Stop being mediocre.

The last decade has seen an uprising of sorts from the 99% being fed up with the 1%. I'm not even sure those were actual terms before "Occupy Wall Street," but anyone will recognize what I'm talking about when I mention the 1%. I'm also quite certain that most people will feel some form of resentment towards the 1%, so maybe I'm crazy for admitting I want to be a 1 percenter. 

I'm confused as to what the 99% want from the 1%. With a few exceptions on both sides, most people are in one of the two categories because they want to be. The few exceptions being those 99 percenters that are incapable of escaping because of injury, illness, or what have you; and those 1 percenters that were just lucky and born into it. Anyone else that has an idea, a skill, a dream, etc., can become a 1 percenter. 

How am I going to do it?

Step 1. Get out of the rat race. No longer will I fight everyone else for scraps when I am fully capable of going for higher prizes. This is why I sold my truck that did nothing for me but impressed a lot of other 99 percenters. I know it impressed people because almost every day someone told me I had a nice truck. Compliments on a stupid truck aren't what I want out of life. That is not the reason I get up at 5:30 every morning to go to work. I work because my ideas haven't brought me financial independence, yet. 

"I work because my ideas haven't brought me financial independence, yet." 

Now I drive a beater, and guess what...People treat me differently. I don't fit most people's ideology of what a middle class person, much less a 1 percenter, should drive. Driving a beater is like having a people filter. If I want to see if someone is the type of person I want to associate with, one who will help me grow and enrich my path to getting out of the rat race, I just show them what car I drive. If they scoff, it's because they are forever stuck in mediocrity, and I don't want to play with mediocre people.  

I recently posted this video on our blog from a YouTube channel called "The Art of Improvement" that perfectly sums up why 99 percenters that are fully capable of becoming 1 percenters never will. In it, the narrator says that jealousy is a waste of time, and any time spent being jealous is time the person you are jealous of is working towards becoming better. 

I refuse to spend my time loathing the 1%, and will instead strive to join them. I don't understand why more 99 percenters haven't joined me. Actually, the video above explains it quite reasonably: It is hard to get into the 1%. And what is hard to achieve normally doesn't have much competition because few other people want to put forth the effort to achieve it. That's why the 1% is only made up of 1%, while 99% of us live in mediocrity fighting for scraps.  

An analogy for easy vs hard: Look at the astronomical odds of winning the lottery. The odds of winning are so high because millions of people play it. Millions of people are playing the lottery because if they win, it's easy money. Aside from leaving the house and spending a couple of dollars, they had to do very little to earn it. But at the same time, starting a business that has a greater potential to earn more money than winning a lottery is hard, so very few people actually put forth the effort to do it. Or living below our means to save a larger portion of our income so we can retire earlier is hard because we want to impress people with that nice car, big house, and putting on a facade of what 99 percenters think it looks like to have money. 

What does it mean to be 1% of the population? Does it mean being wealthy? I think that's what a lot of people associate it with. No matter what Daniel Tosh says about money buying happiness, and money buys wave runners (ever see a sad person on a wave runner?) becoming wealthy will not cure anyones problems. First of all, what is wealthy? Is it a million dollars? Billion dollars? Wealth is defined as 'having a plentiful amount.' It doesn't have to be money, but having a monetary value makes up the meat of the definition. 

My personal definition of being in the 1% is when I no longer need to rely on a job to finance my lifestyle. Yes, that means I could sell everything, quit my job, and live in the mountains or a on a boat at sea and consider myself part of the 1%, but I want a more comfortable life than that. So to me, being in the 1% means a little bit more than homeless, and a little bit less than being a billionaire. In other words, it means I no longer have to fight the 99% for scraps.