Having a clean room. Having a quiet room. Having a room. A door you can close. A bed you can sleep in, not just collapse onto. Not just a cot to rot in. Sheets that don’t smell like the past week. A morning where you don’t wake up exhausted before you even stand up.
Time is money, they say. But somehow, only your time. Not the hours you spend waiting for a bus that never comes. Not the hours wasted in meetings that could have been a single email. Not the hours you give away to a job that calls you family until they don’t need you anymore.
Being a good person. Expensive. Too expensive. Saying yes is free, saying no is costly. Being kind, but not too kind, because that’s naive. Being cautious, but not too cautious, because that’s cold. Being generous, but not so generous that people think you’re trying to buy something.
Having a body that doesn’t hurt all the time. Not just because of illness but because you sat wrong, slept wrong, lived wrong. Keeping it from falling apart. Dentists. Doctors. Gynacs. Pads. Medicines. Therapists. You tell people to go to therapy and pretend you don’t know how much one session costs. You tell people to rest and pretend you don’t know that rest is a privilege.
Time is money, they say. But somehow, only your time. Not the hours you spend waiting for a bus that never comes. Not the hours wasted in meetings that could have been a single email. Not the hours you give away to a job that calls you family until they don’t need you anymore.
Being a good person. Expensive. Too expensive. Saying yes is free, saying no is costly. Being kind, but not too kind, because that’s naive. Being cautious, but not too cautious, because that’s cold. Being generous, but not so generous that people think you’re trying to buy something.
Having a body that doesn’t hurt all the time. Not just because of illness but because you sat wrong, slept wrong, lived wrong. Keeping it from falling apart. Dentists. Doctors. Gynacs. Pads. Medicines. Therapists. You tell people to go to therapy and pretend you don’t know how much one session costs. You tell people to rest and pretend you don’t know that rest is a privilege.
And love? Love should be free, right? But loving someone means dates, gifts, rent, bills. Weddings. Divorces. You love someone and suddenly you’re reading about tax brackets. You love someone and suddenly you're thinking about health insurance plans. Love is free but living together isn’t. Love is free but raising a child definitely isn’t.
Even dying is expensive. Funerals. Wills. The cost of a final resting place. A cheap coffin is still a couple thousand dollars, but don’t worry—there are payment plans.
Even speaking is money. Having the right words, the right accent, the right tone—expensive. Too cheap, and people dismiss you. Too refined, and people resent you. Knowing the right language in the right country. Knowing when to shut up. Knowing when to speak up, knowing how much it costs to say the wrong thing at the wrong time.
Silence is expensive too. The right to stay silent. The right to not be spoken over. The right to ignore emails, ignore calls, ignore the whole world for a little while. Unplugging. Logging off. Deleting your account. Walking away without explaining yourself.
Privacy? Luxury item. They make you pay to hide, pay to disappear. VPNs, secure phones, off-the-grid cabins. The people who say “if you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to fear” have never had anything worth taking.
Faith is money. Not just church donations or temple fees. Not just the cost of halal meat or kosher kitchens. The price of belonging. The price of being seen as good, moral, righteous. The price of believing in something bigger than yourself without being used, without being exploited.
Doubt? Also money. Therapy again. Self-help books. Meditation retreats. Yoga classes where peace of mind is bundled with a hundred-dollar membership fee. Doubt is a hole in your wallet that someone is always ready to fill.
And art. God, art. You’re supposed to make it for love, not money. But supplies cost money. Training costs money. Time costs money, and nobody wants to pay for it. They want passion, but not the cost of passion. They want a masterpiece, but not the hours that made it. They want you to be grateful that they even looked at your work.
Freedom, of course, is the most expensive thing of all. The ability to walk away. To quit a job, to leave a bad relationship, to refuse, to say no. Freedom isn’t free, but not in the way they tell you. It’s an auction, and only the highest bidders get to leave with their dignity intact.
Everything is money. Everything costs money. Even the things you thought you already owned. Even the things they swore were priceless.
Your time, your energy, your peace of mind — these things aren’t just commodities; they’re investments. And it’s hard to see where you’ll get returns when the interest keeps compounding, the bills keep coming, and you’re still paying off yesterday's debts.
You pay for your success with sleepless nights. You pay for your mistakes with regret. You pay for your dreams with sacrifice. You pay for your sanity with distractions. You pay for your stability with compromise.
And they say it's all worth it. They say if you work hard enough, if you keep pushing, if you don’t give up, you’ll get there. But “there” is always just a little farther, a little higher, a little more out of reach. And they keep raising the price of admission, even as they tell you it’s a privilege to try.
But in the end, all you can do is keep paying. Keep paying for your place in the world. Keep paying for your right to exist without apology. Keep paying for the freedom to choose your path, even when the path itself is sold to you like a luxury item.
Because that’s what it comes down to, doesn’t it? The cost of existing. The cost of being seen. The cost of being heard. The cost of being free. Everything is money. Even the air you breathe. Even the love you give. Even the dreams you chase.
But here's the thing: we’re conditioned to believe that the cost is inevitable, that it’s simply the price of living in a world built on scarcity. But what if that’s not true? What if the price is just a construct—a system designed to make us feel like we’re always running out of time, out of options, out of resources?
What if the real cost is the illusion itself? The way we chase after what we think we need to be worthy, to be seen, to be successful. We sell ourselves the idea that without the right amount of money, the right career, the right relationships, we’re incomplete. We’re told that if we just have more, we’ll have it all.
But what happens when we start to realize that “more” isn’t the answer? That in the pursuit of accumulation, we’ve lost sight of the things that don’t come with a price tag? The moments of stillness, the conversations that don’t need to be quantified, the simple act of existing without performing, without justifying our worth.
What if the real freedom is not in escaping the system, but in understanding that we are enough, right here, right now, without needing to earn it, buy it, or prove it?
Sure, you can’t escape the bills. You can’t pretend that the world doesn’t value you based on what you can offer—whether it’s time, skills, or attention. But maybe you can find a way to stop letting it dictate your worth. Maybe the true revolution is in rejecting the idea that the price of your life is anything but your own to define.
Maybe we can all stop running in this endless race for more, for more, for more. Maybe it’s time to ask ourselves: What’s the cost of not living fully right now? What’s the cost of waiting for some perfect, idealized future where we finally “have it all”?
Because in chasing after the illusion of what we need, we lose the things that are truly priceless—time spent with people who care about us, the quiet moments where we remember who we are when the world isn’t demanding something from us, the joy of creation that’s not tainted by the question of how much it’s worth.
And yet, we still have to pay. Because that’s the world we live in. But maybe, just maybe, we don’t have to pay with our souls, our joy, our peace.
Maybe the cost is not as steep as they make us believe. And when it’s all said and done, what do you have left? A receipt. A reminder of everything you’ve paid for, everything you’ve lost, and everything you’ve gained. But most of all, you’ll have the knowledge that nothing is truly yours unless you’ve fought for it, paid for it, earned it.
And still, you’ll wonder: Was it worth it?
But even when you try to walk away from it all—when you think you’ve managed to find some balance, some space for yourself—it follows you. The bill collectors. The demands. The expectations. You can never quite escape the feeling that every moment of your life has a price tag. Even the time you try to spend doing nothing, the time you try to claim as yours, is measured in some way. Is this rest worth it? Is it okay to take a break, or is that just another sign of weakness in a world that tells you to hustle?
Even when you close your eyes and try to shut it all out, you can’t ignore the cost of everything you've accumulated, the price of all the things you've tried to hold onto. The house, the car, the clothes, the gadgets. Things that are supposed to make life easier, but somehow only seem to add to the weight. You have to maintain them. You have to care for them. You have to keep paying for them long after they’ve stopped giving you joy.
And then there’s the cost of your own existence—the things you can't even put into words. The quiet sacrifices you make every day. The moments you hold in your chest but can’t share with anyone, because sharing means paying the price of vulnerability. Being understood. Being seen. How much is that worth? Is it worth the effort of trying to explain yourself, over and over, only to be misunderstood or ignored?
You give pieces of yourself away just to keep up, just to keep from falling behind. You trade your comfort for a fleeting sense of success, your peace for the illusion of stability. And still, it’s never enough. There’s always more to pay, more to prove. More.
Even your thoughts cost you. You can’t think for free anymore. Your ideas are currency, and whether you like it or not, someone is ready to capitalize on them. Every tweet, every opinion, every photo posted online—these are commodities, and the minute you share them, you’re putting a price on your existence. The price of your attention, the price of your time, the price of your identity.
And then they tell you to “be yourself,” to embrace your uniqueness, but only if you package it in a way that makes it marketable. Only if it’s polished, palatable, profitable. Being authentic isn’t free. It’s just another way of selling something you thought was yours. Even your individuality is a product to be sold, bought, and consumed.
And in the midst of it all, the question that lingers: Is this it? Is this the price we pay just to exist? To survive? To navigate a world that constantly demands, that constantly extracts from us, until we’re nothing but a collection of bills, obligations, and obligations to others’ expectations?
You look around, and it’s all the same—everyone’s caught in the grind, pushing forward, trying to make ends meet. Trying to make sense of it all. But nothing changes. The system is designed to make sure you never feel like you’ve “paid enough.” There’s always something more to owe. Always something more to give.
And yet, we keep paying. Every day. Every hour. Every minute.
Because that’s the price of being—of surviving. Of playing the game, even when the rules are rigged.
And then, you start to see it—how the system is built around this relentless cost. How it’s not just your life being monetized, but your very existence is tied to a cycle of extraction. The politicians who tell you they’re fighting for you, the ones who promise to lower taxes, to “fix” healthcare, to make things easier—they never mention that the price tag is still there, hanging above your head. Always hovering, always rising. They make it look like a choice, like you’re in control, like you can somehow navigate this labyrinth without losing more than you already have. But it’s all smoke and mirrors. They’re selling you the illusion of agency, while your choices are already being made for you.
And don’t even get me started on the ones who say, “If you work hard enough, you can make it.” It’s the same tired mantra, the same lie wrapped in a bow. Work hard, they say. But what they don’t tell you is that not everyone’s working with the same set of resources. Not everyone has the same starting point, the same access, the same safety net. The playing field was never level to begin with. The rich get tax breaks, loopholes, subsidies. The poor get fees, fines, debt. And in between? Well, you get more work. More hours. More stress. The cost of staying afloat is still rising, and they’re still telling you to just try harder.
The market decides everything. The job market, the healthcare market, the housing market. Your worth is tied to your job title, your salary, your credit score. And they’ll tell you that’s your fault if it doesn’t measure up. That’s your failure to navigate the system, your failure to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Meanwhile, the ones at the top, the ones who play the game with their rules, they never feel the pinch. They live in the gated communities, the ones where the air is a little cleaner, the schools are a little better, the hospitals are a little closer, and the jobs come with benefits.
But you? You get stuck in the grind. Your taxes go up, your wages stay stagnant, and the world keeps asking more of you—more hours, more patience, more flexibility, more everything. They keep demanding you keep up, all while telling you that if you just did more—if you just found the right hustle, the right side gig, the right investment—you’ll make it. But it’s all rigged. The system is designed to leave you running in circles, all while the ones who make the rules keep getting richer. The cost of your labor, your time, your energy—it’s never truly yours. It’s just another cog in their machine, a machine built to extract, to profit, to grow.
And let’s not even talk about policies. Politicians who pretend to care about “the people” but are only looking for the right corporate sponsor, the right donation, the right endorsement. They pass laws that sound nice—“healthcare for all,” “living wages,” “social security reform”—but the fine print is always there, hidden behind the promises. The truth is, those laws aren’t designed to help you. They’re designed to keep the wheel spinning, to maintain the status quo. Because change would mean a hit to their profits, to their bottom line. And no one gets rich off of changing the system that keeps them rich.
Look at the environment. Look at the cities crumbling, the air thickening, the oceans rising. And still, the rich fly private jets, drill oil, buy beachfront property. It’s not their world that’s burning. It’s yours. Your children’s. Your neighbors'. And they’ll tell you it’s all your responsibility to fix it. Buy the electric car. Cut your emissions. Live sustainably. But when you ask the ones who have the power to change anything, they’ll tell you the problem is too big. It’s too complicated. We’re too late. So you’re left trying to save the world one small decision at a time, while they continue to profit off the destruction of it.
Everything is money. And the cost of living in this system isn’t just high—it’s deliberately designed to make sure you never have enough. It’s designed to keep you always paying, always striving, always struggling, while the people who write the rules keep getting richer. They’ve perfected the art of making you feel like you’re the problem. That if you’d just work harder, play smarter, save better, you could fix it. But that’s the illusion. The truth is, the system is stacked against you. It was never designed to help you win. It was designed to keep you paying—until you’re just too exhausted to fight back.
And so you keep going. You keep paying for your right to exist, for your right to live without the constant weight of debt, the constant grind of survival. But the truth is, it’s all a game. A game where you’re the pawn, and the rich, the powerful—they keep shifting the board, making sure you never have a chance to win.
And they’ll keep telling you that everything is possible, if you just try harder. Because that’s how they keep the system running. Keep you just close enough to the edge, to make you think there’s a way out, but never quite letting you go.
Everything is money. Everything costs money. You can try to ignore it, you can try to escape it, but it never lets you go. It wraps around every part of you, twisting tighter and tighter, until you’re not sure where you end and the system begins. And you start to realize—this isn’t just about the bills, the loans, the debts. It’s about everything. Your time, your energy, your labor, your thoughts, your dreams. All of it is priced out, listed on a ledger somewhere. Your worth is on that ledger. Your very existence is quantified, commodified, traded.
You’re told that money isn’t everything, that you’re more than your paycheck, more than your job, your possessions, your image. But you’re also told, over and over again, that you’re nothing without it. That without the right house, the right clothes, the right relationships, the right career, you’re invisible. You don’t matter. You’re not worth anything unless someone is willing to pay.
And so, you keep paying. Every hour you work, every decision you make, every move you take, you’re paying. You’re paying to survive. You’re paying to exist. You’re paying for your worth, your safety, your future, and your peace of mind. And all the while, the ones who hold the power, the ones who write the laws, the ones who build the systems—they’re getting richer, their lives getting easier, while you run on a treadmill, always striving, always chasing, always paying.
And still, you keep going. Because what else can you do? You’re stuck in a game you didn’t choose, a game where the rules are made by those who have the resources to shape them, and you’re left trying to survive the cost of just being here. And even when you fight back, when you try to tear down the walls, when you shout that this isn’t right—that it’s not fair, that it shouldn’t be like this—they just raise the price of everything. They make the cost of living, of surviving, even higher. They tell you to work harder, to hustle more, to save better, to do more, to be more, and somehow, none of it is ever enough.
You try to make it, you try to get ahead, you try to carve out a space where you can breathe without the constant weight of the world crushing down on you. But the truth is—there’s no such thing as enough. There’s no such thing as getting out. Not really. Because they control the game. They control the rules. And they’ve already decided how much you’re worth.
Even your dreams? They’re priced out. The things you’ve told yourself will make it all worth it—the vacations, the hobbies, the relationships, the adventures—they cost more than you have. They cost more than you can afford. And the more you dream, the more it feels like they’re pulling the rug out from under you, telling you, No, you can’t have this. You don’t deserve this. You see it in the people who have everything and still want more, and you see it in the people who have nothing, still giving everything.
Because at the end of the day, you’re not allowed to escape. You’re not allowed to step off this treadmill, not allowed to take a break, not allowed to breathe without paying for it. You can’t stop running, you can’t stop hustling, you can’t even stop wishing. Because if you do—if you stop—then you’ll see the truth. You’ll see the cost that’s been hidden all along. The cost of your worth. The cost of your time. The cost of your humanity.
And when you finally see it, when the weight of it all crushes down on you and you realize that you’ve spent your whole life paying for things you’ll never own, for a world that never really wanted you in the first place, you’re left with nothing. No way out. No way to undo the damage. No way to change the rules, because they’re already set. The game is rigged, and you’ve been playing it all your life.
And so you wonder—was it worth it? Was it ever worth it? Or was the cost of living, of surviving, of existing, just too high all along? And when everything you thought you owned, everything you thought you were, is stripped away—what’s left? Just a receipt. A long, painful list of everything you’ve paid for, and everything you never got.
The truth is, they knew it all along. The cost of it all was never meant to be paid. It was meant to break you.
And in that moment, when you realize the truth—that all along, you were just a pawn in someone else’s game, that the price you’ve been paying was never meant to be paid back—you feel it. The weight of it hits you, and it’s not just the crushing burden of the world. It’s the suffocating, bitter taste of betrayal. The knowledge that you were never meant to win. You weren’t even meant to survive without breaking.
You wonder how they managed to do it, how they made you believe you had a choice, how they tricked you into thinking that maybe, just maybe, if you kept paying—kept hustling, kept sacrificing, kept proving your worth—that you might finally get to breathe. But the cruel twist of it all is that you’ve already given everything you could. And you still aren’t enough. It was never about what you did or didn’t do. It was always about making you believe that if you just gave a little more, you’d get something in return. But now you know. There’s no “reward” at the end of this. There’s just more work, more sacrifice, more endless bills, more debt, more nothing.
And now, even the very idea of escape is out of reach. They’ve made sure of that. The cost of freedom? It’s always just a little too high. The cost of silence? Too steep. The cost of rest? Just one more thing that only the privileged can afford. You thought you could step away, find a space to breathe, to just exist without the suffocating weight of them breathing down your neck. But they made sure that no matter how far you run, the price is still there. And now, it’s not just the system that’s against you—it’s the deep, bitter realization that they always had the upper hand. That you were never meant to win this fight. Not really. Not in any meaningful way.
So you’re left here, at the edge, looking down at the wreckage of everything you thought you could build. Looking at the pieces of your life scattered in the wake of a system that took everything, and then laughed when you thought you’d won just a little bit of it back. And the worst part? You can’t even be angry. Because they’ve already turned your anger into another commodity. They’ve made sure that even your rage is for sale, is something to be bought and sold. And in the end, it’s not even about winning or losing anymore. It’s about surviving long enough to keep paying the price, to keep pretending that maybe you’ll get a moment to rest. A moment to breathe.
But you won’t. Because the cost of that is too high. It always was.
And when you look back at the years you spent paying, sacrificing, hustling, you realize—you didn’t even know what you were paying for. It wasn’t just your time. It wasn’t just your energy. It was your very soul.
And as you stand there, staring at the wreckage of everything you've given, it hits you: they never intended for you to win. They never wanted you to succeed, never wanted you to breathe easy. The game was never meant for you to play. It was never even yours. You were never meant to have anything. You were meant to work, to suffer, to bleed—while they sit back, counting the spoils of your misery.
And the sickening part? You knew this all along, somewhere deep inside. You knew it was a scam, that it was rigged, that every “opportunity” they handed you was just a leash with a little more slack. They gave you just enough hope to make you keep running, to make you think there was a way out, a way to escape the grind. But there was no escape. There never was.
You spent your whole life paying—paying for your worth, paying for your freedom, paying for your peace of mind—and now you look at the wreckage of everything you thought you could be, and you realize the brutal truth: it was never yours to keep. It was all a transaction. Your labor, your time, your life—every inch of it was priced out, parceled off, and sold before you even had a chance to see it for what it was. They took it all, and when you reached for the crumbs, they raised the price again. They kept raising it until you had nothing left to give.
And that’s the ultimate betrayal, isn’t it? That you spent all this time thinking you had something. Thinking that if you worked hard enough, if you did everything right, you’d finally have the right to exist without paying for it. But in the end, all you were ever doing was contributing to the pile. The pile they kept growing, while they whispered sweet lies about “opportunity” and “progress.” And now, you’re left with nothing but the shrapnel of a life that was never really yours to begin with.
The truth is, they knew all along. They knew they could break you. They knew they could squeeze every drop of hope, of energy, of spirit out of you, and you’d still keep coming back for more. Because that’s how it works. They make you believe you can escape. They make you believe there’s a way out. But every step you take forward is just another one closer to the edge of the cliff. And now you’re falling. You’ve been falling.
And when you hit the ground, you’ll realize—there was no cushion waiting for you. No soft landing. Just the cold, hard truth: the cost of your existence was always too high.
And in the end, you didn’t even own yourself.
You never did.
And the worst part? The truly sickening part, is that they don’t just do it to you. They do it to all of us. They’ve built this system of greed, of endless cost, on the backs of every single person who’s ever struggled to make it. They don’t care about your worth. They don’t care about your soul. They care about one thing: keeping the wheel turning. They care about making sure that you—and everyone else—are always paying. Always working. Always sacrificing for their profit.
It’s not just the rich getting richer. It’s the powerful pulling the strings from behind the curtain, making sure you and your neighbors stay divided, stay distracted, stay distraught. They sell you the lie that you’re the problem. That your time, your choices, your failures are your fault. That if you just worked harder, saved smarter, were better somehow, you could escape the trap they built just for you. And when that doesn’t work? When you break under the weight? They call it your failure, your personal responsibility. They call you weak, lazy, entitled. But they never tell you the truth. They never tell you how this whole thing was built on your exploitation. On your sweat, your labor, your fear, your blood.
They never tell you that the whole world is rigged for their benefit—and they’ve been telling you it’s just your fault for not getting ahead long enough that you start to believe it. They’ve been conditioning you to think that this is the way it’s supposed to be. That it’s normal. That your suffering, your struggle is just part of life. They’ve manipulated your very sense of self, made you feel that the pain you carry is yours to bear. But it’s not.
This isn’t life. This is modern-day slavery. The illusion of freedom, of choice, of a system that works for everyone, is a lie. They’ve taken the very essence of humanity—the belief in equality, in dignity, in fairness—and turned it into a transaction. They made sure that your value, your existence, is only worth what you can give them. And that’s the trap. That’s how they keep you in line. They’ve divided us all, convinced us that if we just worked harder, just followed the rules, just kept our heads down and played the game, we’d make it. And when we didn’t? They blamed us. They told us to do more, be better. But they’ve been playing us from the start.
They’ve stolen your future, your peace, your chance at something better—and they’ve made you pay for it every single day. They’ve made you so scared, so anxious, so consumed by the cost of living, that you never see the truth. That the system isn’t broken. It was designed this way. And they know it. They know it all along.
This is how they maintain control. This is how they stay on top. By making sure that the rich stay rich, the poor stay poor, and the rest of us keep clawing at each other for scraps. They’ve made us hate each other. Made us see each other as competition. Made us feel like it’s our fault if we’re left behind. They’ve divided us so thoroughly that we can’t even see we’re all in the same fight.
The fight isn’t against each other. The fight is against the system. The fight is against the powerful few who have sold us this lie that everything is about individual success, that your worth is yours to earn, to buy, to prove. But you were never meant to win. You were never meant to escape. You were meant to stay in the cycle, to keep paying. They want you to believe in the dream of freedom while they keep raising the cost.
It’s time to wake up. It’s time to stop believing the lie. We are all in this together, and the true enemy is the system that has made us believe we have to fight each other for scraps. The truth is—this isn't just about money. It’s about our lives, our dignity, our humanity. The price they’ve placed on our existence is too high. And it’s time to tear down the walls they’ve built between us. It’s time to take back what’s ours, to see that we are not just pieces in their game, but human beings who deserve more than this.
If we want real change, real freedom, we need to fight together, not against each other. We need to stop paying the price they’ve set, stop being the pawns in a game that was never ours to win. The cost of being human shouldn’t be this high.
But until we all see it, until we all realize how deeply this system has been twisted, we’ll just keep paying. We’ll keep paying for their luxury. For their power. And we’ll never know what it means to truly live.
- Oizys.
Silence is expensive too. The right to stay silent. The right to not be spoken over. The right to ignore emails, ignore calls, ignore the whole world for a little while. Unplugging. Logging off. Deleting your account. Walking away without explaining yourself.
Privacy? Luxury item. They make you pay to hide, pay to disappear. VPNs, secure phones, off-the-grid cabins. The people who say “if you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to fear” have never had anything worth taking.
Faith is money. Not just church donations or temple fees. Not just the cost of halal meat or kosher kitchens. The price of belonging. The price of being seen as good, moral, righteous. The price of believing in something bigger than yourself without being used, without being exploited.
Doubt? Also money. Therapy again. Self-help books. Meditation retreats. Yoga classes where peace of mind is bundled with a hundred-dollar membership fee. Doubt is a hole in your wallet that someone is always ready to fill.
And art. God, art. You’re supposed to make it for love, not money. But supplies cost money. Training costs money. Time costs money, and nobody wants to pay for it. They want passion, but not the cost of passion. They want a masterpiece, but not the hours that made it. They want you to be grateful that they even looked at your work.
Freedom, of course, is the most expensive thing of all. The ability to walk away. To quit a job, to leave a bad relationship, to refuse, to say no. Freedom isn’t free, but not in the way they tell you. It’s an auction, and only the highest bidders get to leave with their dignity intact.
Everything is money. Everything costs money. Even the things you thought you already owned. Even the things they swore were priceless.
Your time, your energy, your peace of mind — these things aren’t just commodities; they’re investments. And it’s hard to see where you’ll get returns when the interest keeps compounding, the bills keep coming, and you’re still paying off yesterday's debts.
You pay for your success with sleepless nights. You pay for your mistakes with regret. You pay for your dreams with sacrifice. You pay for your sanity with distractions. You pay for your stability with compromise.
And they say it's all worth it. They say if you work hard enough, if you keep pushing, if you don’t give up, you’ll get there. But “there” is always just a little farther, a little higher, a little more out of reach. And they keep raising the price of admission, even as they tell you it’s a privilege to try.
But in the end, all you can do is keep paying. Keep paying for your place in the world. Keep paying for your right to exist without apology. Keep paying for the freedom to choose your path, even when the path itself is sold to you like a luxury item.
Because that’s what it comes down to, doesn’t it? The cost of existing. The cost of being seen. The cost of being heard. The cost of being free. Everything is money. Even the air you breathe. Even the love you give. Even the dreams you chase.
But here's the thing: we’re conditioned to believe that the cost is inevitable, that it’s simply the price of living in a world built on scarcity. But what if that’s not true? What if the price is just a construct—a system designed to make us feel like we’re always running out of time, out of options, out of resources?
What if the real cost is the illusion itself? The way we chase after what we think we need to be worthy, to be seen, to be successful. We sell ourselves the idea that without the right amount of money, the right career, the right relationships, we’re incomplete. We’re told that if we just have more, we’ll have it all.
But what happens when we start to realize that “more” isn’t the answer? That in the pursuit of accumulation, we’ve lost sight of the things that don’t come with a price tag? The moments of stillness, the conversations that don’t need to be quantified, the simple act of existing without performing, without justifying our worth.
What if the real freedom is not in escaping the system, but in understanding that we are enough, right here, right now, without needing to earn it, buy it, or prove it?
Sure, you can’t escape the bills. You can’t pretend that the world doesn’t value you based on what you can offer—whether it’s time, skills, or attention. But maybe you can find a way to stop letting it dictate your worth. Maybe the true revolution is in rejecting the idea that the price of your life is anything but your own to define.
Maybe we can all stop running in this endless race for more, for more, for more. Maybe it’s time to ask ourselves: What’s the cost of not living fully right now? What’s the cost of waiting for some perfect, idealized future where we finally “have it all”?
Because in chasing after the illusion of what we need, we lose the things that are truly priceless—time spent with people who care about us, the quiet moments where we remember who we are when the world isn’t demanding something from us, the joy of creation that’s not tainted by the question of how much it’s worth.
And yet, we still have to pay. Because that’s the world we live in. But maybe, just maybe, we don’t have to pay with our souls, our joy, our peace.
Maybe the cost is not as steep as they make us believe. And when it’s all said and done, what do you have left? A receipt. A reminder of everything you’ve paid for, everything you’ve lost, and everything you’ve gained. But most of all, you’ll have the knowledge that nothing is truly yours unless you’ve fought for it, paid for it, earned it.
And still, you’ll wonder: Was it worth it?
But even when you try to walk away from it all—when you think you’ve managed to find some balance, some space for yourself—it follows you. The bill collectors. The demands. The expectations. You can never quite escape the feeling that every moment of your life has a price tag. Even the time you try to spend doing nothing, the time you try to claim as yours, is measured in some way. Is this rest worth it? Is it okay to take a break, or is that just another sign of weakness in a world that tells you to hustle?
Even when you close your eyes and try to shut it all out, you can’t ignore the cost of everything you've accumulated, the price of all the things you've tried to hold onto. The house, the car, the clothes, the gadgets. Things that are supposed to make life easier, but somehow only seem to add to the weight. You have to maintain them. You have to care for them. You have to keep paying for them long after they’ve stopped giving you joy.
And then there’s the cost of your own existence—the things you can't even put into words. The quiet sacrifices you make every day. The moments you hold in your chest but can’t share with anyone, because sharing means paying the price of vulnerability. Being understood. Being seen. How much is that worth? Is it worth the effort of trying to explain yourself, over and over, only to be misunderstood or ignored?
You give pieces of yourself away just to keep up, just to keep from falling behind. You trade your comfort for a fleeting sense of success, your peace for the illusion of stability. And still, it’s never enough. There’s always more to pay, more to prove. More.
Even your thoughts cost you. You can’t think for free anymore. Your ideas are currency, and whether you like it or not, someone is ready to capitalize on them. Every tweet, every opinion, every photo posted online—these are commodities, and the minute you share them, you’re putting a price on your existence. The price of your attention, the price of your time, the price of your identity.
And then they tell you to “be yourself,” to embrace your uniqueness, but only if you package it in a way that makes it marketable. Only if it’s polished, palatable, profitable. Being authentic isn’t free. It’s just another way of selling something you thought was yours. Even your individuality is a product to be sold, bought, and consumed.
And in the midst of it all, the question that lingers: Is this it? Is this the price we pay just to exist? To survive? To navigate a world that constantly demands, that constantly extracts from us, until we’re nothing but a collection of bills, obligations, and obligations to others’ expectations?
You look around, and it’s all the same—everyone’s caught in the grind, pushing forward, trying to make ends meet. Trying to make sense of it all. But nothing changes. The system is designed to make sure you never feel like you’ve “paid enough.” There’s always something more to owe. Always something more to give.
And yet, we keep paying. Every day. Every hour. Every minute.
Because that’s the price of being—of surviving. Of playing the game, even when the rules are rigged.
And then, you start to see it—how the system is built around this relentless cost. How it’s not just your life being monetized, but your very existence is tied to a cycle of extraction. The politicians who tell you they’re fighting for you, the ones who promise to lower taxes, to “fix” healthcare, to make things easier—they never mention that the price tag is still there, hanging above your head. Always hovering, always rising. They make it look like a choice, like you’re in control, like you can somehow navigate this labyrinth without losing more than you already have. But it’s all smoke and mirrors. They’re selling you the illusion of agency, while your choices are already being made for you.
And don’t even get me started on the ones who say, “If you work hard enough, you can make it.” It’s the same tired mantra, the same lie wrapped in a bow. Work hard, they say. But what they don’t tell you is that not everyone’s working with the same set of resources. Not everyone has the same starting point, the same access, the same safety net. The playing field was never level to begin with. The rich get tax breaks, loopholes, subsidies. The poor get fees, fines, debt. And in between? Well, you get more work. More hours. More stress. The cost of staying afloat is still rising, and they’re still telling you to just try harder.
The market decides everything. The job market, the healthcare market, the housing market. Your worth is tied to your job title, your salary, your credit score. And they’ll tell you that’s your fault if it doesn’t measure up. That’s your failure to navigate the system, your failure to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Meanwhile, the ones at the top, the ones who play the game with their rules, they never feel the pinch. They live in the gated communities, the ones where the air is a little cleaner, the schools are a little better, the hospitals are a little closer, and the jobs come with benefits.
But you? You get stuck in the grind. Your taxes go up, your wages stay stagnant, and the world keeps asking more of you—more hours, more patience, more flexibility, more everything. They keep demanding you keep up, all while telling you that if you just did more—if you just found the right hustle, the right side gig, the right investment—you’ll make it. But it’s all rigged. The system is designed to leave you running in circles, all while the ones who make the rules keep getting richer. The cost of your labor, your time, your energy—it’s never truly yours. It’s just another cog in their machine, a machine built to extract, to profit, to grow.
And let’s not even talk about policies. Politicians who pretend to care about “the people” but are only looking for the right corporate sponsor, the right donation, the right endorsement. They pass laws that sound nice—“healthcare for all,” “living wages,” “social security reform”—but the fine print is always there, hidden behind the promises. The truth is, those laws aren’t designed to help you. They’re designed to keep the wheel spinning, to maintain the status quo. Because change would mean a hit to their profits, to their bottom line. And no one gets rich off of changing the system that keeps them rich.
Look at the environment. Look at the cities crumbling, the air thickening, the oceans rising. And still, the rich fly private jets, drill oil, buy beachfront property. It’s not their world that’s burning. It’s yours. Your children’s. Your neighbors'. And they’ll tell you it’s all your responsibility to fix it. Buy the electric car. Cut your emissions. Live sustainably. But when you ask the ones who have the power to change anything, they’ll tell you the problem is too big. It’s too complicated. We’re too late. So you’re left trying to save the world one small decision at a time, while they continue to profit off the destruction of it.
Everything is money. And the cost of living in this system isn’t just high—it’s deliberately designed to make sure you never have enough. It’s designed to keep you always paying, always striving, always struggling, while the people who write the rules keep getting richer. They’ve perfected the art of making you feel like you’re the problem. That if you’d just work harder, play smarter, save better, you could fix it. But that’s the illusion. The truth is, the system is stacked against you. It was never designed to help you win. It was designed to keep you paying—until you’re just too exhausted to fight back.
And so you keep going. You keep paying for your right to exist, for your right to live without the constant weight of debt, the constant grind of survival. But the truth is, it’s all a game. A game where you’re the pawn, and the rich, the powerful—they keep shifting the board, making sure you never have a chance to win.
And they’ll keep telling you that everything is possible, if you just try harder. Because that’s how they keep the system running. Keep you just close enough to the edge, to make you think there’s a way out, but never quite letting you go.
Everything is money. Everything costs money. You can try to ignore it, you can try to escape it, but it never lets you go. It wraps around every part of you, twisting tighter and tighter, until you’re not sure where you end and the system begins. And you start to realize—this isn’t just about the bills, the loans, the debts. It’s about everything. Your time, your energy, your labor, your thoughts, your dreams. All of it is priced out, listed on a ledger somewhere. Your worth is on that ledger. Your very existence is quantified, commodified, traded.
You’re told that money isn’t everything, that you’re more than your paycheck, more than your job, your possessions, your image. But you’re also told, over and over again, that you’re nothing without it. That without the right house, the right clothes, the right relationships, the right career, you’re invisible. You don’t matter. You’re not worth anything unless someone is willing to pay.
And so, you keep paying. Every hour you work, every decision you make, every move you take, you’re paying. You’re paying to survive. You’re paying to exist. You’re paying for your worth, your safety, your future, and your peace of mind. And all the while, the ones who hold the power, the ones who write the laws, the ones who build the systems—they’re getting richer, their lives getting easier, while you run on a treadmill, always striving, always chasing, always paying.
And still, you keep going. Because what else can you do? You’re stuck in a game you didn’t choose, a game where the rules are made by those who have the resources to shape them, and you’re left trying to survive the cost of just being here. And even when you fight back, when you try to tear down the walls, when you shout that this isn’t right—that it’s not fair, that it shouldn’t be like this—they just raise the price of everything. They make the cost of living, of surviving, even higher. They tell you to work harder, to hustle more, to save better, to do more, to be more, and somehow, none of it is ever enough.
You try to make it, you try to get ahead, you try to carve out a space where you can breathe without the constant weight of the world crushing down on you. But the truth is—there’s no such thing as enough. There’s no such thing as getting out. Not really. Because they control the game. They control the rules. And they’ve already decided how much you’re worth.
Even your dreams? They’re priced out. The things you’ve told yourself will make it all worth it—the vacations, the hobbies, the relationships, the adventures—they cost more than you have. They cost more than you can afford. And the more you dream, the more it feels like they’re pulling the rug out from under you, telling you, No, you can’t have this. You don’t deserve this. You see it in the people who have everything and still want more, and you see it in the people who have nothing, still giving everything.
Because at the end of the day, you’re not allowed to escape. You’re not allowed to step off this treadmill, not allowed to take a break, not allowed to breathe without paying for it. You can’t stop running, you can’t stop hustling, you can’t even stop wishing. Because if you do—if you stop—then you’ll see the truth. You’ll see the cost that’s been hidden all along. The cost of your worth. The cost of your time. The cost of your humanity.
And when you finally see it, when the weight of it all crushes down on you and you realize that you’ve spent your whole life paying for things you’ll never own, for a world that never really wanted you in the first place, you’re left with nothing. No way out. No way to undo the damage. No way to change the rules, because they’re already set. The game is rigged, and you’ve been playing it all your life.
And so you wonder—was it worth it? Was it ever worth it? Or was the cost of living, of surviving, of existing, just too high all along? And when everything you thought you owned, everything you thought you were, is stripped away—what’s left? Just a receipt. A long, painful list of everything you’ve paid for, and everything you never got.
The truth is, they knew it all along. The cost of it all was never meant to be paid. It was meant to break you.
And in that moment, when you realize the truth—that all along, you were just a pawn in someone else’s game, that the price you’ve been paying was never meant to be paid back—you feel it. The weight of it hits you, and it’s not just the crushing burden of the world. It’s the suffocating, bitter taste of betrayal. The knowledge that you were never meant to win. You weren’t even meant to survive without breaking.
You wonder how they managed to do it, how they made you believe you had a choice, how they tricked you into thinking that maybe, just maybe, if you kept paying—kept hustling, kept sacrificing, kept proving your worth—that you might finally get to breathe. But the cruel twist of it all is that you’ve already given everything you could. And you still aren’t enough. It was never about what you did or didn’t do. It was always about making you believe that if you just gave a little more, you’d get something in return. But now you know. There’s no “reward” at the end of this. There’s just more work, more sacrifice, more endless bills, more debt, more nothing.
And now, even the very idea of escape is out of reach. They’ve made sure of that. The cost of freedom? It’s always just a little too high. The cost of silence? Too steep. The cost of rest? Just one more thing that only the privileged can afford. You thought you could step away, find a space to breathe, to just exist without the suffocating weight of them breathing down your neck. But they made sure that no matter how far you run, the price is still there. And now, it’s not just the system that’s against you—it’s the deep, bitter realization that they always had the upper hand. That you were never meant to win this fight. Not really. Not in any meaningful way.
So you’re left here, at the edge, looking down at the wreckage of everything you thought you could build. Looking at the pieces of your life scattered in the wake of a system that took everything, and then laughed when you thought you’d won just a little bit of it back. And the worst part? You can’t even be angry. Because they’ve already turned your anger into another commodity. They’ve made sure that even your rage is for sale, is something to be bought and sold. And in the end, it’s not even about winning or losing anymore. It’s about surviving long enough to keep paying the price, to keep pretending that maybe you’ll get a moment to rest. A moment to breathe.
But you won’t. Because the cost of that is too high. It always was.
And when you look back at the years you spent paying, sacrificing, hustling, you realize—you didn’t even know what you were paying for. It wasn’t just your time. It wasn’t just your energy. It was your very soul.
And as you stand there, staring at the wreckage of everything you've given, it hits you: they never intended for you to win. They never wanted you to succeed, never wanted you to breathe easy. The game was never meant for you to play. It was never even yours. You were never meant to have anything. You were meant to work, to suffer, to bleed—while they sit back, counting the spoils of your misery.
And the sickening part? You knew this all along, somewhere deep inside. You knew it was a scam, that it was rigged, that every “opportunity” they handed you was just a leash with a little more slack. They gave you just enough hope to make you keep running, to make you think there was a way out, a way to escape the grind. But there was no escape. There never was.
You spent your whole life paying—paying for your worth, paying for your freedom, paying for your peace of mind—and now you look at the wreckage of everything you thought you could be, and you realize the brutal truth: it was never yours to keep. It was all a transaction. Your labor, your time, your life—every inch of it was priced out, parceled off, and sold before you even had a chance to see it for what it was. They took it all, and when you reached for the crumbs, they raised the price again. They kept raising it until you had nothing left to give.
And that’s the ultimate betrayal, isn’t it? That you spent all this time thinking you had something. Thinking that if you worked hard enough, if you did everything right, you’d finally have the right to exist without paying for it. But in the end, all you were ever doing was contributing to the pile. The pile they kept growing, while they whispered sweet lies about “opportunity” and “progress.” And now, you’re left with nothing but the shrapnel of a life that was never really yours to begin with.
The truth is, they knew all along. They knew they could break you. They knew they could squeeze every drop of hope, of energy, of spirit out of you, and you’d still keep coming back for more. Because that’s how it works. They make you believe you can escape. They make you believe there’s a way out. But every step you take forward is just another one closer to the edge of the cliff. And now you’re falling. You’ve been falling.
And when you hit the ground, you’ll realize—there was no cushion waiting for you. No soft landing. Just the cold, hard truth: the cost of your existence was always too high.
And in the end, you didn’t even own yourself.
You never did.
And the worst part? The truly sickening part, is that they don’t just do it to you. They do it to all of us. They’ve built this system of greed, of endless cost, on the backs of every single person who’s ever struggled to make it. They don’t care about your worth. They don’t care about your soul. They care about one thing: keeping the wheel turning. They care about making sure that you—and everyone else—are always paying. Always working. Always sacrificing for their profit.
It’s not just the rich getting richer. It’s the powerful pulling the strings from behind the curtain, making sure you and your neighbors stay divided, stay distracted, stay distraught. They sell you the lie that you’re the problem. That your time, your choices, your failures are your fault. That if you just worked harder, saved smarter, were better somehow, you could escape the trap they built just for you. And when that doesn’t work? When you break under the weight? They call it your failure, your personal responsibility. They call you weak, lazy, entitled. But they never tell you the truth. They never tell you how this whole thing was built on your exploitation. On your sweat, your labor, your fear, your blood.
They never tell you that the whole world is rigged for their benefit—and they’ve been telling you it’s just your fault for not getting ahead long enough that you start to believe it. They’ve been conditioning you to think that this is the way it’s supposed to be. That it’s normal. That your suffering, your struggle is just part of life. They’ve manipulated your very sense of self, made you feel that the pain you carry is yours to bear. But it’s not.
This isn’t life. This is modern-day slavery. The illusion of freedom, of choice, of a system that works for everyone, is a lie. They’ve taken the very essence of humanity—the belief in equality, in dignity, in fairness—and turned it into a transaction. They made sure that your value, your existence, is only worth what you can give them. And that’s the trap. That’s how they keep you in line. They’ve divided us all, convinced us that if we just worked harder, just followed the rules, just kept our heads down and played the game, we’d make it. And when we didn’t? They blamed us. They told us to do more, be better. But they’ve been playing us from the start.
They’ve stolen your future, your peace, your chance at something better—and they’ve made you pay for it every single day. They’ve made you so scared, so anxious, so consumed by the cost of living, that you never see the truth. That the system isn’t broken. It was designed this way. And they know it. They know it all along.
This is how they maintain control. This is how they stay on top. By making sure that the rich stay rich, the poor stay poor, and the rest of us keep clawing at each other for scraps. They’ve made us hate each other. Made us see each other as competition. Made us feel like it’s our fault if we’re left behind. They’ve divided us so thoroughly that we can’t even see we’re all in the same fight.
The fight isn’t against each other. The fight is against the system. The fight is against the powerful few who have sold us this lie that everything is about individual success, that your worth is yours to earn, to buy, to prove. But you were never meant to win. You were never meant to escape. You were meant to stay in the cycle, to keep paying. They want you to believe in the dream of freedom while they keep raising the cost.
It’s time to wake up. It’s time to stop believing the lie. We are all in this together, and the true enemy is the system that has made us believe we have to fight each other for scraps. The truth is—this isn't just about money. It’s about our lives, our dignity, our humanity. The price they’ve placed on our existence is too high. And it’s time to tear down the walls they’ve built between us. It’s time to take back what’s ours, to see that we are not just pieces in their game, but human beings who deserve more than this.
If we want real change, real freedom, we need to fight together, not against each other. We need to stop paying the price they’ve set, stop being the pawns in a game that was never ours to win. The cost of being human shouldn’t be this high.
But until we all see it, until we all realize how deeply this system has been twisted, we’ll just keep paying. We’ll keep paying for their luxury. For their power. And we’ll never know what it means to truly live.
- Oizys.
