[cpalmer]

Okay, so like many people here I'm at a stage in my life where I'm focused on finding and living my true purpose. I've decided I'm not going to settle for doing anything less with my life than what I love to do and find completely inspiring, and I will never be content as long as I'm working as a wage slave.

My ideal lifestyle will certainly involve some sort of internet based business(es) that would allow me to generate value for people and receive multiple streams of passive income while retaining complete time freedom and choice in where I live.

All that sounds great, but when I really start thinking more about this, some serious internal conflicts start arising for me - and I'm actually very surprised the point I'm about to make hasn't been mentioned on this site or in any other content out there relating to financial freedom and internet businesses.

Sure, that kind of lifestyle would be great, and it would be awesome if everyone could live out their dreams without having to worry about the day to day drudgeries of working to support oneself, but, here's the catch:

This kind of lifestyle can only work in a system where we are able to pay others to provide our basic needs and do work for us that we do not want to do. In other words, SOMEONE still has to do it.

Let's say you make $10,000 a month as a professional blogger or the owner of an internet business - a goal many of us would be absolutely ecstatic to attain. You rely on literally hundreds if not thousands of people to hold up the systems that allow your business to function and allow you to live on the money you make. Think about it...

- Farmers to grow produce, grains, and raise/butcher animals for food

- Truck drivers to transport it to the processing facilities, the supermarket, etc. and all the various people employed along the way

- Construction workers to build your home, build the supermarket where you bought your food, not to mention the workers and infrastructure that produce and deliver the materials used in the construction of those buildings

- Coal miners to mine coal which is carried to a power generation plant by train which delivers power over the electrical grid to the various pieces of equipment which make up the infrastructure of the Internet and the servers your website is hosted on, as well as all the PC's used by your readers to view your website

- Network engineers and technicians to provide and maintain the electrical infrastructure. Miners and smelter workers to extract and refine copper ore to produce wiring.

- Oil drillers, refinery workers, mechanics, and auto manufacturing workers to produce the vehicles and their fuel used to transport workers around to service the infrastructure we depend on and to transport the goods we use

- City workers to build and maintain the roads which carry those vehicles, people and goods

- Oil drillers and refinery workers once again, to produce raw materials for the plastics and other materials which go into manufacturing wiring, computers, and network equipment

This could go on for pages and pages, but... I'm sure most people on this forum are intelligent and can extrapolate the rest for themselves by thinking on it for a bit.

Bottom line.... like it or not, there are a lot of jobs ranging from mundane to downright dangerous and crappy that need to be done before ANYONE can enjoy the kind of financial freedom made possible by an internet based business - the kind of financial freedom people hope to attain by freeing themselves from exactly those kinds of jobs, in many cases.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think there is ANYTHING wrong with doing this type of work, and I am certainly not criticizing Steve Pavlina or anyone else who makes their living this way as long as their work is making a genuine contribution to improve the lot of humanity as a whole. In fact, I firmly believe this kind of work is necessary to wake people up so we can move forward towards a sustainable and prosperous future for ALL inhabitants of this planet.

I'm merely pointing out that we all need to look well beyond the problem of 'escaping the 9-5 working existence' and becoming so-called 'free human beings', and realize that even when you manage to attain that position, there are still thousands of people in the bigger picture who will need to continue working jobs so we can enjoy that life, and at the very least we need to be aware of and profoundly thankful for it.

I'd love to hear everyone else's opinions and thoughts about this!! Anyone else out there overthought this problem as much as I have? lol!