The Living Dead and the Dead Broke

Why It's So Hard to Get Ahead - ( The Other 8 Hours- Robert Pagliarini)
-Short story from the book- edited and summarized-

Josh rises early each morning. He starts each day with a nutritious breakfast.
After that he uses his time to stay up-to-date on current events and engaged in world affairs.
After a morning of engaging the mind, Josh likes to get his blood pumping.

After his exercise, he rests and get ready to eat lunch-small and nutritious.
Friends are important to Josh, so he likes to spend the afternoons socializing.
Josh is an avid reader and writer. He often spends his afternoons writing and poring over books.

After an early dinner, Josh hits the gym for an hour or so. He follows this with a high-protein snack and a shower. He spends the last few hours before bed watching a little TV, reading, and writing.

Eric also gets up early. He takes a quick shower and fills his coffee before he navigates the street making the same forty- minute for over a decade.

A 30 minute lunch break becomes an island of solitude in an otherwise stressful day. He slams a quick sandwich and more coffee. He is only half way though the day.
He mentally checks out as he clocks out at the end of the day. His drive home takes over an hour. Eric spends this time decompressing by listening to music.

He greets his wife, who also just came home from her job. She laments about a particularly tough day, and they decide to splurge a little. They talk about doing dinner and movie, but just go to McDonald's. Eric and his wife are struggling with debt. They owe more than $10,000 and the high interest rate are killing them. They had to cancel their Internet service and one of their cars was recently repossessed.

They spend the last few hours of the night watching TV before they pass out.

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Josh is learning advancing and growing. He takes care of his body by eating a balanced diet and by exercising five days a week. He keeps his mind sharp by staying abreast of current events in his community and around the world. He devours information in books and invests a great deal of time writing and being involved in his favorite causes. Even when things get a little chaotic, he still makes an effort to stay connected to friends and family. He feels like there's nothing he can't do.
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Eric has the same 24 hours in each day, but his life is very different. He spends much of it focused on work - getting ready for it, engaged in it, driving to and from it, and wishing he didn't have to do so much of it. His body suffers from his poor eating habits and lack of exercise. He feels and looks older than he is. He wants to escape his life and the mountain of debt and unpaid bills to a whole new life. He had dreams and goals, but they have been pushed aside and buried for years. He can tell you who won the big game last night, but he has no idea what's happening in his local community or in national politics. He'd like to hit the "undo" button on the last decade. He'll tell you that his days bleed together. He's not learning, advancing, or growing. He feels like a prisoner.

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There are people like Josh and Eric in small towns and big cities across the country - regular people just living their lives. But what's remarkable about these two is that they are both prisoners. One bound by life and the other by chains. Josh is an inmate at a California federal prison and Eric happens to be a prison guard. (by the way, Josh and Eric are real people. Josh is a journalist who wrote about prison life after refusing to turn over videos he took during a demonstration. And Eric's story is in New York Times.

You think you're free, but are you really? Eric has all the freedom in the world but no time to invest it or enjoy it. On the other hand, Josh has nothing but time to read, exercise and develop. Maybe this isn't a fair comparison, but if things have gotten so crazy that the only way you can get time is to "do time" then something is definitely wrong.

You are faced with the same choice every single day. You can choose to just" do time" or you can choose instead to use and invest it. Unfortunately, most of us have chosen to turn on autopilot and cringe through another day. The good news is you don't have to commit a felony to get some time for yourself. As you'll learn in coming chapters, it only takes a little time, focus, and desire. But before you can get more time, get a life, and get more money, you need to snap yourself out of this coma you're stuck in...