Author: Jeffrey McMahon

FOMO in the Garden of Eden

Surely, God understands human psychology better than we do. So when He decreed to Adam and Eve that they could indulge in every luscious, dripping fruit in the Garden except for one—the forbidden, gleaming red apple—He must have known exactly what He was doing.

Let’s be honest: this was textbook reverse psychology.

If you tell a human—especially a child—that they can have anything they want except for one thing, their entire brain will now orbit around that one thing. They won’t just want it; they will ache for it. The denial itself transforms it from an ordinary apple into an object of unbearable, cosmic significance.

And yet, we’re supposed to believe that it was the serpent who tempted Adam and Eve? Please.

The real agent of temptation wasn’t some fork-tongued reptile whispering sweet nothings about omniscience—it was the restriction itself. God set the stage for FOMO, lit the match, and then acted surprised when the fire caught.

By banning the apple, He turned it into the first status symbol in human history. Before that, it was just another piece of produce. Now, it was the One Fruit to Rule Them All. The ultimate off-limits delicacy, the Birkin bag of Eden, a thing so exclusive, so unattainable, that they couldn’t stop obsessing over it.

So what does that say about God?

It suggests that the God of Genesis is the original architect of FOMO—implanting the desire, priming the temptation, and then punishing humanity for falling into the very trap He designed.

Divine irony at its finest.

March 19, 2025
The First Cut is the Deepest: A Childhood Steeped in FOMO

FOMO is never stronger than in childhood, when imagination stretches farther than reality can reach and the world feels just beyond our grasp. To a child, magic is real, enchantment is tangible, and some hidden paradise always seems just out of reach—close enough to see, impossible to touch. And nothing stings quite like realizing that somewhere, right now, a better world exists, and you are not in it.

I learned this lesson in the summer of 1968 in San Jose, California, while riding bikes with my neighbor, Billy Cantambay. We were two six-year-olds, circling Venado Court as a fine mist of summer rain fell around us, making the streetlights glow and the air smell like wet pavement and possibility.

Then we saw it:

A single blue light flickering in the distance, hovering above the unfinished housing developments at the edge of the neighborhood. It twinkled through the fog like a Christmas bulb detached from time, a spectral glow that neither of us could explain.

“Christmas lights!” one of us shouted.

“Christmas lights!” the other echoed.

But why was Christmas happening over there and not here? Whose house was that? What kind of people lived beneath that glow? In my mind, I pictured a lone man inside—not lonely, just content—waking up to Christmas every day.

For a week, Billy and I worshipped the light, riding our bikes in endless circles, pointing, speculating, longing. Then one evening, it was gone. No explanation. No goodbye. Just a vanishing act, leaving behind nothing but an ache—an inexplicable sadness, as if we had been denied entry into something greater than ourselves.

Four years later, another dream slipped through my fingers, and this time, I cried about it.

My fifth-grade friend Marc Warren had invited me to Piper’s Smorgasbord in San Leandro, California—a kingdom of pizza, fried chicken, and blueberry pie, where gluttony was not just encouraged but a sacred ritual. By the time we left, we were bloated with triumph.

Driving home, still drunk on sugar and grease, we talked about our flying dreams.

Not figurative flying—not ambition, not success—actual flying. The kind where you jump off a cliff and just go, gliding over the ocean, effortless, weightless, free.

The dreams were so vivid—we could remember the wind in our faces, the rush of air under our arms, the certainty that we would never fall.

And then, reality crashed down.

We weren’t flying. We would never fly.

The grief was immediate, existential, crushing.

Two fifth-graders, staring out the car window, weeping over the cosmic injustice of gravity.

That’s the cruelty of FOMO—it isn’t just about missing an event. It’s about missing a world, a place so real inside your imagination that its absence hurts like a phantom limb.

Every culture has its own version of this unreachable paradise—a place forever close but forever out of reach.

For me, it was Bali Ha’i.

The song, sung so hauntingly by Juanita Hall in South Pacific, tells of an island just across the water—visible, tantalizing, but never quite attainable.

I first heard it as a toddler in the Flavet Villages—a cluster of old military barracks repurposed as student housing in Gainesville, Florida, where my family lived near an alligator swamp and a stretch of forest.

Most people would have found the place bleak. I found it enchanted.

At dusk, my father and I would walk to the edge of the forest to visit a Mynah bird, which perched on the same branch every evening, watching us with an intelligence I couldn’t explain.

The swamp smelled of alligator dung, a rank, pungent stench that somehow filled me with a sense of cosmic belonging.

One night, as we stood beneath the Mynah bird, a distant radio played “Bali Ha’i.”

The melody wove itself into the moment, perfectly harmonizing with the humid night air, the bird’s quiet watchfulness, and the unseen creatures shifting in the darkness.

For the first time, I understood the ache of paradise lost.

In 1965, another world out of reach found me.

Her name was Barbara Eden.

She lived inside a genie bottle—a glowing jewel of a home, lined with pink and purple satin, circular sofas, and mother-of-pearl inlays.

To five-year-old me, this was the peak of human civilization.

I didn’t just want to watch I Dream of Jeannie. I wanted to live inside that bottle.

I imagined myself curled up on the velvet cushions, bathed in the warm glow of genie magic, whispering secrets with Jeannie as the outside world became irrelevant.

When it hit me—really hit me—that I would never live in that bottle, that the closest I’d ever get was a TV screen and my own relentless imagination, I felt crushed in a way I had no words for.

Even crueler?

That gorgeous genie home was just a painted Jim Beam whiskey decanter.

That’s what FOMO really is: intoxication by illusion.

And long before Instagram, long before airbrushed vacations and curated feeds, I was already intimately familiar with its sting.

March 19, 2025
FOMO: A Condition as Old as Childhood Tantrums

Much has been made of FOMO—Fear of Missing Out—in the social media age, where we subject ourselves to an endless scroll of curated perfection, exotic vacations, and influencer brunches that remind us, yet again, that our lives are decidedly less fabulous. We are told, repeatedly, that comparison is the mother of misery, and we learn this lesson the hard way every time we doomscroll our way into existential despair.

The connection between FOMO and social media is so well-documented that many assume it’s a modern affliction, a byproduct of algorithms and influencer culture. But this is nonsense. FOMO is primal. FOMO is childhood itself.

It’s the feverish, anxiety-ridden anticipation that every child feels when something exciting is on the horizon—an internal combustion engine of eagerness, panic, and irrational urgency.

I got my first brutal taste of FOMO-induced devastation in 1967, when my parents took me to Disneyland on Free Hat Day. In my young mind, this wasn’t just an outing—it was destiny. But instead of racing out the door at dawn, my parents had the audacity to languish over bacon and eggs while I vibrated with dread. By the time we arrived, the Mickey Mouse hats were long gone—claimed by early-rising, better-prepared children whose parents actually understood the stakes of childhood desire.

And what did I get?

A Donald Duck cap. A second-place trophy in the hierarchy of Disney headwear. It was my first true heartbreak, a cruel reminder that hesitation and breakfast foods could cost you everything.

The beach was another FOMO battleground.

As our car inched closer to the ocean, I could smell the saltwater, hear the cacophony of seagulls, and catch a tantalizing sliver of the horizon—and with each sensory cue, my stomach flipped with impatience.

To my young mind, we weren’t just going to the beach—we were competing for a piece of it, and if my parents didn’t park immediately, we would lose our rightful claim to the best stretch of sand. I imagined other families staking their umbrellas, digging their trenches, laying territorial claim while we circled endlessly in a parking lot purgatory.

Of course, there was always plenty of beach, and we always found a spot, but that’s the nature of FOMO—it turns everything into a high-stakes competition in which the difference between bliss and utter catastrophe comes down to how fast you can get there.

FOMO isn’t new. It’s the original childhood affliction, the gnawing anxiety that life’s best moments are happening somewhere else—and you’re missing them because your parents won’t hurry the hell up.

March 19, 2025
Magical Thinking #7: The Laws of Time Don’t Apply to Me
(or, The Fool’s Gamble Against Father Time)

There’s a special kind of delusion that whispers in our ears: You’re different. You’re special. The rules don’t apply to you. Other people? Sure, they age, they lose opportunities, they watch time slip through their fingers. But you—you will defy time. You will live in a perpetual Now, a beautiful, untouchable bubble where youth, dreams, and endless possibility never fade.

Phil Stutz has a name for the figure who shatters this illusion: Father Time—that grizzled old man with the hourglass, reminding us that our only real power lies in discipline, structure, and engagement with reality. Ignore him at your peril, because his wrath is merciless. Just ask Dexter Green, the tragic dreamer of Winter Dreams, who spends his life avoiding reality, chasing pleasure, and worshiping an illusion named Judy Jones.

Dexter believes he can live outside the real world, feeding off the fantasy of Judy rather than engaging with anything substantial. And for a while, this works. But Father Time is patient, and when Dexter finally wakes up, it’s too late.

Time Will Have Its Revenge

At thirty-two, long past his days of chasing the unattainable Judy, Dexter sits in a business meeting with a man named Devlin—a conversation that will destroy his last illusions.

Devlin delivers the blow: Judy is married now. Her name is Judy Simms, and her once dazzling, untouchable existence has collapsed into something horrifyingly mundane. Her husband is a drunk, an abuser, a tyrant. She is trapped in a miserable marriage to a man who beats her, then gets forgiven every time.

The once invincible, radiant Judy Jones, breaker of hearts, goddess of his dreams, is now an exhausted, aging housewife living under the rule of a man who treats her like dirt.

And just like that, Dexter’s winter dream crumbles into dust.

The Ultimate Betrayal: Time Wins, Beauty Fades, Illusions Die

The final insult comes when Devlin, with casual indifference, describes Judy as not all that special anymore—her once-mesmerizing beauty faded, her magic gone.

“She was a pretty girl when she first came to Detroit,” he says, as if commenting on an old piece of furniture.

For Dexter, this is not just a shock—it is the ultimate existential gut-punch.

For two decades, he has nourished his soul on the fantasy of Judy Jones, believing that she was something otherworldly, untouchable, worth sacrificing real life for. Now, in a single afternoon, he learns she was never a goddess, never unique, never even particularly remarkable.

Imagine having a high school crush, the Homecoming Queen, frozen in your memory as perfection itself. Then one day, you look her up on Facebook and she looks like Meat Loaf. That’s Dexter’s moment of reckoning.

His fantasy was never real. His youth is gone. His life has been wasted chasing an illusion. And now, standing in the wreckage, he feels the full force of Father Time’s judgment.

The “Butt on a Stick” Moment

In America, we have a phrase for the soul-crushing moment when reality smacks you so hard you can’t even breathe:

“Your butt has been handed to you on a stick.”

Dexter’s life has collapsed in on itself, and his first instinct is the same as anyone caught in the throes of devastation: This shouldn’t be happening to me.

But as Phil Stutz warns, that thought is pure insanity.

It is happening. It already happened. The more you protest, the more stuck you become. Stutz calls this victim mentality, the psychological quicksand that keeps people from ever moving forward. Dexter has two choices:
1. Wallow in his misery, trapped in the wreckage of his illusions.
2. Learn from his suffering and use it as a tool for transformation.
Breaking Free from the Winter Dream

And here’s where things get interesting: now that Dexter’s fantasy has been obliterated, he is free.

Yes, the truth is bitter. Yes, he wasted years chasing a ghost. But he is no longer chained to the illusion. The question now is: What does he do with that freedom?

Does he just find another “winter dream” to chase, another illusion to waste his life on? Or does he finally grow up and engage with reality?

What Would Phil Stutz Tell Dexter?

Stutz, co-author of The Tools, has a philosophy: Pain is a tool, not a punishment.

Most people, like Dexter, already know their problems. They just don’t know how to stop repeating them.
- Dexter knows he was obsessed with Judy Jones.
- Watch collectors know they keep rebuying the same watches they swore they’d never buy again.
- Food addicts know they shouldn’t be devouring that entire pizza at 11 p.m.
But knowing isn’t enough. You need tools to fight your worst instincts.

The Tools: How to Stop Wasting Your Life

Stutz realized that traditional therapy was useless—all it did was force people to dig deeper into their childhood wounds without ever giving them real solutions.

So he created The Tools—specific actions that force people to break free from their psychological traps.

Stutz doesn’t waste time on introspection without action. He knows that change happens when you move, engage, and disrupt your patterns.
- Stop trying to “think” your way out of your misery. Take action.
- Stop believing your problems are unique. They aren’t.
- Stop assuming time will wait for you. It won’t.
Part X: The Enemy Inside Your Head

The biggest enemy to change is what Stutz calls Part X—the part of you that wants to stay stuck, wants to keep wallowing in old habits, wants to keep clinging to comforting fantasies instead of engaging with reality.

And if you don’t fight Part X, you’ll waste your life exactly like Dexter did.

Final Lesson: Get Out of the Maze

If Dexter keeps fixating on his past, he will stay lost in the Maze—that endless loop of regret, nostalgia, and what-ifs that locks people in place while the world moves on without them.

If he accepts reality, uses his pain as a tool, and engages with life, then he has a chance at something real.

Because here’s the truth:

Father Time will take everything from you—except the lessons you learn and the actions you take.

Use them, or lose everything.
March 19, 2025
Magical Thinking #6: The Delusion of Spectacular Victimhood

(or, Why Some People Think Suffering Makes Them Superior)

Some people wear their victimhood like a crown, believing their suffering elevates them above mere mortals. In their minds, they aren’t just unlucky—they are too special for the ordinary rules of life to apply. While the rest of the world trudges along, accepting the brutal facts of existence (life is finite, love is messy, and rejection is part of the deal), they remain frozen in their own tragic grandeur, convinced their suffering makes them exceptional.

Enter Dexter Green, the self-pitying protagonist of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story, “Winter Dreams,” who refuses to move forward because his longing for Judy Jones is just too profound, too sacred, too cosmic. He isn’t just some guy—he is a tormented artist of heartbreak, a misunderstood genius of unfulfilled desire.

Of course, in reality, he’s just a narcissist trapped in a time warp of his own making. His delusion? That his suffering is so grand, his craving so exquisite, that he is somehow above the pedestrian business of healing and moving on.

Dexter isn’t merely sad—he is bitter, self-indulgent, and wholly consumed by his own perceived tragedy. He wallows in his loss, believing it sets him apart from the dull masses who go on to live their lives, find new love, and accept the passage of time.

And what exactly is the great, defining tragedy that makes Dexter a card-carrying member of the Victim Elite?

He will always love Judy Jones, yet he can never have her.

That’s it. That’s the whole catastrophe.

Not war, not famine, not betrayal—just the fact that the universe won’t bend to his will and deliver him a dream woman who never actually existed.

His suffering isn’t noble. It isn’t romantic. It’s a self-inflicted prison, built from narcissism and self-pity. And like all magical thinkers, Dexter is convinced he is too special to follow the laws that govern everyone else. He should be able to have what he wants. He should be able to break the rules of time, fate, and human nature.

But life doesn’t work that way. And no amount of self-mythologizing will change that.

March 19, 2025
Magical Thinking #5: The Delusional Art of Repeating the Same Disaster and Expecting a Miracle

If insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results, then we are all a little insane—especially when it comes to our worst habits, our most toxic relationships, and our dumbest obsessions.

Take the vampire relationship—a toxic, soul-sucking romance that drains you dry every time, yet you keep crawling back, convinced that this time it will be different. It never is. The fangs sink in, the life force drains out, and you’re left staring at the ceiling at 3 a.m., wondering how you let yourself get bit again.

And if love isn’t your particular poison, maybe watch collecting is.

Watch guys (myself included) have perfected a very specific brand of lunacy—thinking that selling a watch will cure our addiction. We convince ourselves: If I sell this, I’ll be free. This is the last one. I’m done. But before the ink on the eBay transaction dries, we’re rebuying it. And then reselling it. And then rebuying it again. It’s a closed-loop system of self-inflicted torment, a never-ending maze of false hope and regret.

Dude. You need help. Read Phil Stutz, escape the Maze, and put your life in Forward Motion before your retirement fund turns into a pile of resale receipts and buyer’s remorse.

If you think this brand of self-destruction through repetition is new, think again.

F. Scott Fitzgerald saw it decades ago in Winter Dreams, where Dexter Green is hopelessly addicted to the walking emotional Ponzi scheme that is Judy Jones. She is his drug, his illusion, his vampire. She is untrustworthy, indifferent, and incapable of meaning what she says, yet he keeps coming back for more.

Dexter isn’t just in love with Judy Jones—he’s in love with the idea of her, the fantasy that someday she’ll become what he wants her to be. She won’t. And as he wastes years orbiting her gravitational pull of destruction, real life passes him by. By the time he wakes up from the dream, it’s too late.

Sound familiar? It should.

Because whether it’s a vampire relationship, a doomed watch-buying cycle, or a delusional romance straight out of Fitzgerald’s nightmares, the result is always the same: life keeps moving forward while we stay stuck, trapped in our own bad decisions.

March 19, 2025
Magical Thinking #4: The Power Play Illusion

(or, Why Rolex is Schmolex and Your Favorite Song is Dead to You)

People like to believe that power equals happiness—that if they can flex on the world just right, contentment will follow. It won’t. But that doesn’t stop the endless parade of obnoxious power plays designed to manufacture status while delivering absolutely zero fulfillment.

If you want an easy lesson in the folly of power, read a children’s book. Yertle the Turtle by Dr. Seuss perfectly illustrates the doomed nature of power-lust. Yertle stacks himself on the backs of his fellow turtles, ruling over them like a tyrant—until, inevitably, the whole thing collapses and he ends up in the mud, humiliated. A perfect metaphor for the desperate, self-defeating nature of most power grabs.

Power Play #1: Making People Wait

One of the most tired power moves in the corporate playbook is the boss who makes his subordinates stand around like idiots while he does something “important.” Maybe he’s chomping on a sandwich, lazily swinging a golf club in his office, or pretending to be locked in a deep, world-changing phone call. The message is clear: I am in control. You exist on my schedule.

In reality, this is a power move straight from the middle manager’s guide to overcompensation—the business-world equivalent of a small dog barking furiously through a fence.

Power Play #2: Restaurant Tyrants

Some people have so little actual power in their lives that the only place they can lord over others is at a restaurant. Watch for the guy berating the waitstaff over a slightly overcooked steak or treating the hostess like she’s beneath him. This is not a powerful person—this is a loser grasping at the flimsiest form of authority available.

Power Play #3: Dating as a Status Grab

Some high school guys don’t date because they like a girl. They date because other guys like her, and taking her is a flex. She’s not a person to them—she’s a trophy, a territory to be claimed, a game to be won. This is not love, nor attraction—it’s status theater, and it’s as empty as it is pathetic.

Power Play #4: Buying Rolex for the Wrong Reasons

Which brings me to the ultimate power flex of consumer culture: Rolex.

I love Rolex. The Explorer II is a masterpiece. But would I buy one? No. Not even if money were no object. Because Rolex is no longer Rolex—it’s Schmolex.

The Transmutational Phenomenon: When Prestige Gets Laundered into Meaninglessness

Rolex suffers from what I call The Transmutational Phenomenon—a process where something once beautiful and meaningful is absorbed into the commercial bloodstream and spit back out as a status symbol for the masses.

Rolex, originally a marvel of craftsmanship, is now the go-to wrist flex for people who don’t actually care about watches. It has been worn by too many hedge-fund bros, crypto grifters, and status-hungry clout chasers who want the shiny aura of power but lack the appreciation for the artistry. After decades in the cosmic wash cycle of commercial culture, Rolex emerges from the machine unrecognizable to its former self. It’s no longer Rolex. It’s Schmolex.

How Commercial Culture Murders Meaning

This transmutational process happens all the time. Take music.

I once loved Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. Then, in my teenage years, Circuit City, a now-defunct stereo store chain in the Bay Area, blasted a snippet of it in every single radio and TV ad. Slowly, insidiously, the song transformed. It was no longer “Dark Side of the Moon.” It was “Flark Flide of the Gloom.” The song I once revered no longer existed.

This is what happened to Rolex. Maybe it’s not the brand’s fault, but the fact remains: Rolex isn’t Rolex anymore. It’s Schmolex.

The Lesson? Power is an Empty Currency

Whether it’s making people wait, bossing around waiters, dating for status, or flexing a Rolex for the Instagram likes, none of it leads to actual happiness.

Because power isn’t joy, and status isn’t meaning. If you need an overpriced watch, an expensive steak, or a fragile ego-boost to feel powerful, you’re not powerful at all.

March 19, 2025
Magical Thinking #3: If You Throw Enough Money at a Problem, It’ll Solve Itself

(or, The Fine Art of Buying Your Own Delusion)

There exists a special kind of self-deception in which people believe that spending money is the same as putting in effort. The logic is simple: if you’re financially invested, you must also be emotionally and physically committed—right? Wrong.

Take the personal trainers I know—college students making $80 an hour babysitting wealthy clients who stumble into the gym reeking of whiskey and bad decisions. These people don’t actually work out so much as they appear to be working out. They halfheartedly swing a kettlebell, grimace into a mirror, and assume their credit card transactions will magically convert to muscle mass. When their bodies remain flabby monuments to their bad habits, they’re baffled. But I paid for a trainer!

Then there are the yoga tourists—the ones who drop thousands of dollars on high-end mats, designer leggings, and a Himalayan singing bowl, yet still can’t touch their toes. Their bank accounts scream “devoted yogi,” but their flexibility suggests otherwise.

And let’s not forget the gym membership martyrs—the ones who proudly drop a cool hundred bucks a month on a premium fitness club, never show up, and yet still expect their abs to materialize via direct deposit.

Academia isn’t immune to this madness, either. Some students believe that spending two grand on textbooks will guarantee academic success, as if the mere presence of unread knowledge on their bookshelf will seep into their brains through osmosis. The books stay pristine, their spines uncracked, while their owners continue to bomb midterms.

This is the grand illusion of transactional self-improvement—the belief that writing the check is the same as doing the work. It’s not. No amount of money, gear, or overpriced green juice will ever replace the ugly, necessary grind of actually putting in effort.

March 19, 2025
Magical Thinking #2: If You Fantasize Hard Enough, Reality Will Magically Obey
(or, The Art of Procrastinating in Style)

One of the great lies we tell ourselves is that thinking about something long enough is basically the same as doing it. This is a core tenet of magical thinking—the belief that if you mentally marinate in a fantasy long enough, the sheer force of your yearning will bend the universe to your will.

It won’t.

Take, for example, the 10-year hostage situation between me and a pair of skinny jeans. For a full decade, those pants lurked in my closet, whispering false hope: One day, you’ll fit into us. Just wait. And so I did. I waited. I waited through countless failed diets, through the betrayal of metabolism, through years of magical thinking that the mere presence of those jeans in my home would, somehow, sculpt my body into compliance.

Eventually, I accepted the truth: those jeans weren’t a beacon of future success—they were a fabric monument to my delusion. I finally threw them away, but not before they had spent ten years mocking me from the hanger.

This same delusion infects all sorts of people in all sorts of ways.
- A man keeps a fisherman’s hat tucked away in a drawer, convinced that someday he’ll own a boat, sail through the Caribbean, and live off the sea. Never mind that he gets seasick on ferries and can’t tell port from starboard. The hat is proof of intent, and that’s enough—for now.
- A woman buys an aspirational vegan cookbook, proudly displaying it on her shelf. She has never gone a single day without cheese, but surely, just owning the book puts her on the path to righteousness.
- I strap a big, chunky superhero-esque watch to my wrist, as if its sheer presence will one day grant me the power to save myself. It won’t. It just makes my wrist hurt.
Magical thinking is the art of replacing action with aesthetics. It’s an elegant way to do nothing while convincing yourself you’re making progress. And it works—right up until the moment reality finally calls your bluff.
March 19, 2025
Magical Thinking #1: The Wealth Proximity Effect

(or, The Idiot’s Guide to Getting Rich by Osmosis)

The Delusions That Keep Us Broke: A Field Guide to Magical Thinking

Magical thinking is humanity’s favorite self-inflicted mind trick. We all do it. Why? Because it gives us the illusion of progress without requiring any real effort. It lets us believe we are inching closer to our dreams when, in reality, we are standing still, luxuriating in fantasy while time slithers past.

At its core, magical thinking is the belief that wanting something badly enough makes it true. Another term for this is wishcasting—a term as ridiculous as the behavior it describes. And wishcasting comes in many flavors, but let’s start with a classic:

Magical Thinking #1: The Wealth Proximity Effect

(or, The Idiot’s Guide to Getting Rich by Osmosis)

There exists a particularly intoxicating delusion that simply hanging out with rich people will, by some mysterious process, turn you into one of them. Like a low-budget fairytale, this belief holds that being in the presence of wealth allows its golden aura to absorb into your pores, triggering a financial metamorphosis.

According to this theory, the very air surrounding the wealthy is infused with prosperity particles. One need only breathe deeply in their presence, and voilà—greatness is imminent. Just be patient. Success is coming. Any day now.

This explains why some people strategically position themselves near wealth, convinced that proximity equals inevitability. They take jobs in luxury-adjacent fields—selling overpriced real estate, running high-end boutiques, caddying at exclusive golf courses—believing that if they orbit enough millionaires, one of them will eventually fling a golden opportunity their way.

It rarely happens.

Instead, they spend years rubbing elbows with the elite, never quite realizing they are the hired help in someone else’s fantasy. They stand in expensive rooms, shake hands with power brokers, sip cocktails at galas—and still leave every night in the same used Honda, wondering when their “big break” is coming. Spoiler alert: it’s not.

And then there are the hangers-on, the social parasites who aren’t rich, but know people who are, and assume this entitles them to special treatment. Ask any service worker who their most obnoxious customers are, and they won’t tell you actual celebrities. No, the worst offenders are friends of celebrities’ relatives, those barely-adjacent nobodies who wield their flimsy connection to fame like a scepter. They are not rich, nor famous—but, God help you, they believe they should be treated as if they were.

I know real estate agents and mortgage lenders who are constantly broke, yet radiate the delusional confidence of future billionaires simply because they play golf with rich people. They engage in high-energy wealth cosplay, convinced that their friendships with actual millionaires mean they are so close to striking it big.

They never do.

But that’s the power of magical thinking—it keeps them perpetually convinced that success is just around the corner, even as they sink deeper into the quicksand of reality.

March 19, 2025