Why "Make Money Online" Is the Work of the Devil

You can't copy someone else's destiny

“With all things, it is always what comes to us from outside, freely and by surprise as a gift from heaven, without our having sought it, that brings us pure joy.”

~ Simone Weil

Now for something slightly different: the sweet pull of the Make Money Online Crowd.

I admit it.

I have clicked on those links. Videos, online course offerings, “free” e-books... It is almost impossible to resist the visceral compulsion to become part of Team Passive Income.

But why?

I suggest it has to do with a powerful attractive force, and a powerful repulsive force.

And quite deliberately so. After all, that is what copywriting and marketing are all about: catering to people’s dreams, desires, and drives. Not to forget their worst fears, issues, and nightmares.

The repulsive force, then, is all the stress, unhappiness, and issues surrounding your life. The deadlines. The boss. That stupid colleague. That Ur-Angst of financial ruin. That jealousy of that other guy in his big house living the trouble-free life (or so you think).

The attracting force is the idea that you can live in eternal bliss.

You don't have to deal with people. You don't have to show up somewhere. You can slack and dress as you like. You have an endless supply of money. You can be “free”: free from life's lessons, that is. Free from the universe smacking you in the face to nudge you to do things differently, to think about things differently, to be different. That kind of freedom.

Alas, life doesn't work that way.

In German, we say: “Life doesn't give any presents.” Lovely, isn’t it? The slightly less brutal English version reads, “There is no free lunch.” I'm sure every culture that has ever existed on the face of the earth boasts a similar saying.

But they have it all wrong, of course.

You see, those oldsters who say such things just haven't read “The 4-Hour Workweek,” or taken the latest online course by the name of "Six Figure Income in 7 Weeks (Working Only 4 Hours/Week)". Or “Get Rich With Crypto And Be Smarter Than Those Peasants.”

Who needs ancient wisdom when we have the internet? Let's throw it all out. After all, we have become quite good at this. Humanity's eternal march towards the golden dawn of progress and all that.

Except, of course, there really is no free lunch.

Life is not about slacking, or getting rich, or not having to deal with people.

Life is about learning. And if the lessons you need to learn are compatible with earning your money online, then this is what you will do. If that kind of life stands in the way of those lessons, and would represent a shortcut to cheat yourself out of your most valuable realizations, then it will fail.

What does it represent for you? Why did you click on that link, on that video, on that course?

For me, I can safely say it is because I want to stop all the hardship life throws at me. All those mood swings, the clients, the daily challenges. I want to bail out. I want to shut out life, run away from what is actually in my power to do and always has been.

I click on such links for the same reason some people may drink or take drugs or whatever they do to escape to a fantasy world where all is rainbows and unicorns, and as far from real as it gets.

No, my friends, “making money online” is not the answer.

Here’s a little secret I figured out over many years of reading self-help books and guru literature, as well as a string of personal and professional projects, some of which brought some success, many of which didn’t: recipes for success don’t work. Not because they haven’t worked for those who offer them—they often did. But because it wasn’t the so-called recipe that brought the success.

When successful people tell their tales, they tend to re-invent their own success stories after the fact; they spin a narrative around it that makes it look as if there had been a master plan in place from the beginning. They often do this with good intentions. (Sometimes, however, they are just out to make some bucks.) The problem is that they often don’t understand their own stories very well.

When you look closely at the biographies of successful people, the truth is that they got lucky: they were the right person at the right place at the right time.

This is not to say that they didn’t work hard. On the contrary. But they just did what they did, for whatever reason, often for years—and suddenly success hit them out of the blue, totally unexpected. Or in ways entirely different from what they thought.

It’s the classic story. Success develops along entirely unexpected lines.

That is because success has to do with fate. With individual purpose. With the stars aligning.

This is also the reason why it’s so easy for some people to pretend there was a master plan in place, and that they can teach you that plan so that you can replicate their “formula.” Except that they had little direct control over the process. The master plan, if there was one, came from a different place.

We can help the process along by working hard on what floats our boat; we can signal the universe that we are worthy of whatever it has in store for us. But we cannot shoot for a goal and actually reach it in any straight-forward way. Ironically, the more we try—to make money online, or whatever—the less likely we will succeed. It’s the universe’s way of telling us that things don’t work that way, and that we better change our perspective here.

Take the example of Jordan Peterson: yes, his advice is to set goals for yourself and attain them. And it is good advice: it gets us moving, it creates energy.

But look at his own path: never in a million years would he have dreamed of the turn his life took, much less aimed at it. He just did what he did, and the stars aligned. And he paid a heavy price for it. (Remember, life doesn’t give any presents.)

Yes, we should set ourselves goals, and then see what happens. But what actually happens will always utterly surprise us—both negatively and positively. This rules out any success formula unless it gets to the spiritual root of things.¹

Okay, okay. All of that is not to say there aren't business models out there that leverage well. Or that we can’t extract some valuable advice from the business guru literature. If you can pull it off and generate an income by selling digital products or trading crypto or whatever, more power to you. Just forget about the illusion of getting away from facing your life lessons. Indeed, successfully opening a new chapter in life often goes hand in hand with new, more intense lessons. If it feels too easy, if there is no suffering involved at all, I would be concerned. Chances are the biggie is just waiting around the corner.

One thing is for sure: you will always work. And you will most likely work more if you become successful. The one thing you can hope for, though, is that you might enjoy another type of work somewhat more than your current work.

This is often the case for people who found “their thing”—they can pull it off because they are working tirelessly on it. And they can do that because something “clicked.” They have found their destiny. And that's the reason why you read all those stories about how hyper-productive successful people are.

It's not because they are torturing themselves. It's because they can't help it.

And more often than not, this is because they are providing a real service to people. They are sincerely helping others, and for better or worse are convinced they are making the world a better place. Many have gone through suffering, found a way out, and now want to make it available to others.

Does that mean you shouldn’t work hard to move forward? Again, of course not. Remember, moving forward is in your power and always has been. It’s just that you need to chart your own course, find your own path. Recipes seldom work.

You think you can copy someone else’s destiny? Think again.

Sure, you can also choose the dark side. Many “make money online” schemes fall into that category. Here, it's not really about helping people, despite claims to the opposite. It's about force-feeding people stuff they don't need and that actually makes their lives worse. It's about selling people unrealistic dreams: promise them a front-row seat in the land of rainbows and unicorns.

Good copywriting does that.

You can make lots of money doing that sort of thing; but chances are that you will leave the path that would have brought you to your true calling eventually.

So, let's make money online. But only if we are prepared to realize: no matter what, we can't escape our unique, personal lessons. Only learn them.

1. I like the self-help classic The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People because in many ways it gets at the root of things. The practical tips can be more or less useful as an inspiration, but it’s the deep stuff where it’s at. However, ultimately, you will have to go even deeper, in my experience.