The Breakfast Club for 40-Somethings

Chapter 12 The unlearn pillars

He drew a large circle on the board. He wrote a heading that said ‘The 5 unlearns’ at the top of the circle. He then wrote five words around the circle. The first word was DESIRE.

‘Have you ever wondered why we stopped building churches and starting building malls?’ he asked. ‘Our ode to stuff — consumerism — is one of the biggest traps of the western world. When our church is a shopping mall, what are we encouraged to do? We’re encouraged to spend. And this spending comes at a heavy price — the freedom we don’t have, because we’re in debt. We’re leveraged. And we have to keep working to pay for it all.’

‘Jasper, pass that tequila around again,’ Josie demanded, and everybody laughed. They all knew Josie was the most obvious candidate for unlearning desire.

‘Josie, it’s not just you who needs to really think about this. Who here has a big mortgage? Who here is trapped in a lifestyle they can barely afford? Who is miserable because of it?

Karen and Russ both shot their hands up. Looking at each other, they laughed. They felt like school kids again, both confessing they didn’t know the answers.

‘Pretty normal stuff, guys,’ Ben continued. ‘Most of Sydney would confess to the same thing. Yet we stay here, and pay up and stay miserable and change nothing.’ Ben had many clients from the most affluent middle class suburbs, and he knew these suburbs often held the most miserable of people.

‘Trying to look like you have it all but then peddling like ...