Don’t Monetize Your Life | Healthy Aging Series: S12 E11
Many years ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I was a young Southern Baptist Minister. I pastored two churches, one in Eastern New Mexico, and one in West Texas. The first was a very small church in the middle of peanut fields and the second was in the heart of west-Texas oil country.
It took five years for me to discover that I was not cut out for that profession. But during that time, I learned a lot about how churches work. I learned a lot from my first father-in-law, who was a “hellfire and brimstone” Baptist Preacher in Amarillo, Texas. I learned how to run a Bus Ministry. If you don’t know what a Bus Ministry is, it’s a program that churches utilize to attract people to the church, especially those who cannot get themselves there or have transportation issues. The focus, often, is evangelizing children. You would go out on Saturday mornings and visit all the “Bus Families” and remind them to come to church the next day. In my father-in-law’s church, we also had Visitation Night where we would go to people’s homes, especially members that had not been involved in church for a while and invite them back. We would also respond to first time-visitors who filled out a visitor card, those who checked that they’d like to know more about the church. They would get a knock on the door.
These visits were done to “win souls,” and in fact it was called Soulwinning. At its heart, I think, this was done to help people, motivated by the idea that becoming a Christian and a regular or active church member would contribute to their growth as individuals and families.
The Numbers Game
Now mind you, and this is not a criticism or me being judgey, but the emphasis often felt like a numbers game. The focus of Southern Baptist churches is how many people attended Sunday School. This figure would be like a quarterback rating or your rebounds in basketball. It would or could boost your following. So, it was a lot of the focus of the churches where I was a member, and that I pastored.
And of course, money played a big role in the “numbers game.” People kept their eyes on Sunday School attendance, and the morning offering and used those numbers as an indicator of the churches current health and growth status.
And what gets lost, I think, is the sense that a church is a living and growing organism, a body of believers that nurtures and ministers to people.
Throughout the past century, or maybe longer, the church has been monetized. It’s gone from a place that is shepherding people to a place that feels more like managing livestock.
When you monetize churches, mediocrity flourishes, and the same thing happens if you allow yourself to be monetized. When we follow the allure of money, we cease to be our authentic selves.
That’s what happens when you monetize people.
What Does it Mean to be Monetized?
I think our culture is teaching people, at least some people, that their value is based on their ability to be monetized.
It’s a word that I recently started seeing. Do you want to monetize this ad? What does it take to be monetized on YouTube, or YouTube shorts? I was perusing a tutorial on YouTube Shorts, and the instructor said that for every million views on Shorts you make $100/month.
I’m not opposed to utilizing YouTube. I have a YouTube channel that is connected to this Facebook page and my blog. And I have struggled with the idea of monetizing my videos on YouTube. And what I discovered was that I started worrying more about subscribers and likes, instead of putting out content that reflects who I am and what I want to accomplish.
I took a step back.
Monetizing yourself means seeing yourself through the lens of money. You can’t not think about money. You often think about how much, or how little money you make, how much, or how little you’ve saved up, what kind of car you drive, how many likes or comments your posts get online, and whether you regret choices you’ve made about all of the above. You become your money.
Monetizing your life means chasing after fame and fortune, chasing after money and notoriety. Have you allowed the allure of fame and fortune to blind you to your true self, your authentic self?
And if you’re not your money, who are you? Who is that authentic you?
Who is the “you” that is completely unencumbered by the social pressures that money and notoriety put on you, to be something other than your authentic self. I asked someone that question the other day, and they didn’t know the answer.
What does it mean to live with authenticity? Or living an authentic life?
How to Live a Life of Authenticity
I’ve been reading a wonderful book, “Breakfast with Seneca: A Stoic Guide to the Art of Living,” by David Fideler, and I came upon his chapter, “How to be Authentic and Contribute to Society.” “The first step in living with authenticity,” he writes, “is to understand yourself and your unique nature.” Here are his suggestions:
Know Yourself
In its simplest terms, this means figuring out what you’re good at, what you like doing, and really, what you enjoy doing. I often ask my younger clients what they want to do for a living and I often hear them respond, “I want to start my own business.” I sit there scratching my head because I don’t think they have any idea what they would want to do as a business. Sometimes it’s just simply figuring out what you like and don’t like, and what you’re comfortable doing or what you have a dream for doing. I think people have lost the art of dreaming. Joseph Campbell used to tell young people, “Follow your bliss.” I think the difficulty sometimes is that there are people who don’t know what their bliss is. Knowing yourself means knowing what your strengths and weaknesses are, knowing what you like and don’t like, and knowing what your dreams are.
This takes time. You need to clear your schedule, get away from people, disconnect from electronics, and then allow yourself to be alone with yourself, attempting to listen to that still small voice within you.
Fideler writes, “It’s impossible to live authentically or happily if you try to copy someone else while ignoring your own nature.”
Self-Consistency
Self-consistency, in this sense, means presenting yourself to the world as you really are. You stop trying to be what you think others want you to be. Your actions match your words. You stop being a people pleaser. Self-consistency means striving to be an honest person, and by honest, I mean being one of those, “what you see is what you get kind of people.” Holden Caufield, who is the key character in, “The Catcher in the Rye,” describes a person that does not live with self-consistency as a phony.
Intellectual Freedom
You can’t live an authentic life if you aren’t open minded about yourself and about personal growth. I often hear people tell me that they don’t read. Maybe they’re listening to books, or listening to the podcast, or listening to courses through the Internet. But I don’t think you can grow and live a life of authenticity if you aren’t open about your need for change and willing to seek that out through reading books.
Persistence
“If knocked to the ground, stoics will stand up,” writes Fideler, “brush themselves off, keep training, and keep moving forward.”
I live by the philosophy, “What you practice grows stronger.” Practice persistence and you eventually become a persistent person, living a life of authenticity.
People who practice authenticity are then better able to contribute to society because they realize they have something to contribute. Contributing becomes the thing that gives them meaning in life. Living a life of authenticity is rewarding, and gratifying and ultimately leads to tranquility and peace.
We need money, but…
We need money to live, but it shouldn’t be the lens that you see yourself through or even see the world through. The lens that you need to look through is the lens of authenticity. It Isn’t about likes and subscribers. It’s about the satisfaction that comes from doing what you love doing, in part, because it also contributes to making the world a better place.
