The Day We All Stopped Paying!!!!!
So I woke up today with that brief, blissful feeling of getting paid. You know the one – your account finally looks decent for a moment, and for half a second, you feel like you can breathe.
But within hours, it was gone. Bills. Backed-up debt. Random fees and “just this one thing” expenses. Swipe after swipe. Click after click. And just like that – bam – I was broke again.
That’s when I started spiraling: What if I didn’t pay?
What if I just… stopped? What if none of us paid?
The mortgage, the car, the credit cards, the insurance, the taxes. What if we just said, “Nope. Not today. Not this month. Not anymore.”
At first, it sounds reckless. Stupid, even. Because we all know what happens if you don’t pay. They take your house. They repossess your car. They hit your credit. They send letters. They send threats. They take.
But then I thought even deeper…
Who’s doing the taking? The banker? The repo guy? The judge? The cop?
All of them – also broke. Also stressed. Also living check to check, just like the rest of us. Slightly more secure, maybe. Better benefits, maybe. But still stuck in the same loop.
That’s when it hit me hard: We’re all enforcing a system that doesn’t benefit the majority of us – just to survive inside it.
Even the people with the power to punish you are trapped. Because we’ve been taught to protect this system like it’s sacred. But it’s not sacred. It’s just old. And familiar. And enforced by fear.
The truth? This entire setup is a collective belief system. A mass agreement.
Money isn’t real in the way we think. It’s just paper and digits – assigned value by those who control the supply and manipulate the game. Anyone who understands fiat currency knows it’s smoke and mirrors. It only works because we all agree to pretend it does.
And while we’re pretending, we’re working ourselves to death. Grinding for pennies while prices rise and the top gets richer. We don’t live – we manage. We don’t rest – we recover just enough to keep going.
And now, they’ve sold us a new illusion: Fame. Followers. Fast money.
Everyone wants to be a content creator. Everyone wants the shortcut, the sponsorship, the viral escape. Because why break your back doing essential work when a trending sound and a ring light might make you rich?
The algorithm has become the new boss – rewarding conformity, distraction, and ego. And while we’re all busy chasing visibility, the world is running out of people willing to do the work that actually keeps it spinning.
Nobody wants to be a farmer, a cleaner, a mechanic, a nurse, a tradesperson – not because those jobs don’t matter, but because this system undervalues them.
We’ve made the fake stuff shiny, and the real stuff invisible.
And while we’re distracted, the machine keeps churning. More debt. More division. More desperation.
But what if we stopped?
What if we picked a day – a week – a month – a year – where we said, No more. We’re not paying. We’re not playing.
What if the bottom 90% – the real engine of the world – chose rebellion through refusal? Not through violence. Not through chaos. But through noncompliance.
The system would collapse.
Because we are the system. Without our labor, our energy, our obedience – it’s just a story with no audience.
But of course, that leads to the real question: Then what?
What do we build in its place? What does the world look like after The Day We All Stopped Paying?
A World Reimagined
Let’s dream for a moment.
Let’s imagine a world where the game is over. Where we don’t have to prove our worth through struggle. Where we’ve rebuilt from the ground up – with truth, with care, and with actual value.
In this world, no one’s homeless while buildings sit empty. No one’s sick because they can’t afford care. No one’s drowning in debt just for being alive.
We all have access to the basics – not just food, water, and shelter, but peace, rest, and time.
And work? It’s not about survival. It’s about contribution. The farmer is respected. The janitor is honored. The nurse is revered. Because now we see clearly – these are the people who make life possible.
We don’t glorify billionaires. We don’t reward hoarding. And we don’t shame people for needing help.
We automate what we can. We simplify what we can. We let people be human again.
Decisions aren’t made by corporations or lobbyists or lifeless algorithms. They’re made by real people, in rotating councils, accountable to their communities.
And there’s no more, “Well I worked hard, why should they get anything?”
Because that voice? That’s pride. That’s ego. That’s the system talking through you.
In the world we imagine, we let that go. We choose love over credit. We choose contribution over comparison. We choose enough over never enough.
The Dream, Regrounded
And maybe I’m dreaming. Maybe I hit that “I’m broke again” moment one too many times and finally snapped. But I have a dream too.
I have a dream… that we’ll wake up one day and just stop paying.
Not because we’re lazy. Not because we’re entitled. But because we finally realize the system is robbing us blind – of time, of peace, of meaning.
I have a dream… that the repo guy will fist-bump you and say, “Keep it. I’m done too.” That the bank manager will light a joint and say, “Yo… we were wild for this.” That the IRS will shut down and turn into a meditation retreat.
I imagine a world where a kid asks, “Wait – you had to pay to stay alive?” And we just laugh and say, “Yeah. We were out of our minds.”
Maybe today’s not the day we all stop paying. But the day we realize we can?
That’s the day everything changes.
All it takes is enough of us saying, “What if we didn’t?”
And meaning it. 🫡 😉
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/09/why-wages-arent-keeping-up-with-inflation.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/09/why-wages-arent-keeping-up-with-inflation.html
