"passive income" and the "Tale of a Lazy Man"
I spend many Sat mornings blocking twitter followers who promise income by doing nothing. They call it... passive income.
So I got to thinking, who wants anything to do with "passive"? I don't want a passive job, a passive life, or a passive income. An income should be earned and those who make wealth know it takes work, and a whole lot of it.
Not only is it nonsensical for something that's meant to grow, such as an income, to be labeled as passive, but it's a false promise to tell folks they can make money by being passive (unless you're Bernie Madoff and look what became of him).
Here is a little Romanian folk tale to illustrate how something that's "passive" will always be "passive," Tale of a Lazy Man (Povestea unui on lenes de Ion Creanga):
It is said there was a man so lazy that he wouldn't even chew the food in his mouth. The village people, when they saw they couldn't get him to do any work or move in any way decided to make an example of him by way of hanging. So they take him and load him in a horse-drawn cart, and he lets himself be taken away as if he was an "inanimate log." As they proceed to the place of hanging they run into a woman of wealth who takes pity on the lazy man and offers to take him in, and have him live in a pantry full of dry bread, where he could eat and live without having to earn his keep or bother anyone.The village people tell the lazy man of the woman's kindness and his unexpected fortune. Yet he replies, "Is the bread soaked?"The charitable lady is surprised, "why, can't he soak it himself?""Nah," the lazy man answers, "keep pulling this cart." And so, too lazy even to live, the lazy man gets the villagers off his back, the villagers get the lazy man off theirs.
When choosing "passive" the only options are "passive." Why limit ourselves?
