I am new to this site and there is a lot of negitivity inside me. I decided I wanted to start off on a positive note. Witness or non-witness we all need money to survive in this system. Some of us have been trained to be poor by "keeping our eye simple." By telling our employer we will quit if we do not get time off for the assembly. Well money is where I want to start rebuilding my life. I have a win/win situation for all of us. There is a site where we can lend money to someone on this board who needs it. If we lend $50 to that person (which I hope we can trust) the site will give us each $25. So there it is a start to financial freedom...true freedom in my opinion. If I am full of it let me know...if you want to join me...let me know. Glad to be here...
"Keeping your eye simple"
by NoAliasAvailable 8 Replies latest members private
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stillajwexelder
Good luck and welcome to the board
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WTWizard
Loan or no loan, I think one way a person can save a lot of money and time is to quit the field misery. Note how much gas costs these days. Each day you spend out in field circus wastes at least 2 1/2 gallons per hour (and that is assuming the vehicle sits still); if you are driving in the city, it can waste as much as 5 or 6 gallons per hour with starts and stops. That is about $7-18 per hour wasted on gas alone. Add wear and tear, and it can add up to as much as $25-30 per hour per car.
Then there are other expenses. Suit dry cleanings can range from $6 to 16 per suit per cleaning, depending on whether the hounders have rules about where you can or cannot take it in for cleaning. They also need replacing after about 90 cleanings or so (a cleaning can wear the suit down). Service supplies can run upward of $100 to start out, and then the littera-trash donations for the Worldwide Pedophile Defense Fund can add even more (I have seen poor, elderly people putting $20 bills in that box like they were going out of style). Kingdumb Hell buildings, preparing for the Grand Boasting Session, and supplying the hounder-hounder also add up.
Not to mention the time you waste on it. I can remember when I was in, I had to waste about 10 hours per week on boasting sessions alone, plus about that on field circus. The proscription against college also means that people are going to get crappier jobs, which will in turn mean working longer hours to make the same amount of money (it takes 5 times longer to make $1,000 if you are only making $10 an hour than it does if you are making $50 per hour). Add everything up, and you can actually simplify your life by ditching the Watchtower Society and then start taking up a hobby that could lead you to a bigger income. Or, at the very least, just quitting the Watchtower Society.
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momzcrazy
I think another great way to save money is to quit the Witnesses all together. And perhaps go to school and get a better paying job if possible. Give that job importance as is it supporting you and perhaps a family.
momz
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Seeker4
NoAlias, your statement "Some of us have been trained to be poor" really resonated with me.
I was raised a JW, baptized at 11, and didn't leave until I was in my 40s. During many of those years I was an elder, and Pioneered for many years with a wife and 3 kids.
Money has always been an issue, and I've come to the same conclusion you have - part of it is that we've been trained by JW thinking to be poor. I actually think that keeping your eye simple is a good approach to life, it's the JW twist on it that is so damaging. Their take is to spend your life in some menial work so you can devote more time to the organization. So don't pursue your passions, talents or success in "this system."
The WTS ban on higher education has kept so many of us from the professions that we would have excelled at and made a lot of money in.
I was an excellent student with an IQ in the top 2 percentile. I had a high school teacher offer to help me pay for college, as she felt that I, of all the students she'd taught, would thrive at a university. I refused, and instead took a job cleaning supermarket floors so I could Pioneer.
Throughout my life, money struggles have caused me more stress than nearly anything else, and it's always been because I don't have the education required for most higher paying jobs.
My son-in-law, a nominal JW, told me a few weeks ago that he thought I was one of the five most talented and intellignet persons he'd ever met, and that I should have higher ambitions in using the talent. That having been said, once I decided I was on my way out of the JWs when I was in my 40s, I also opted to change careers. I'd wanted to be a writer since my chiildhood, and that's the career I pursued.
Within a year I was making my living fulltime as a freelance writer, and in six years was editor of the second largest weekly in my state and a contributing editor at the state's leading business magazine with a monthly interview featuring the sate's leading politicans and business owners. I've sat toe to toe in in-depth discussions with the Governor and most of his administration, and with the Presidents of half a dozen of the state's leading colleges and universities. I joke that I've spent more time interviewing university presidents than I have attending university classes! All this after 20 years only operating cleaning and small contracting businesses and with just a high school diploma. So, I realized I do have some developed talent and ability.
BUT, it's still hard to shake that JW mentality that I should be happy to be making ANY money at all and that I shouldn't be ambitious and trying to use that talent to make some REALY serious money. That was the point my son-in-law was trying to make - I SHOULD be able to make a LOT of money with the work I'm doing, whereas money is often still too much of a struggle.
One thing the WTS completely misses in its view of education is the importance of the career developing connections one makes while at a university or college, through professors, internships, classmates and alumni. The contacts are often as important in a career as the degree, and when combined can lead the way to a satisfying and rewarding working life.
If I'm bitter at the WTS about anything, it is surely their anti-education stance. I've never been tempted to live an ostentatious life, but I sure can remember many a sleepless night worrying about money problems that literally would have been non-existent if I'd simply had a $500 cushion to fall back on. That's pathetic, but for far too many JWs, you end up living pay check to pay check doing menial, low paying work. An unexpected $1000 engine repair job can create a terrible financial tail spin.
Thanks for your insightful comment, and the chance to rant a bit. I'm seriously attacking that "training to be poor" left over JW mentality in 2008!!
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snowbird
Welcome, NoAlias.
I try not to dwell on the missed opportunites for financial freedom, otherwise it would eat me up.
I, too, graduated at the top of my class. I dropped out of pursuing a degree because "the end is so close, why bother?"
Even after going to work full-time to support myself and child, I felt guilty about seeking advancement. I am a hard, conscientious worker, and am usually the first in line for a promotion. I turned down a lot of offers to work overtime, weekends, and nights. As a divorced single parent, I really needed the extra income, but I was made to feel that my "spirituality" would suffer if I missed any meetings.
I will tell you what suffered. My health suffered as I strove valiantly to keep the mortgage, car payment, and utilities current. The Society does JW's a grievous misdeed with their hypocritical "keep your eye simple" admonitions.
Sylvia
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SnakesInTheTower
welcome to the board NAA...
let me get something out of the way before I address the main (and excellent) topic...
I have a win/win situation for all of us. There is a site where we can lend money to someone on this board who needs it. If we lend $50 to that person (which I hope we can trust) the site will give us each $25. So there it is a start to financial freedom...true freedom in my opinion. If I am full of it let me know...if you want to join me...let me know
One word: SCAM... two words: PYRAMID SCHEME. three words: GO TO JAIL.... enough said....
About the topic...."Keeping your eye simple":
Witness or non-witness we all need money to survive in this system. Some of us have been trained to be poor by "keeping our eye simple." By telling our employer we will quit if we do not get time off for the assembly
A fader JW friend and I were discussing this just today. He told me that (as a teenager at the time) pioneering was never an attractive goal for him because I and other regular single pioneers were so damn poor. He grew up poor and did not want to continue that way as an adult. When I was a pioneer the first time around..back in 86-91 (requirement was 90 hrs/mo), I was dirt poor, driving piece of crap cars, making $5/hr, wearing threadbare suits....living in a dump of a drafty old house (a converted chicken coop from WWII I have been told, since torn down)... and other single pioneers were living almost as badly... he thought it was an insult to Jehovah that we had to live so poorly so we could waste time in the field circus... today he goes to the occasional talk but never the circus work... (I wish I could get him to post here, he wont do it)
Since walking away from the Borg, I have completed one associates degree (career associates that I am not using alot right now), I am pursuing a regular Associates in Sciences (or Arts, not sure which) now so I can then transfer to complete a Bachelor's...possibly in Business Administration or Accounting... Though my car is now 5.5 years old, it is in great shape (read that: not crap) that I purchased brand new... and its paid for... I am nearly done paying off the rest of my debts... my house (which I rent) may not be the nicest or in the nicest 'hood, but its cheap and comfortable (under $300/mo..for the last 9 years...long story.....but its not charity or govt asst.... I just got lucky and found a damn good landlord who has never raised my rent.... I will go into sticker shock when I have to pay market rates again)...I have a good paying job, I finally have health insurance again (that I pay for 100%), and another job on the side....
Life is good now that I am not trying to stay in the Organization's restraints of "keeping my eye simple". Though I would like to have a female in my life (something else I was discouraged from doing..pursuing women), I am still alone. One day that too will change. In the meantime, I keep busy, but not with all the Borg "busy work"... meetings, personal study, field circus, elder sh*t, etc etc.... I still keep my life simple...but not so simple that I cant enjoy it. I travel more now, read more, listen to music, and chill.....
I am not sure for the reason for the "keep your eye simple" mantra of the Borg... who is going to donate to the Worldwide Pedophile Defense Fund if everyone follows that? Its all about control...something they no longer have over me.
Snakes ()
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MissingLink
Wooo! I've been looking for an internet based pyramid scheme. Awesome! How could this go wrong?
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jgnat
Locked for violating posting rule 6.
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