There are two, no, three ‘couples’ I’m thinking about right now.
I’ve shared to more than one person lately that if you put too much focus on passive income, then you might as well call it active income. You should be doing enough homework so that the investments that you do make shouldn’t be checked on so frequently. In my case, I’ve been looking a little too much at price action on some resource flows that I invested into – as I was explaining to one associate whom I am quite proud to call a confidant of sorts, it wasn’t like I would make a move each and every time the price of a certain token went up or down. No, if I was to really respect these passive income investitures, then I should give more of my time and energy on other things.
We cannot avoid active income. I believe it’s in our design to get our hands dirty – that is, to direct our energy and focus in actively creating, maintaining and cultivating something. What that is would depend on how God made each and every one of us specifically. We wouldn’t even call it active ‘income’ because our emphasis would be on ‘active’, and the income just follows.
If there’s something I’ve been learning in this past quarter, it’s that we can’t go full time into passive income. Seeds are planted and plants grow – sure, with some involvement on our part, but not necessarily needing as much focus as, say, hunting, cleaning, and cooking. The way I see it, we can use less of our time establishing, maintaining, and ending channels of passive income as time passes, and we could use more time working actively on things God has given us interest in – any capital that we earn from these active endeavors can be used to plant more seeds. We need a healthy combination of passive streams to nurture, and active ventures to work on. Just like, say, a house needs both a garden and a workshop – well, my house, anyway.
And speaking of passive and active, I don’t think this strictly applies to income. During my drive today I was brought to thinking, there are ways for us to establish passive ministry, while we get our hands dirty with active ministry. In my case I guess how I’m doing it is, really, just posting on social media – because nothing is ever really taken out of the internet, anything and everything that I would post – a video short linking to a full sermon or service, a blog sharing my (or my team’s) thoughts on certain verses from the Bible, etc.; We would never know when one or a thousand people would be drawn to a post, and right then and there, the Gospel is shared. Exposed. I would be actively involved by way of staying updated with my ministry team, and preparing for my weekly messages.
I bring this up because I don’t want my ministry team to be only as effective as our Sunday services – no, I’ve always believed that we have much more to share to the world, much more opportunities – in quality, quantity, and variation – to celebrate God’s everlasting love and infinite goodness to each and every one of us, as guaranteed by Christ and His finished work. We’re active on Sunday, but I believe that even as we do work and engage in our own personal spheres of influence for the rest of the week, the posts we share, shine in all their passive glory, reflecting the light and love of the Father just as well.
I’m sorry, but I’m just going in circles here and going all over the place, but don’t think for a second that I’m doing this like a purposeless, headless chicken – I’m flowing right now, and I just want to bring us back to when we talk about income. If I said something earlier about us not being able to avoid working actively, there is something else we cannot avoid. Much as we would definitely love to work in the cryptocurrency space, let us not forget that fiat money still holds significant importance… and even then, we shouldn’t stop at cold cash – no, there is still value in commodities and resources to barter, but we would do well to always keep real estate in our peripheral view.
I’m not sure if it’s Naval who shared this, but I’m pretty sure I saw something that served as a great reminder for me, on Twitter: Make money (or wealth) with tech, and keep money with real estate. The way I see this is that we earn income – passive or active – through endeavors in tech and the internet (I say the internet versus the blockchain for now – let’s just say I’m a whole lot more confident in saying that the internet isn’t going away any time soon). We take what income we’re willing to lose and put what we’re willing to save into land, or houses. According to a friend, we prioritize land over houses, and houses over condominiums because we would lose everything if the entire building collapses. If I’m confident in saying that tech and the internet aren’t going away any time soon, I’m pretty sure that real estate has withstood a good amount of testing through our centuries of existence as a species.
You can’t choose. You need a healthy combination of passive and active income. Passive and active ministry. Crypto and fiat.
I’m not sure about the third ‘couple’ I had in mind before I set off in writing this, but I won’t force myself to remember anything. I know we just started the month, and we just started the second quarter of the year, at least here where I live… but I just couldn’t help but give a little more credit to March, and the past quarter – there’s been a lot of things to go through, and a lot of things that I’ve learned… and I just couldn’t help but thank God for His faithfulness to me and to all of us throughout all this time.
One last quick thing that I want to share to wrap this all up: I’ve been doing a lot of recalling, and a lot of reminiscing in the past days, about who I was two decades ago. I was thinking about what was directing me, and what was keeping me sane. I was thinking about what thoughts I meditated on, and what concepts I held on to. As I mentioned before, there were thoughts that I naturally grew out of, and other thoughts I actively detected and eliminated from my system.
One thought that lingered and still impacts me to this day is the obsolete assumption that dominance is something to be sought after. I remember writing those words in Caps Lock and Bold – I wanted absolute social dominance. Not really sure what that meant specifically – or, rather, I couldn’t elaborate on it as much as I would want to. Let’s just say that this false ideal (idol?) has affected how I think, how I see things, and how I interact with people. A red flag that had me realize that these thoughts were false and/or obsolete was when I was vehement in pushing for things that don’t go well in nature. Fantasies and perversions, if you must know… that isn’t the root of all of it. It’s this unhealthy, and unnatural desire to dominate absolutely – perhaps as a response to the bullying, or just something I was tempted to try.
Friends, something far more practical, something far easier and lighter to carry than the weight and pressure of social status is just, peace. I was going to mention power as a stepping stone, graduating from ‘dominance’, but I’ve realized through all this time that power and peace cannot be separated. You cannot have power without peace, and you cannot have peace, without power. Power is peace in all circumstances, and peace is the power behind all our movements and our decisions, while we are still walking in this finite and fallen world.
It’s peace that’s the power which makes its way to the hardest, indomitable hearts. In power as life and light within us, we move and have our being, knowing that the Prince of Peace is with us, now and forever.
Much words to say a simple point – dominance is overrated. Peace is power. Power is peace.
I don’t think I would’ve wanted to end the day without sharing these things.
May we all have a great month ahead.
JB's Personal Brain Defragmenter 
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