quick 4 year life update:
• finally moved out
• bought my dream jdm daily (crown)
• married my high school sweet heart
• homestay dad to international students
Modern marriage is facing a structural crisis because people want traditional benefits without traditional commitments.
Men want the loyalty, respect, and support of a traditional wife, but refuse to carry the heavy burdens of full provision and protection. Women want the lifestyle, security, and sacrifice of a traditional husband, but refuse to yield to his leadership or bring peace to the home.
You cannot run a 1950s household dynamic on a 2026 single-person mindset.
A successful marriage requires an exchange of value: if a man brings 100% of the stability, a woman must bring 100% of the cooperation. Anything less is just a bad business deal bound for bankruptcy.
Maybe one of the biggest mistakes modern culture made was treating responsibility as the enemy of freedom.
Marriage restricts you. Children restrict you. Owning a home restricts you. Caring for family restricts you. A career restricts you. Community obligations restrict you.
Of course they do. Anything meaningful places demands on you.
But if you remove every obligation in pursuit of maximum freedom, eventually you’re left with a life where nobody needs you, nothing depends on you and there’s very little bigger than yourself.
We talk constantly about wanting meaning while systematically avoiding the exact commitments that tend to create it. And I guarantee you there’s going to be a lot of sad and lonely people in our aging generation because of this nearsighted pursuit.
This is true. We like to claim "at least we don't drink alcohol like our parents" but in reality, we are no different with our doom scrolling.
To truly differ, resist modern escapism.
If you actually pay attention while doomscrolling, you'll find it isn't even enjoyable at all. You don't do it for pleasure.
You do it because it's the only time you can set your worries, problems, and responsibilities aside and be fully immersed in the state of disappearance.
This is the same reason boomers are so addicted to television. For one moment the outside world ceases to exist and they become the screen.
It's one of many reasons people drink until they black out, stoners zone out into nothing, and depressed people sleep fourteen hours.
All they seek is the closest thing to death without dying, and that happens to be complete absence from themselves.
@communitybf Knowledge taught me that, but wisdom gave me the benefit of the doubt.
In truth, humans just can’t engage with what they don’t see. Traction just makes you visible.
After you get married, you’re going to meet ‘better’ people than your spouse. You’re going to meet more good-looking people; kinder and more romantic people; more intelligent and funny people.
You will meet people who have in abundance what your partner lacks. The mushy and romanticized idea that your partner will be everything to you, and will satisfy all your needs and wants is idolatry. Contentment in marriage is a virtue not often spoken about.
You must wake up every day appreciating everything your partner is to you, everything they have, their beauty and the things that made you marry them because if you focus on everything they don’t do well, you’ll always meet better people.
Protect your heart! See their best part, and always remember that your commitment to marry is more of a duty than it is of mushy feelings. You have to stay committed even on the days you feel your spouse is no longer the best fit for you.
@ayobamiamisu Felt this when I moved into a house. Grinded it out the first year and now I’ve learned to buy my wife and I’s time back (outsourcing cleaning). Everything else you can’t outsource is just routine.
A household should have a sacred floor and an open sky.
Some build no floor. They chase the sky while the structure beneath them is fragile.
Others build only the floor. They become so devoted to security that life loses altitude, imagination and movement.
Instead, be a household that creates a floor so strong ambition cannot threaten stability. Then, play aggressively in the open skies above the floor.
Money is life already spent, preserved in transferable form.
A good purchase transforms past labour into present life.
A bad purchase transforms past labour into temporary stimulation.
Behind every spending, ask
"Is this worthy of the life it took to earn?"
Most creators move into lifestyle content so they can create content being authentically themselves but there's a major pitfall nobody warns them about... (I've fallen for this when I was a young creator)
The biggest downside with having lifestyle content as your main source of income is the magnified pull towards living with lifestyle inflation and the need to perpetually showcase it.
Lifestyle inflation is embedded in the nature of lifestyle content. New clothes. New car. New house. New body. New tech. New travels. New friends (specifically, more "famous" or "hot" friends). New, bigger, and better everything.
How can the audience trust and follow your lifestyle if your lifestyle isn't showcasing an upward trajectory?
"Keeping up with the Jones" has become a global game and paired with the audience's unsatisfiable need for novelty, you cannot deny the pull to play this game as a lifestyle creator.
I do believe people deserve to grow and upgrade their lives but the issues stems when a) its unsustainable lifestyle inflation and/or b) you want to stop lifestyle inflating... but you can't, because your food on the table depends on it.
Unprepared, you continue playing a game you don't want to play, and thus ironically defeating the original purpose of creating content being authentically yourself.
The solution is pretty simple:
Diversify your income away from lifestyle content.
A job. Career. Investments. Even content that earns income without the need of you showcasing your life can suffice.
Despite being in the best position of your life, you will not be able to deny the overwhelming sense of having more to lose.
To overcome, see the foundation in which you stand upon.
A big difference I’m noticing in my 30s as opposed to my 20s is how much more I’m valuing privacy.
And this is a bit of a challenging scenario for me because I’ve spent a good portion of my 20s building a public brand on sharing the journey and being vulnerable online.
But now that I’m desiring more privacy, the question is how do I find the right balance between attaining greater privacy without undermining my brand that grew on sharing more online?