Chained to the Rythym

 The music video that I think says more than any other video is this one by Katy Perry. She walks into a theme park called Oblivia. The first thing you see is houses hanging by strings. She says, "Yeah we think we're free." As long as you are paying a mortgage, or paying off any debt, you are not free. A Bible verse says, "The borrower is always slave to the lender." But we all choose to not think about that. We rack up credit card debt like it's no big deal, which is a reference to another song of hers. We run on the hamster wheel and think we are getting somewhere, but it is mostly a waste of time. If you buy a house on credit, you pay a ton of interest. If you are paying off any debt, you are mostly paying interest. That is the main message I think she meant to send. She noticed that all her friends who bought homes on credit were hanging by a string with their property. If you can't pay, it's over and you are kicked out. There is no freedom when you owe anyone anything. 

I think the rap part says the most, 

"Up in your high place, liars

Time is ticking for the empire The truth they feed is feeble As so many times before The greed over the people They stumbling and fumbling and we about to riot They woke up, they woke up the lions."

What does this mean? The bankers make tons off of us who are at the bottom. They don't care that we all struggle, run ourselves out on a hamster wheel. They like to see us suffer perhaps. Why would we riot? Interest rates. Most people are oblivious to how much of a rip off any home loan or car loan is. They buy whatever they want and then later regret it. They get buyer's remorse eventually. Is anything we buy really worth it? Things wear out and break down. Is anything worth what we pay for it? Very few things are. I recently bought fake grass which was worth it. :) But the sooner we wake up and see the lie of materialism and consumerism, the happier we will be.

Learn to live with less, because how much do you really need? What you want is way more than what you need.

Don't let yourself become a slave to the system of working and buying and it never stops. Pay off your debts, and then don't get more debt. It's better to drive a 20 year old car then be a slave to a car loan for the next 7 years. Car loans aren't 5 years anymore. They are 7. Watch out. Be careful with the money you spend or commit to. Don't be a hamster running on a wheel forever. Learn to be smarter with the money you spend and save.