Life

A Tale Of Two Men

57 Comments

Meet my friend Jack.  In a lot of ways, we are very similar.

We are both lawyers.  We went to the same law school together.  We were in the same section and took most of our classes together.  We studied together, went out to bars together, and have the same core group of friends.  We both love drinking, beautiful girls, sports and humor based on dry sophisticated wit.  We even share the same birthday.

During law school, some flashes of our differences began to illuminate.  He started and sold a side business generating $100k in profit.  I partied harder, moved to a beach city and stopped buying textbooks.  He took a break from his longtime girlfriend and then got back together with her.  I broke up with my girlfriend and commenced with mass dating.  He received high grades and secured a great job at a big law firm.  I received good grades and falling short of the big firm, took a job at one a tier below his.

As with most office or corporate settings, my life began to drift towards the conventional American mold.  The natural corollary to this was that our lives started to coincide.  We both purchased homes in the same city and signed paperwork encumbering ourselves with the perceived milestone of the famed mortgage.  We both leased new cars.  I started dating a girl seriously and after a few years, Jack and I were both living with our girlfriends.

At the end of 2009, our paths that were once parallel started to shift tremendously.

Jack got married to his longtime girlfriend.  He advanced at his job and was making well over $200k.  He started buying investment property across California and some other states.  He sold his home and moved into a bigger home in a better school district, as he and his wife welcomed a new son to their family.

I also advanced at my job quite nicely, but was capped at earning low six figures.  I was required to put in “face time” at the office even if I was without work.  This was not what I wanted in life.  The partner I worked for was an extremely talented attorney, so I modeled myself after him.  Like a sponge I soaked up all his mannerisms, the way he wrote, the way he argued, the things he cared about and the things he found trivial.  Eventually, I made my first huge decision.  I quit and started my own firm.

My income went from the dependable six figures to a chaotic low fives in the first year.  My savings started to evaporate.  Having my own business however allowed me to get creative.  I took on small clients that later spawned big cases.  I bartered legal services for PR press, which landed me a published article and a subsequent deluge of opportunities.

The freedom of having my own firm allowed me to travel — and so I did.  A lot.  In the past two years, I’ve gone to Finland, Russia, Poland, Belarus, Czech Republic, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Bermuda, Ukraine, Germany, Sweden, Norway, and Iceland.  Slowly I began to realize what actually made me happy.  It was not material possessions, but freedom.  So I made my second huge decision — fuck convention, let me be the outlier in this mass imposed ideal of social norms.  I was not happy in my relationship, so in my early 30s I broke up with my girlfriend of 4+ years.  I found someone to take over the lease of my wonderful yet unnecessary $60k BMW.  I cut my DirecTV service.  I rented out my condo, sold my 3D Plasma TV, my projection TV, my leather couch and all my furnishings.  The remainder of my items (art, memorabilia, etc.) went into a friend’s storage.  I’m currently taking a Russian language course because, well, I can.

Fast forward to today.  Jack just quit his job and partnered up with a few other attorneys to do his own thing.  He’s happily married with a nice large house.  His wife is extremely nice and stays at home to take care of their wonderful son.  They live in a great area of suburban California and he has a few investment properties scattered throughout the U.S.  He has a great family close by to him, comes out with the boys when he can and generally seems very happy.  I have nothing but respect for him as both an individual and a professional.

My life is constantly improving.  Professionally, I’ve landed new clients via email in New York, drafted motions from Iceland, and held conference calls from Ukraine.  I fortuitously came up against my former boss in a case and beat him recently.  That client turned out to be well-connected, garnering me some substantial business from referrals.  In the past two years I’ve been recognized by a well-respected legal organization as tops in my practice.

The flip side is I have no car and no home.  I use my little brother’s non-luxury car as he’s away at school.  I find random apartments to sublease for however long necessary when I am back in LA.  And when it’s time to move again, I throw my suits, clothes and laptop into my brother’s car and drive to the next place.  I’m free from bosses, from a relationship that wasn’t right for me, and from the unnecessary luxuries and expenses that ate at my income.  But most importantly, I’m happy.

Read More: It’s Always Great To Be A Man

57 thoughts on “A Tale Of Two Men”

    1. If you are the Solomon that I spent 10 hours straight reading everything you ever wrote …..
      I got RESPECT for you. I’m quoting your ass all the time now.
      The rest of ya’ll need to go through the ROK pages and find the Roosh post “The Most Incredible Blog you’ve never heard of”.
      And read that mother fucker. Don’t make any plans once you start. You’ll be there awhile.

  2. Honestly, by most guys standards, you guys are both doing pretty well.
    I do think it is important to note, for younger readers here, that while being a corporate drone is not necessarily the greatest life one can have, don’t “drop out” until you have some marketable skills. These guys are both lawyers, presumably from a god school. Choosing to focus on something besides material possessions are a lot more realistic that way, since even without focusing on it, you generally don’t end up flipping burgers or living under a bridge.

    1. When you make six figures out of the gate, paying back loans is easy. If you are like me who did well at a T-3 school and got a job at a small firm paying only $65k a year, it takes hella longer. Granted, It is a job that allows limited freedom so I can take off early to go skiing or hunting, but I’m still chained to the city for the foreseeable future.

    2. You missed the point. I got similar story. I ditched it all also. And my material situation has slid as far as it could slide. And I have never been happier in my life. Maybe happy isn’t the world, content might be. Happiness is a simple matter of not being unhappy. You may not know when you are happy, but I fucking guarantee you will know when you are unhappy.
      I travel also. And I have never felt more alive than being in a strange place, alone, on the first day and then going out and finding the “there” that is there. And I never felt more dead than slipping that employee batch into some card reader and walking into a bay of cubes for another day inside a corporation.
      Down below there is a comment saying “Please update in 15 years”. Well I am 57, 15 years later than this author. If I get backed into a corner in the next few years and have to put a bag over my head and breathe helium,
      I’ll still say it it was worth it. And as I breath the helium, my last thoughts will be of walking the streets in Medellin, alone, a 3 in the morning, unafraid of a street that even the Colombians said “You shouldn’t do that” It won’t be that I should have sucked it up at that corporation. I got regrets, sure. Who doesn’t. But I can say that I gave the world the finger. This society tried to put me into a box as a divorced man and I kicked my fucking way out of the box and they can all go fuck themselves.
      There is a line from the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner about being in the midst of the worst storm at sea and then a short period of calm came.
      “And yet, one hour was sunlight. And the most high gods could do naught but watch that hour as it passed.”
      A brave man dies once, a coward dies every day.

    3. My previous comment is awaiting moderation and I guess that is Roosh’s way of saying “You are talking too much”.
      But the lessons of the manosphere are fairly clear. The two key institutions of work and marriage that had been so instrumental in the lives of men have become co-opted by women and by forces in society that make them no longer profitable nor tenable to the type of man that wishes to live life as a man.
      Yesterday’s group of ROK postings had a post with tips on being Red Pill aware in the workplace. The majority of the tips said “Subsume who you are and never let others know what you do, what you believe, and of your actions.” The constant lessons of marriage are continuously that you must be compliant, if not actually to the woman, at least to her mission of family and motherhood. The price that you will pay over and over in either of these two institutions is your self respect.
      So the lessons of Roosh and of this author are that, to live as a man, men must turn their back’s on those institutions and must accept that we are in a new era, a new epoch, and forge a new style of life with new definitions of what being a man, of how men should live,. of what men should value. This author is trying to say that Liberty, which Voltaire said, “In the end, is merely the freedom to act”, is more important than material possession, more important that what a society of women judges you by. If you let convention, if you let the belief that material possessions are the scorecard, if you continue to make decisions that further chain you to a lifestyle of males that has been defined by social convention and by the Feminine Imperative, then you surely will compromise your liberty, and thus your freedom to act.
      So over and over, these men are trying to say, let go. Do not be afraid of the abyss that you do not know. Because if the abyss is ultimately bottomless, then you do not fall, you float, in the liberty of possibility.

  8. Both guys’ situations sound good. However, I’m looking at the situation that has the strongest resilience just in case something goes wrong. If Law Dogger gets sick or hits a financial snag along the way, he can bounce back the fastest.
    If Jack gets sick, hits a financial snag, or gets served with divorce papers from his wife; Jacked is fucked.
    Long story short: Jack has too much to potentially lose and also Jack’s life seems harder to maintain in this topsy turvy economy of ours.

    1. “Jack has too much to potentially lose ”
      Remember Jack’s got investment properties so he can just sell those in times of need.

      1. Remember Jack has a wife who does not work because she “stays at home to take care of their wonderful son.”
        If she leaves him, she’ll need to be maintained in the lifestyle she has grown accustomed to. Fortunately, **she’s** “got investment properties so [s]he can just sell those in times of need.”
        They live in California so after 10 years of marital bliss, she’ll be entitled to lifetime vaginamony; and her husband’s retirement account; and (of course) her wonderful son whom she has always taken care of because (her lawyer will say) Jack is a workaholic who hates children.

      3. How much that will help depends entirely on how much equity he has in those properties and how easily he could sell them if the market were to simultaneously turn sour.

  10. I assume you had other friends after law school who were far too blue pill for you to continue investing your time with. Jack must have been a good character match for you to stick around.

  11. I’m just curious for those of us who are against legal and religious marriage, as I am, what will we do in old age? Ever think about that? I do. Sometimes I picture myself old, weak, feeble and sick with no one to take care of me or even visit me. And the loneliness. No kids or grand kids. I know it doesn’t have to be this way but I see a lot of old people for whom this is a reality.

      1. Uh, its a serious question. I’m currently in a LTR (neither of us want kids) but have no illusions that this is going to last forever (nor do I especially want it to).

    2. thailand, tequila, and hookers.
      when you get too old for that its time to make your exit.

      1. Hookers? STDs, mate. Condoms do not prevent HPV which seems to be a genetically engineered mutant STI.
        Thailand is a visually beautiful country and I love its culture but am not particularly attracted physically to Thais. Plus its a haven for global child sex slavery. Tons of pedos from the UK and US have infiltrated and brought the house down.
        I lived there for 1 year and half already if you add my various trips and although I can see myself going back, don’t know if I’d want to retire and spend my old age til death there.

      2. @ sati
        ya azn guys really have a hard time with non asian women then again non asian women have more hair then asn guys lol(neera auroa said that on the radio)
        so what kinda guys u into?
        hey when ur old who cares….just about anything that kills u is natural causes…like gettin hit by a bus if ur younger u woulda gotten outa the way
        ya pasty middle age men chasin kids thts pretty fucked up thogh..dunno why the government dont do anythin about it

      3. Theres an hpv vaccine so thats not an issue. Thailand was just a suggestion, you can change it to whatever you like, tequila, and hookers.

  12. “Slowly I began to realize what actually made me happy. It was not material possessions, but freedom.”
    That’s it right there. No material possessions can compensate for lack of freedom.
    Last year at 41 years of age I quit my job (CEO of a small company) to start my own thing. Tired of having a boss who would screw me over in a heartbeat (CEOs have bosses too) and tired of working so hard to make other people rich.
    Dialed back expenses, live in an inexpensive furnished rental, no car. I don’t do anything I don’t want to do.
    Freedom is priceless.

  13. This story relates on every level. You can always have 2 seemingly similar people and it results in why is one happy and one isnt. Usually the one happy doesnt have the “amazing job” usually that person has an amazing life.

      1. Up until the married guy sees his wife bloat like a whale or she decides to cash out and divorce him.

  14. Good article, illustrative of two worthy approaches to life. IMO, the thing is that people who decide to value their freedom usually have their finances pretty well established for the most part. I’ve come to a point in my life where I could give up my freedom for awhile but gain some valuable stuff in the process…or have a go at it on my own and see what happens. It’s not such an easy choice when you don’t have much to your name.

  17. Good post, and I can relate as a former cube monkey turned entrepreneur.
    As others here have mentioned, the Jack in this story seems to have it all right now.
    BUT…he has the Sword of Damocles hanging over his head, in the form of his wife’s hypergamous whims or propensity to gain weight and get bitchy in the ‘comfort phase’ of the marriage. Remember, hypergamy knows no bounds. A woman in her position is probably fantasizing about the douchebag ex-con landscaping guy.
    The author’s character, on the other hand, has built a life with many escape hatches and safety nets. By not relying heavily on any one thing or person, you gain tremendous freedom and also security.
    In the same way that PUAs are cautioned against “oneitis” with girls, aspiring Playboys should avoid oneitis in their jobs, homes, cars, and cities of residence.
    It’s a new world. Flexibility, non-attachment, and resilience are keys to success.

    1. “It’s a new world. Flexibility, non-attachment, and resilience are keys to success”
      I like that. Quoting for truth.

  18. In my opinion, both live a good live.
    I’d prefer to be the one who travels anywhere he wants, whenever he wants. Why? Because he isn’t a slave to paying his house and car, taking care of his family, etc. He can do whatever he wants and there will be no one bothering him. If and when he’s ready he can start a family. It’s no requirement for life though.

  19. hell yes.
    sounds like my life. i got rid of most crap and am moving into a travel trailer, bought 5 acres in texas and will be living on my little hunting camp. i MIGHT work, but it’ll be part time. i’ve been fortunate enough to travel all over europe and asia, and am planning a trip to rio as a gift to myself when i retire.

  20. I’ve been living yours in terms of the travel, lifestyle etc and want to continue doing so. Have also been doing the multiple girls, but want to live Jack’s in terms of settling down with a top quality girl and having kids. When it comes down to it, I still believe that’s what’s ultimately the most important thing in life. Going against the lifestyle a lot of the Manosphere bloggers (Heartiste, Roosh, Krauser), but in tune with a lot of the other ones (Dalrock and Rollo).

  21. Some men value freedom above all else. But I think that is 10% of all men.
    Read Esther Vilar’s first chapter in the Manipulated Man.
    Man is a slave, but he is happy in his slavery. Working for his wife and his children, supporting them, being the bedrock of stability, that is what man does. Most men, anyway.
    Divorce rape and feminism have altered the variables, but the fundamentally most men are happiest in LTRs with a quality girl, and having kids, in the context of a stable home and work environment.

  22. Some people ask me why am I going to law school, trying to become a lawyer in a economy that is is brutal to newly minted lawyers, and with my personality that does not fit the the big firm type enviroment. You answered that question well in this blog. I do it to have a skill I can employ wherever, whenever, and however. The freedom to choose, I know of no greater freedom for a man.

      1. Come on, about 0.0005% of American lawyers are decent people doing good work, so they’re not ALL scum, just because it’s in general (in the USA) a kike profession.

        3. You should read Jews Must Live by Samuel Roth ( jrbooksonline ) — especially the chapter “The Jew as Lawyer”. Explains why the whole world knows US “justice system” is about jewstice scams, not justice.

        1. But it was kabbalist, and kike subversion. For example, starts out as a possible family entertainment, old-fashioned adventure. Mum and dad start watching it with the kids. Then they have incest and kate and sawyer stand-up fucking in a cage while some geek jerks off watching. the end was crap, unplanned, nonsensical, papered over with kabbalistic and masonic symbolism paraded as profundity. LCD.

        2. hmm i dont remember incest… though it has been a long time since i watched lost but i do agree. i really liked the first season though

        3. The relationship between Boon and his sister was incestuous. She stated that he was jealous of her boyfriends (whom he was always critical of) just because he (her brother) wanted to screw her. And that was confirmed by him when he talked about why he found it so frustrating to be close to her. Also in camera shots showing his point of view as he was looking at her washing, looking at her legs, breasts etc. And it was heavily suggested that they had had incestuous sex in the past. This was their main role in the show — with the idea that they were being punished by being stranded on the island. There was also the race-jealousy aspect in the way she rejected her brother for the Arab. But then the Arab was presented as acceptable because he was brave and “noble” while her white bf’s had just wanted her for sex.

        4. Sorry, I forget they weren’t biological siblings. But it’s just a step on the path. First they (kikemedia moguls) introduce troubled incest between step-siblings. Then it will be a no-problem relationship. Then a troubled relationship between bio-siblings. Then it will be a happy sexual relationship between siblings, then with parents, etc.
          The very first entry when one googles “lost incest” is at lostpedia.wiki :
          “Boone and Shannon. Boone’s mother married Shannon’s father. When Shannon’s father died, and Boone’s mother inherited his money, Boone began supporting his step-sister. She began conning him for further money, repeatedly faking bad relationships so Boone would pay off the abusive boyfriends. At some point, Boone fell in love with Shannon, and she seduced him the night beforeOceanic 815’s flight. On the island, the two bickered lightly, and Boone tried to protect her from a relationship with Sayid. Soon before he died, Boone overcame his obsession with her. In the flash sideways, he helped reunite the two to awaken them.”

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