Picture two men in ancient Greece:
One dines from golden plates in a marble palace. Servants feed him delicacies from across the empire.
The other sits in dirt, spooning lentils from a wooden bowl.
The rich man (Aristippus) sneers down: “If you would learn to be subservient to the king, you wouldn’t have to live on lentils.”
The poor man (Diogenes) doesn’t even look up: “Learn to live on lentils, and you won’t have to be subservient to the king.”
That response shook kings to their core. Even Alexander the Great admitted: “If I were not Alexander, I would wish to be Diogenes.”
Why? Because Diogenes wasn’t celebrating poverty.
He was celebrating something far more precious: absolute freedom.
In 2024, your “lentils vs. luxury” choice looks like:
COMFORT:
✓ That bigger house in the “good” neighborhood
✓ The newest iPhone that tracks your every move
✓ DoorDash delivering $30 meals to your golden cage
✓ Streaming subscriptions to numb the pain
TRUE COST:
⚠️ 60+ hour weeks serving someone else’s dream
⚠️ Biting your tongue when your boss is wrong
⚠️ Missing the moments your kids will remember
⚠️ Living in fear of the next layoff
The average American spends 90,000 hours of their life working jobs they hate to buy things they don’t need.
That’s 10.3 years of your life traded for golden handcuffs.
Your ancestors would weep.
🤔 What would YOU do differently if you weren’t subservient to your modern “king”?
Breaking free,
Wes
P.S. Speaking of impossible choices… I just released the trailer for “The Lesser Evil” – a dark fantasy making readers question everything they know about sacrifice: https://talesofkhayr.com/untold-tragedy/
Watch as a pampered noble boy discovers his mother’s terrifying secret… and faces a choice that will either save his soul or damn it forever.
WARNING: Contains psychological horror that may haunt your dreams.
👉 Watch the trailer here before it’s taken down: https://talesofkhayr.com/untold-tragedy/
