: First, some people can print money at will to exchange for your labor output.

Second, there are artificially manipulated price fluctuations that cause you to buy high and sell low, taking away the cash you earned through labor and time. To prevent you from lying flat and quitting your job, they can even use financial means to lock in your future 30 years of labor and time; debt forces you to work.

Summary: Only labor produces value; the money printed by the upper class can anchor physical goods and be exchanged for them, allowing them to have good lives. The continuously laboring poor are the greatest wealth of the upper class. How can the poor break free?

First: No debt. Debt makes your life passive in all aspects. With 10 yuan, a driver can rush over from 2 kilometers away and take you where you want to go; with 5 yuan, a food delivery person can bring you your meal from 5 kilometers away.

Once you are in debt, it forces you to work day and night, sacrificing long-term planning for short-term gains, becoming a slave to time. By staying debt-free and accumulating your first 100,000 yuan in savings, you solve your survival issues and gain 80% of personal freedom.

Second: Reshaping concepts. The upper class often instills many ideas in the lower class to increase their labor output: comparison, vanity, status, face, jealousy, collective pride, diamonds, wedding rings, brands, limited editions... Through the implantation of these concepts, some products are sold to you at prices far exceeding their value, in exchange for your labor and time.

If your neighbor buys a car and shows off in front of your door every day, making you feel embarrassed, even though you don't really need a car and wouldn't drive it much in a year, you take out a loan of 300,000 yuan to buy a luxury car just for the sake of face.

The annual costs for parking, insurance, maintenance, and fuel can amount to tens of thousands, and the high cost of living makes you feel overwhelmed. In reality, you have fallen into a comparison trap created by others, as if everyone has tacitly agreed on a concept: owning a car is a standard for success in life.

As long as I am better off than xx, I feel that life is happy. If you change your perspective and measure the value of life anchored by time, you will find that the poor and the rich are actually the same. If freedom, health, safety, and happiness fill a large part of your life, when you look back on your life at the moment of your death, I believe 90% of people will not regret it and will feel happy.