Latest / bit of a Rambler / 033 Vote With Your Feet

Transcript

033 Vote With Your Feet · bit of a Rambler

0:00
Speaker 1: Hello. My name is Kai, and I am a bit
0:03
Speaker 1: of a rambler. I like to travel, learn and tell stories.
0:07
Speaker 1: And today I want to talk about a motto, a
0:11
Speaker 1: phrase that I came across one day and it kind
0:15
Speaker 1: of stuck with me in that I was living it already,
0:21
Speaker 1: even though I didn't have a phrase on hand that
0:26
Speaker 1: perfectly crystallized how I was living my life. And it
0:32
Speaker 1: is vote with your feet, which may be traced back
0:37
Speaker 1: to Roman times, was certainly popularized by Lenin as a
0:42
Speaker 1: way of motivating communists. As an interesting phrase because it
0:47
Speaker 1: fits into any situation. It became popular in the nineteen
0:50
Speaker 1: sixty civil rights movement in the States. And vote with
0:55
Speaker 1: your feet. I like how visceral it is, how down
1:00
Speaker 1: to earth, how feet on the ground. This phrase is
1:06
Speaker 1: because it's not telling you to believe. It's telling you
1:10
Speaker 1: to make a difference through your actions, and interestingly, through
1:18
Speaker 1: your negative actions. Not negative asn't bad, but as in
1:22
Speaker 1: the absence of doing something or the restraint from doing something.
1:29
Speaker 1: It can also just mean vote with your feet, move
1:32
Speaker 1: to the place you want to live, move to a
1:37
Speaker 1: better life. And for me, obviously that was moving to
1:42
Speaker 1: China and starting to teach English, and learning about the world,
1:48
Speaker 1: and then continuing to live abroad after I had made
1:53
Speaker 1: enough money to travel indefinitely or live the rest of
1:56
Speaker 1: my life the way I wanted to. I still voted
1:59
Speaker 1: with my feet, because whenever I went back to the States,
2:04
Speaker 1: it wasn't a life I wanted to live. I loved
2:07
Speaker 1: going to concerts again, and the national parks are nice.
2:12
Speaker 1: But the track mentality, the treadmill mentality of the United
2:19
Speaker 1: States culture is always there. When you go to a city,
2:26
Speaker 1: everyone's like, yeah, this is what you do. In Detroit,
2:30
Speaker 1: you live life in an office, and then you go
2:33
Speaker 1: back to your house that you save up for for
2:35
Speaker 1: fifteen years, and then you have kids and or yeah,
2:39
Speaker 1: this is the factory you work, and you work in
2:41
Speaker 1: this factory and they'll pay your benefits. Yeah. No, you
2:45
Speaker 1: become a doctor. No no, you can't work with the
2:48
Speaker 1: patients you want, and you can't pursue the kind of
2:50
Speaker 1: medicine you like. But they do pay you a lot
2:53
Speaker 1: of money to fit into the medical system that exploits
2:58
Speaker 1: and takes advantage of people. There are so many parts
3:02
Speaker 1: of American culture, like the corrupt and awful medical care
3:08
Speaker 1: system and the absurdly exploitative education system, the demand of allegiance,
3:17
Speaker 1: the cultural insistence in the lie of American exceptionalism. Especially
3:25
Speaker 1: at this point, by twenty twenty five, America has squandered
3:29
Speaker 1: any head start it had ahead of other countries. US
3:35
Speaker 1: Americans have been stripped of most of their civil rights.
3:39
Speaker 1: We don't have a free press. Dollar bills have as
3:43
Speaker 1: much political often more political influence than actual US citizens
3:50
Speaker 1: inanimate objects. The US has fallen completely behind in the
3:55
Speaker 1: technologies of the future. In barely a few months, Trumpets
4:01
Speaker 1: managed to set back the US scientific community by a decade,
4:06
Speaker 1: maybe decades. There's going to be a whole generation of
4:09
Speaker 1: scientists that are going to develop innovations and careers lifes
4:16
Speaker 1: in other countries because they're not allowed to practice science
4:21
Speaker 1: in the United States. I didn't like these problems that
4:26
Speaker 1: the United States had fifteen years ago or thirteen whatever.
4:30
Speaker 1: When no, twenty years ago, when George W. Bush was
4:35
Speaker 1: in charge, he raised carcinogenic levels in drinking water. He
4:40
Speaker 1: threw away American lives for no reason in meaningless wars
4:45
Speaker 1: that denigrated the country. So I vote with my feet.
4:50
Speaker 1: I don't go back to the United States just because
4:53
Speaker 1: I was born there. I don't go back to the
4:55
Speaker 1: United States, even though it has my native language and
5:00
Speaker 1: any number of career paths that I have to compromise
5:03
Speaker 1: my self worth and integrity for. I vote with my feet.
5:09
Speaker 1: I chose to leave the lifestyle I didn't approve of
5:16
Speaker 1: and participate in the life I did approve of and
5:21
Speaker 1: want to explore. Initially, I wanted to backpack for a
5:25
Speaker 1: few months, and I backpacked for six months. Then I
5:29
Speaker 1: kept backpacking because it felt right. I was really voting
5:33
Speaker 1: with my feet on how my life should be lived.
5:38
Speaker 1: When my friend asked me to open a school with her,
5:42
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, that is what I want to do
5:44
Speaker 1: next in my life because I'd never started a business before.
5:49
Speaker 1: So I voted with my feet. I moved back to
5:51
Speaker 1: China for a couple of years and I started that
5:55
Speaker 1: business with her. So I voted with my feet to
5:59
Speaker 1: create a life for myself that I agreed with, that
6:03
Speaker 1: made sense, that wasn't always easy, but was as stress
6:08
Speaker 1: free as I could make it and was as rewarding
6:12
Speaker 1: as I knew how to make it so. Living in China,
6:16
Speaker 1: coming across that advertisement for being an English teacher in Beijing,
6:21
Speaker 1: when I was looking for a Nintendo sixty four controller.
6:24
Speaker 1: Taking advantage of that opportunity, I was voting with my feet.
6:29
Speaker 1: I knew I didn't want to keep doing what I
6:31
Speaker 1: was doing in the United States. I didn't like how
6:34
Speaker 1: the US culture insists Americans live in debt, struggling to survive,
6:44
Speaker 1: kicking down others just so I can make it to
6:46
Speaker 1: the level of treading water. And so when I saw
6:50
Speaker 1: that there was a way out, I voted with my feet.
6:55
Speaker 1: And when I did that, when I moved abroad, I
6:58
Speaker 1: stopped paying taxes because if you're abroad three hundred thirty
7:02
Speaker 1: days out of the year, you don't pay earn income tax.
7:05
Speaker 1: So I really felt like I was voting with my
7:07
Speaker 1: feet because I was physically in a different place. I
7:11
Speaker 1: left the situation I didn't like, and I stopped contributing
7:16
Speaker 1: my tax dollars to that system for a decade. I
7:20
Speaker 1: have a decade of personal gratification and integrity that I
7:26
Speaker 1: can look fondly upon. I'm very glad I did that.
7:30
Speaker 1: And sometimes things were difficult, but not as difficult as
7:34
Speaker 1: it would have been growing up hopeless in the United States.
7:38
Speaker 1: Looking forward to the day long after my body and
7:43
Speaker 1: values had broken down, the capitalist lords allowed me to
7:50
Speaker 1: survive without struggling as long as I promised to take
7:54
Speaker 1: advantage of everybody else around me. No, I don't want
7:59
Speaker 1: to do that, So I vote with my feet, and
8:01
Speaker 1: I still do living abroad right now, because literally, other
8:06
Speaker 1: than going to live music, I cannot see the point
8:10
Speaker 1: of living in the US right now. It just doesn't
8:15
Speaker 1: make any sense. And I do not want to pay
8:18
Speaker 1: into a system run by a president who actively harms
8:25
Speaker 1: US Americans, strips away their civil rights, rapes one of them,
8:31
Speaker 1: at least according to the judge and jury and the
8:33
Speaker 1: Gene Carroll trial. So no, I'm not going to stand
8:38
Speaker 1: in that area. I'm going to vote with my feet
8:40
Speaker 1: and move on. Like yeah, Baskin Robbins has thirty two flavors,
8:46
Speaker 1: and the US manufactures good sportswear, but also US American
8:52
Speaker 1: taxes fund drone strikes on civilians, and the US has
8:57
Speaker 1: the highest prison population in the world that private parties
9:01
Speaker 1: are earning money from the exploitation of that labor, and
9:06
Speaker 1: US citizens don't even have autonomy over their own bodies.
9:10
Speaker 1: So personally, I've decided against voting for that system by
9:17
Speaker 1: participating in it or contributing to it, I am voting
9:21
Speaker 1: with my feed I'm living away. I'm paying as few
9:27
Speaker 1: taxes as possible by renting out studios as a self
9:31
Speaker 1: employed person, spending money so that I don't have to
9:34
Speaker 1: give taxes to an administration and frankly a culture that
9:40
Speaker 1: I disagree with. I don't want to exploit others, and
9:45
Speaker 1: I don't want to pay into the system that exploits others. Now,
9:49
Speaker 1: if you have no choice but to live in the system,
9:52
Speaker 1: if you're living in the US right now and you
9:54
Speaker 1: feel like you are trapped and can't move, I mean,
9:57
Speaker 1: first of all, listen to the other podcast. You probably
9:59
Speaker 1: have a way if you're a native or fluent English speaker,
10:03
Speaker 1: but if you don't, don't feel bad about being trapped
10:05
Speaker 1: in a situation. That's what the US does. It holds
10:09
Speaker 1: its citizens hostage until it has extracted all the value
10:13
Speaker 1: from you that they can, at which point you are
10:17
Speaker 1: discarded and expelled from that system. If you feel trapped
10:21
Speaker 1: but you're a fluent speaker of English, hit me up,
10:25
Speaker 1: send me a message. I will help you get out
10:28
Speaker 1: of there into a school, and you'll start saving money
10:31
Speaker 1: and you don't have to participate in a system where
10:34
Speaker 1: you either kill or die. You either rip the value
10:40
Speaker 1: away from someone else and put one percent of it
10:44
Speaker 1: in your pocket and give the rest to the CEO
10:48
Speaker 1: of the company that you don't even know which company
10:51
Speaker 1: actually owns the story you work at, or you live
10:57
Speaker 1: honorably and perish because you're not allowed to make that decision.
11:02
Speaker 1: In many situations in the US, you are allowed to
11:08
Speaker 1: use an exploitative system to siphon money out of people
11:13
Speaker 1: who don't have any free money. Or you can shake
11:18
Speaker 1: a cup for change on the street. Or if you're
11:21
Speaker 1: a native English speaker, you can go move to another
11:24
Speaker 1: country and teach English and live how you want to live.
11:27
Speaker 1: Or you can learn how to code, or you can
11:30
Speaker 1: start writing books. You only need five hundred bucks a
11:32
Speaker 1: month to live abroad, and that's what I was doing.
11:34
Speaker 1: I was living on less than five hundred dollars a
11:37
Speaker 1: month for years. But even though I couldn't buy all
11:43
Speaker 1: the food I wanted or I couldn't live in the
11:46
Speaker 1: nicest houses, every time I traveled to a new country,
11:49
Speaker 1: I knew I needed to take a break from teaching,
11:52
Speaker 1: so I did that. And I also knew that I
11:55
Speaker 1: didn't want to live in the United States and living
11:59
Speaker 1: abroad on two hundred dollars a month to maybe four
12:02
Speaker 1: hundred dollars a month maximum for a couple of years
12:05
Speaker 1: was a lot of fun and very self affirming. It
12:09
Speaker 1: was also a very defining experience because I realized that
12:14
Speaker 1: I was fine living on a few hundred dollars a month.
12:17
Speaker 1: I could still eat great food pretty much every day,
12:20
Speaker 1: I could sleep more comfortably than ever. I love Hammock camping.
12:26
Speaker 1: I had voted with my feet to not be part
12:30
Speaker 1: of a situation and a culture I disagreed with, and
12:34
Speaker 1: it benefited my sense of self worth and decency immeasurably,
12:40
Speaker 1: and that was a permanent change. I still carry those
12:43
Speaker 1: principles around with me. And one day I was reading
12:48
Speaker 1: an article I don't even know what it was, maybe
12:51
Speaker 1: it was a Reddit post or a Lemmy post or something,
12:54
Speaker 1: and I read the phrase vote with your feet and
12:57
Speaker 1: it clicked, and I was like, that's what I'm doing.
13:00
Speaker 1: I'm not participating in the systems I fundamentally disagree with.
13:06
Speaker 1: In principle. I am voting with my feet ideologically, and
13:10
Speaker 1: I am physically stepping away from a system I do
13:15
Speaker 1: not agree with or want to participate in. And I
13:18
Speaker 1: am stepping toward a system I do want to participate
13:22
Speaker 1: in and contribute to, teaching, traveling abroad, sharing experiences with people,
13:28
Speaker 1: helping people when I can. That's the system I want
13:31
Speaker 1: to be a part of, and mentally relocating to a
13:35
Speaker 1: lifestyle I appreciate a lifestyle that I can tolerate, living
13:42
Speaker 1: within a lifestyle where I don't have to tear down
13:45
Speaker 1: other people so that I can thrive. I think, for me,
13:51
Speaker 1: since I know what I didn't want, after having gone
13:56
Speaker 1: through the US American educational system and some of its
14:00
Speaker 1: corporate reality for a few years, I was willing to
14:04
Speaker 1: try pretty much any alternative to try to find something
14:09
Speaker 1: I did want because I didn't know what I wanted.
14:12
Speaker 1: I just knew that I didn't want to participate in
14:14
Speaker 1: an exploitative system. And if you're feeling the same way
14:19
Speaker 1: and you can make five hundred dollars a month, I
14:22
Speaker 1: suggest you do the same thing, because take what you
14:27
Speaker 1: have and go to the life that fulfills you, leave
14:32
Speaker 1: the life that drains you behind going picking up and
14:39
Speaker 1: going that is by far the most important consideration, the
14:42
Speaker 1: most important action you can take. Anything else is like
14:47
Speaker 1: planning which vegetables you're going to plant in your home
14:51
Speaker 1: garden while you're living behind the walls of a pow camp.
14:55
Speaker 1: It's good to have dreams to sustain hope or to
15:00
Speaker 1: calm the mind, but it's not exactly an active remedial step.
15:05
Speaker 1: And that remedial step is closer than you think, because
15:09
Speaker 1: it's very hard to imagine the world being so inexpensive,
15:14
Speaker 1: the cost of living being so inexpensive abroad for an
15:18
Speaker 1: American compared to what they grew up with. Imagine if
15:22
Speaker 1: you're paying two hundred and fifty dollars per month for
15:26
Speaker 1: an air conditioned room with Wi Fi, and you have
15:29
Speaker 1: another two hundred fifty dollars to spend on all the
15:32
Speaker 1: food you want. And that's if you can only scrape
15:35
Speaker 1: together five hundred dollars USD per month. If you can
15:38
Speaker 1: make a thousand per month because of that cost of living,
15:41
Speaker 1: that low cost of living, you're able to pursue the
15:44
Speaker 1: artistic or business endeavors, or any recreational endeavor, start a family,
15:50
Speaker 1: anything you want to do. It's a lot easier to
15:53
Speaker 1: do once you don't have to worry about the basic
15:56
Speaker 1: cost of living throttling you like it does for most
15:59
Speaker 1: people in the US. After having gone through the US
16:03
Speaker 1: American educational system and some of its corporate reality for
16:09
Speaker 1: a few years, thinking of how you would like to
16:13
Speaker 1: not participate in the system you're participating in is good. It's,
16:19
Speaker 1: like I said, hopeful, but it's not an active step.
16:24
Speaker 1: Not participating in the system is voting with your feet.
16:28
Speaker 1: Not exploiting others is an active step. Taking that step
16:33
Speaker 1: for me led me to financial freedom. In a matter
16:36
Speaker 1: of weeks. I was instantly financially solvent, and very soon
16:42
Speaker 1: I had more savings than I had ever had in
16:44
Speaker 1: my life. And it was not about how much I
16:47
Speaker 1: was making, It was about how much I was saving.
16:50
Speaker 1: Because I had voted with my feet, I decided not
16:54
Speaker 1: to live in a system that I could not comfortably
16:58
Speaker 1: live in when there were another two hundred systems to
17:02
Speaker 1: choose from that were begging me to speak my native
17:06
Speaker 1: language in them. And once I wasn't constantly burdened by
17:11
Speaker 1: exorbitantly expensive basic survival needs living in the United States,
17:16
Speaker 1: I could reckon with my own mind a lot more clearly,
17:20
Speaker 1: and I could further vote with my feet. After I
17:25
Speaker 1: had that school for two years that I started with
17:28
Speaker 1: my friend, I was like, Okay, it's the second I
17:30
Speaker 1: should leave again. It's time to go. My values told
17:34
Speaker 1: me how I should be living, and because it worked
17:36
Speaker 1: the first time, I am still listening and I'm moving
17:40
Speaker 1: around and doing what I think is right. I'm living
17:44
Speaker 1: the way I want to live and living the way
17:46
Speaker 1: I think is right for me. And it doesn't have
17:50
Speaker 1: to be the way that is right for you. But
17:53
Speaker 1: you should try to figure out if you are living
17:57
Speaker 1: the life you are living because you want to be there,
18:01
Speaker 1: or if you're living the life you're living because you
18:05
Speaker 1: were born into it, or you're already there so you're
18:08
Speaker 1: just continuing it and you might be trapped. It might
18:12
Speaker 1: not be as easy for you. No, let me tell
18:15
Speaker 1: you that you can do anything, because some people are
18:18
Speaker 1: not that lucky or privileged. They don't have the ability
18:22
Speaker 1: to move on like a lot of other people do.
18:26
Speaker 1: But you can always talk to me, and I will
18:28
Speaker 1: talk to you back and try to help offer a
18:31
Speaker 1: suggestion if it seems prudent. But what's most important is
18:37
Speaker 1: that you figure out if the life you're living is
18:40
Speaker 1: a product of your own volition or if it's a
18:45
Speaker 1: situation you are inside of, you are surviving inside of
18:52
Speaker 1: Because once you figure that out, then you can vote
18:56
Speaker 1: with your feet. All you have to do is figure
18:58
Speaker 1: out if you want to be there or not. If
19:01
Speaker 1: you do, then you vote with your feet and you
19:05
Speaker 1: thrive in that position. But if you are participating in
19:10
Speaker 1: a system that you do not want to be participating in,
19:15
Speaker 1: once you know that, that's the key to unlock your feet,
19:20
Speaker 1: to allow you to vote with your feet and move
19:23
Speaker 1: on to something else. It's good to quit something that
19:29
Speaker 1: is bad for you. If you were trapped in a cage,
19:34
Speaker 1: if someone was holding you against your will, and one
19:37
Speaker 1: day they forgot to lock the cage and you could escape,
19:41
Speaker 1: don't stay in the cage because you've been in the
19:45
Speaker 1: cage for so long, and that mentality certainly sinks into people.
19:50
Speaker 1: But that is an opportunity. You can vote with your feet,
19:55
Speaker 1: leave the cage, and get out of there. I hope
19:58
Speaker 1: you come to know your and I hope that you
20:04
Speaker 1: vote with your feet. And you don't have to agree
20:06
Speaker 1: with me. You don't have to agree with any country
20:09
Speaker 1: or any system or anything, but agree with yourself, know yourself,
20:16
Speaker 1: and vote with your feet. Make sure your actions or
20:21
Speaker 1: your restraint is an active decision. You are choosing to
20:26
Speaker 1: participate or you are choosing not to participate. Acting or
20:33
Speaker 1: not acting are equally powerful decisions. You can choose to
20:39
Speaker 1: stay in that cage, and that determines your life. You
20:43
Speaker 1: can choose to leave that cage, and that determines your life.
20:48
Speaker 1: I know this sounds pretty serious, but I want the
20:51
Speaker 1: best for all of you and everyone. I want everybody
20:56
Speaker 1: to vote with their feet. I want everybody to know
20:59
Speaker 1: themselves so well that the decisions they make can materially
21:04
Speaker 1: affect the enjoyment of their lives. I hope you're having
21:10
Speaker 1: a great day. I hope you're having a great life,
21:13
Speaker 1: and I hope to talk to you soon. I mean,
21:16
Speaker 1: I will talk to you soon, but if you want
21:18
Speaker 1: to talk to me, you can get me at a
21:20
Speaker 1: Bit of a Rambler at gmail dot com or all
21:21
Speaker 1: the socials. Thank you for listening.