Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying: Finance Philosophy Explained by The Shawshank Redemption

Today, we’re revisiting a classic BGR about money, freedom, and The Shawshank Redemption. This extravagantly tangential ramble is definitely a reader favorite! It was one of our first ever written, and remains one of our most popular articles of all time. We’ve revised and expanded it with some brand new sections that feel really important. We’ve also included options to listen to video and audio versions as well. Enjoy!

What you’re about to see is pretty graphic.

Because today I’m going to torture a metaphor to death.

I’m sure it’ll be hard to hear. At times, it was hard to write!

I was almost at the point of walking away from the whole concept for this topic when I heard John 3:16 ringing in my memory: “For Kitty so loved the world, that she gave one of her favorite movies, that whosoever believeth in her should not go broke, but have eternal cash.”

Today I’m going to explain some of the most foundational ideas in personal finance philosophy. These are the concepts that underpin everything that we talk about here at Bitches Get Riches. About…

• The purpose of money.
• The value of labor.
• The dangers of exploitation.
• The systemic injustices that entrench power imbalances within financial systems.
• And what YOU can do to free yourself from its grasp.

We’re gonna talk about all of that. But because that sounds BORING, we’re going to talk about it through something that is NOT boring, which is The Shawshank Redemption.

If you have not seen The Shawshank Redemption, I have three questions for you.

• The first question: are you some kind of Alexandreeey Dumbass?
• The second question: how? Logistically, how is it possible you haven’t seen The Shawshank Redemption? How did you get from 1997 to the present without watching cable television during daylight hours? Because if were you never home sick, eating Campbell’s Chunky Chicken Noodle and Club Crackers with TNT on in the background, I don’t understand how you got here.
• The third question: why are you watching this and not The Shawshank Redemption? Pause this, and go to 321freemovies.russia.info or wherever the hell we’re getting movies these days, and go watch it first.

Only after you’ve done so are you allowed to return here and continue on. One hundred and forty-two minutes of narration by Ellis “Red” Redding (Morgan Freeman) is the necessary prep work you need to open your heart and expand your mind.

Freedom and slavery metaphors in personal finance

Before we get started, I want to touch on an important note about language.

The personal finance community loves the phrase “financial freedom.” We also use it sometimes, because it’s a very useful concept.

But sometimes it gets used too lightly. When you use a word like “freedom,” you’re kind of inviting its antonyms into the conversation. Words like “slavery” and “captivity” and “imprisonment.” Now, those conditions are the actual lived realities of many people throughout the world, both historically and in the present day. Those conditions are devastating. They shouldn’t be conflated with lesser concerns like mild financial hardships or career ennui.

Tanja Hester has a very thoughtful article on this subject. It’s well worth reading, if only for the extremely juicy top comment. ( ‾ʖ̫‾)

When we talk about financial freedom, what we mean is having a totality of reasonable life choices. Basically, that you can do what you want in your life without finances being the sole thing holding you back. There isn’t a great, specific word in English that captures exactly that meaning of freedom. There’s also no perfect word for its opposite—someone who’s in a position where they have few or no choices. So it’s a little tricky to respect the distinction, linguistically.

The Shawshank Redemption is a movie about being literally imprisoned. It’s also one of the most popular movies of all time. Interestingly, one of the most popular books of all time is The Count of Monte Cristo, which is another story about an innocent man who is falsely imprisoned, and eventually escapes to mete out justice and peace out as a super rich globetrotter. These stories must be popular because they speak to a universal human experience. And I don’t think that experience is literal imprisonment. Rather, it’s the fear of having all of your choices taken away, followed by the power fantasy of having limitless choices.

And that’s the context in which we’re going to connect these ideas today. As a metaphor anyone can connect to, based on these universal human fears and desires. Struggling to afford stuff is not literally the same thing as incarceration.

Sound good? Are we clear? Okay!

Allow us to introduce you to your situation.

Andy Dufresne is you

This is you. Your name is Andy Dufresne.

You’re making this unhappy face because you just realized something truly awful: you are destined to spend the rest of your life stuck inside a prison for a crime you did not commit.

Shawshank State Penitentiary is your deficit

This is Shawshank. It’s a prison, and it’s where you live right now.

The operative theory behind prisons is denial of choice. It’s a punishment because it takes away your ability to control your own life. You can’t eat what you want, nor sleep when you want, nor capriciously pursue whatever ideas and activities interest you, nor travel where you like, nor spend meaningful time with the people you want to share your life with. And you cannot leave—even if you really, really want to.

This is what makes prison such a severe punishment. Our lives are defined by our choices. When you deprive someone of choices, you force them to waste their limited time on this earth doing shit they don’t want to do. All the minutes passed inside of prison will be less meaningful than those spent at liberty. Imprisonment sucks out your total lifetime happiness by stripping away years worth of opportunities to pursue whatever it is that makes life worth living for you.

Hmm. Being forced to waste your precious time on this planet doing shit you don’t wanna do…

Does that sound… relatable?

• If your alarm went off this morning, and you woke up feeling still tired, why didn’t you turn your alarm off and go back to sleep?
• If filet mignon is your favorite meal, why didn’t you eat it for dinner last night?
• If you’ve always wanted to scale the heights of Machu Picchu, why don’t you book your flight to Peru right now?
• If you realized you want to become a doctor, why haven’t you enrolled in medical school?

If you’re like most people, your answer is almost certainly a variation of “I can’t, because I can’t afford to do that.”

This is why so many people relate to stories about being wrongfully imprisoned. You live within the “prison” of a deficit.

Each month, you need to pay out money to survive and live a modest, normal life. You need money to buy food, water, shelter, clothing, transportation, education, and leisure. Let’s say that these humble needs could be met with $1,000 a month. Unless you were born into extraordinary circumstances, no one hands you $1,000 a month—meaning it’s incumbent upon you to go out and collect it, every single month. That means that you start each month with a big portion of your time already committed to just gathering enough resources to not fall behind the next month. You’re bailing water just to keep afloat.

This is why deficit is a prison. It locks each day into a routine that you didn’t choose, and prevents you from pursuing a life lived to its fullest potential for happiness. And the more hours you need to spend to appease that deficit, the less free you feel.

Now, let me introduce you to some of the fine folks you’ll meet on the inside.

The Sisters are your debts

These are The Sisters. They represent your debts.

The Sisters aren’t what got you into prison. Defeating them won’t get you out again. Nonetheless, they make every day so goddamn miserable that you can’t possibly contemplate escape as long as they’re waiting for you around every corner, ready to wreck you afresh.

Debts are the worst part of being stuck inside of the cycle of deficit. They kick you when you’re down. They steal the small amount of extra resources you’re able to accumulate. And they follow you, harass you, and work together to gang up against you.

They’re the first problem you should tackle inside the prison of deficit because they’re just so fucking awful. The problem is that debts are big and bad. You need back up to fight them.

Captain Byron Hadley is your job

Meet Byron Hadley, the captain of the guard. He represents your job.

He’s a powerful ally. He has access to all the resources you’ll ever need. And if you ask him to, he will beat your debts so badly they’ll never walk again. But he doesn’t do so for free.

Full-time employment, with good pay and benefits, is still the easiest way to build the stability you need to eliminate debts. They provide a steady stream of income without the uncertainty of entrepreneurship or the exhaustion of constant hustling. But just wanting one doesn’t make one appear, and the drawbacks can be almost as strong as the benefits.

Jobs gobble up half of your waking day—more, if you need to commute or work long hours. You have to spend lots of time working to make your company richer, which often saps the energy you need to attend to your own needs. You have to answer to bosses you might not respect, and work closely with people you might not like, in order to complete projects you might not give a flying fuck about. So yes, your job can help you pay off your debts—but it’s on its own horrible terms.

The Captain of the Guard is also a fickle man. You need him more than he needs you, and he can drop support for you whenever he chooses.

We live in an era where employers are markedly more powerful than employees. Businesses have safety nets that regular people just don’t get. We’ve passed so many laws designed to protect business interests that they basically operate in a world without real consequences. The high unemployment rate following the Great Recession made work scarcer, leading employees to settle for lower pay, longer hours, and rougher treatment. And we’ve never fully recovered from that. Labor unions are weak. Wages have stagnated. Benefits are less robust. Toxic so-called “right to work” laws have invaded over half of all states. Employees en masse have the independence and ferocity of a thoroughly beaten dog.

The pendulum will swing back eventually, but it hasn’t yet. Which means your employer—your Captain Hadley—is many magnitudes more powerful than you are.

The most important thing to remember is that your boss is not your friend, and your job is not your life. Work may help you beat the shit out of debt, but don’t forget that work can just as easily beat the shit out of you. Work can fuck you up in ways that debt never could. If you’ve ever worked in a toxic environment, or had your benefits contested, or faced workplace harassment, or been laid off with no warning at the worst possible time, or been promised promotions/raises/changes that never materialized, you know exactly how emotionally exhausting and financially damaging work can be.

In summary: you can use your job to help you fight your debts, but ultimately he’s an unreliable ally. He has his own goals, and any time they conflict with your own, his will wins out. He’s a cruel and capricious fellow, but if you play your cards right, you can manipulate him to your own ends.

Warden Samuel Norton is your financial system

Both your job and your debts are serious problems that can fill each day with small exhausting challenges. But you must never forget who your true enemy is. Upon the chessboard of soapstone and alabaster you have meticulously carved during your free time in prison, he is the single most powerful piece.

Meet Warden Samuel Norton. He represents our entire financial system.

God, I hate this round-glasses-having son of a bitch…

At first glance, he presents himself as clean and fair. But it doesn’t take many interactions to deduce that he’s really a smug dissembler, utterly at ease with horse-choking levels of hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance.

• Although he is careful to never dirty his hands directly, he is perfectly capable of horrifying levels of oppression and violence.
• He thinks of his prisoners as animals and uses them as a source of dirt-cheap labor.
• He’s completely comfortable using any illegal or reprehensible tactic so long as it personally enriches him.
• True justice doesn’t concern him at all, despite the fact that he claims to act in its name all the time.
• His unquestioned totalitarian control is a kind of self-perpetuating power that threatens to keep you locked away in Shawshank for all time, regardless of whether you deserve to be there or not.

Basically, he’s a crooked jerky jockey and he drives a crooked hoss.

(If you’re reading the text version of this article, you’re really missing out. Because in the video version, you can see how many attempts it took me to say “crooked jerky jockey.” It’s not a small number.)

I believe in two things: discipline and the Bible. Here you’ll receive both. Put your trust in the Lord; your ass belongs to me. Welcome to Shawshank.

Now, when I say “the financial system,” I want to note that I’m really not talking about a monolithic force. This system—or rather these systems—aren’t crafted by politicians and economists who’re basically evil port-swilling anime villains. Nefarious elites don’t gather together in one oak-paneled conference room to intentionally craft sexist taxation structures or racist credit scoring systems. (Unless it’s the Heritage Foundation. They absolutely do that.)

Rather, the system is a collective. It’s the sum of its parts. I’m a part of the system, and you are too. Our vote is our money, and the way that we spend it influences the system. Its flexible framework is built on the constant push-and-pull of the purchasing decisions we all make every day. Those purchasing decisions are influenced by a ton of things: small things, like your personal psychology and preferences; big things, like financial laws and social pressures; enormous things, like culture and history itself. The more money you have to spend—as an individual or an institution—the more influence you exert.

American workers work more than ever before. Yet we’re treated to an ever-diminishing share in the profits of those labors.

• Income inequality is at an all-time high. The wealthiest 10% of Americans own 93% of the stock market, even though market participation is at an all-time high. The top 1% owns a full 50%.
• Wealth distribution is royally fucked. Billionaires like Jeff Bezos make more money in 30 seconds than you make in a year, if you’re an average American—yet he pays less in taxes than you do.
• We’re being ruthlessly replaced whenever possible with cheaper and cheaper sources of labor, including AI.
• American workers work more hours than workers in most developed economies, including German, British, Canadian, Australian, and Japanese workers. Yet we’re also among a minority of developed countries that don’t mandate a maximum allowable work week, paid parental leave, paid sick days, or mandated annual leave.
• Average productivity per American worker has increased 400% since 1950. Yet the standard of living for regular people in the 1950s was higher, as a single earner could afford a house, support a family, afford childcare and education for 2-3 children, go on modest vacations, and retire with a pension. Or so the ancient scrolls claim.

So what keeps this shitty system in power?

Simple. It’s your deficit.

It makes me utterly sad, but it’s true: people who operate at a deficit are easy to exploit.

Here’s an example. If you can’t afford groceries this week, you might put those groceries on a credit card. The credit card company will charge you considerable interest to borrow the money, making them even more unaffordable in the long run. Your poverty directly enriches their industry.

This is also how home mortgages work. And student loans. If you don’t have enough money for these things—which are, to one degree or another, necessities—our system penalizes you with a higher eventual price tag. This takes away an opportunity to enrich yourself and gives that opportunity to an already wealthy institution instead.

In this way, your deficit helps your bank, and your creditors, and your job. After all, how many of us would continue to work unpaid overtime if we didn’t need to? How many of us would buy things on credit if we didn’t need to? Our desperation creates opportunities for exploitation.

I know more than a few people whose job barely outpaces the cost of not having a job. What they spend in childcare and commuting alone is often enough to gobble their paychecks whole.

Naturally, there are a host of services designed to make life “easier” by charging money to outsource the daily tasks of living: cooking, cleaning, driving, drinking, shopping, running errands, going to the grocery store, keeping yourself entertained, keeping yourself beautiful, keeping yourself calm, keeping yourself sane…

This is the truly insidious nature of the system. It gluts itself on your hard work, shares the bare minimum of the profits back with you, then bombards you with products and services aimed to strip you of whatever’s left.

You are the Warden’s dirt-cheap labor. Your deficit is the source of his authority, and he uses that authority to create more deficit in others. He’s a shamelessness pit of greed that can never be sated. No amount of money or power will ever be enough for him. He wants to keep you locked away inside the cycle of deficit for the rest of your natural life.

…But you don’t have to worry about the Warden. His judgment cometh, and that right soon.

You’re Andy fucking Dufresne. And you know there’s a way out.

The rock hammer is your discretionary money

You have exactly one tool. It seems laughably small and weak compared to the guns and guards and dogs and barbed wire that the Warden has at his disposal. But that one tool is all you need to escape from Shawshank forever.

It’s a rock hammer. And the rock hammer is your discretionary money.

Let’s say you earn $1,000 each month, and $900 goes toward the stuff you need to live. The $100 you have left is open to discretionary spending—and it is the most powerful tool you will ever own. You can use this tool to tunnel your way to freedom. It might take you nineteen years to do it, but you will be free.

Of course, the rock hammer is contraband. Every single business on the planet wants to confiscate it from you. The more discretionary money you have, the harder companies will work to try to get it from you. You’ll be tempted in ways that are scientifically devised to work against you. Marketers and salespeople and influencers act like thugs hired to collect it from you. “Hey, you’ve had a long day… you’ve worked hard… you’ve earned this…”

Here’s the thing: you need your discretionary money more than anyone else, because you need it to escape. Each of those dollars is a tiny tool, and they are the only tools you will ever have to achieve financial freedom. That $100 represents your power—your power to get out of the rat race, to retire early, to work for yourself, to travel, to live your life on your own terms.

This is the most fundamental lesson we can possibly impart to you. The ultimate secret of money.

In personal finance, money isn’t the end game. It’s freedom.

Escape is financial independence

Imagine a reality in which more money came in every month than when out.

What would your life be like if you didn’t owe anyone any money? How would it feel to not have rent or a mortgage to pay every month? What if you even had passive income streams that filled your accounts each month automatically? What if your cost of living became so low that a full-time job was not a necessity but an option?

That would mean you have a surplus. And that is what it means to truly escape the power of the system.

I want to square with you: this is an extremely difficult goal. Few people reach it in their lifetimes. It may even be functionally impossible for some; after all, not everyone’s cell faces the wall of the prison. Financial freedom is an uphill battle for anyone. It’s harder if you were born to poor parents, or immigrant parents. It’s harder for disabled people, people of color, and women. Those facts are unfair and unjust, and they need to change. If you listen to us on a regular basis, we talk a lot about specific, achievable cultural and policy shifts that would make the world a more equitable place. But you’ll never hear us pretend that ain’t reality.

That said, financial independence is the prize upon which we encourage you to keep your eyes. Even if you fall short of attaining a fully-automated money-making Rube Goldberg machine of perfect financial safety, every step in the path towards a surplus comes with fantastic things. Each one helps you gain financial stability, reclaim autonomy over your energy and time, and potentially one day act as a pillar of support to others in your community.

• You’ll spend less money and buy less crap.
• When emergencies happen, you’ll be more prepared to help yourself and others.
• Eventually, you’ll be debt-free. Which means no one will ever come and take a hunk out of your paycheck first—you’ll always get to be first in line to spend your own money.
• You’ll get to make decisions again, instead of desperation deciding everything for you.

So it’s worth it to try, no matter how long it takes. As you take these steps toward total escape, more and more options will open up to you.

The immediate benefits of your escape are obvious: you’re living life on your own terms. You get to spend your precious few days on this planet doing exactly whatever it is you want to do. But there’s a side benefit as well.

The more prisoners escape, the weaker the system becomes. Remember, it’s the prisoners that give the Warden his power. If enough people escape from the cycle of deficit, the system will be forced to respond. Perhaps it would change. Perhaps even for the better.

The library is a satisfying life without financial independence

I think it’s important to point out that, in The Shawshank Redemption, Andy does not devote 100% of his time and energies to his escape tunnel. Even within the confines of prison, he finds ways to lead the richest life possible.

• He carves things out of stone for fun.
• He makes friends and spends time with them.
• They watch movies and tell stories together.
• With their help, he builds a library in the prison.
• He uses his talents to help others with educational attainment.
• He even takes risks and endures setbacks to gift the other prisoners some meaningful experiences, like getting to hear music.

It’s kinda easy to forget that Andy had no idea his little tunnel would ever work. What if he dug and dug for a decade, and found his way blocked by something that couldn’t be dug through? He could’ve drowned in the sewer. Hell, the cops could’ve caught him within a day.

Life doesn’t develop meaning by accomplishing ONE huge personal project. And thank god for that! Because projects fail so easily, all the time, for reasons way beyond your control. They especially fail when it’s an audacious goal that nobody else around you is working toward.

Andy was patient, but never single-minded. If he’d died inside the walls of Shawshank, he would’ve left a legacy of kindness. He inspired others towards self-improvement. Self improvement for its own sake, not to please parole boards or gain something out of it.

…And he did things because they were fun. Because he liked doing them. Because he needed a break from digging. And I really need you guys to remember that! We here at Bitches Get Riches really, REALLY hate the “rise and grind” mentality. You know—the idea that success can only be achieved through constant hustling. And if you’re struggling, it’s your fault because you just don’t want it bad enough.

That kind of black-and-white thinking is dangerous and short-sighted. It ignores a very important reality, which is: you’re a human person, who only has one ticket to ride around on this planet, and you deserve to feel pleasure on that ride.

Pursuing financial freedom will put you in a position to deny yourself pleasure often. You may often find it wise to forego some fleeting or unsatisfying pleasures to chase whatever it is that you TRULY want. And that’s fine. But please remember that PLEASURE IS AWESOME. And everyone deserves it. It’s not the exclusive domain of people who’ve already accomplished their life goals.

This is not Glen Gary Glen Ross! Coffee is not just for closers! Coffee is for everyone!

So open your library. Watch some Rita Hayworth movies. Play some chess. Don’t arrive at your ultimate destination broken and alone, unable to remember how to feel joy. It’s not worth it.

Zihuatanejo is the rest of your life

Mexico. Little place right on the Pacific. You know what the Mexicans say about the Pacific? They say it has no memory. That’s where I’d like to finish out my life, Red. A warm place with no memory. Open a little hotel right on the beach. Buy some worthless old boat and fix it up like new. Take my guests out charter fishing… You know, a place like that, I’d need a man who can get things.

Zihuatanejo has everything that someone like you could want. Clear skies. Warm nights. A fresh start. Meaningful work done at your own pace. A space for the people closest to you.

Zihuatanejo is the rest of your life, lived exactly the way you want to live it.

In our minds, Zihuatanejo isn’t endless luxury. It isn’t a mansion and a fleet of fast cars. It’s not champagne with every meal. It isn’t servants and admirers. And it isn’t Rita Hayworth on your arm. It’s a humble, wholesome dream that comes from a spiritual understanding of the things that make you truly, deeply happy.

Everyone has a Zihuatanejo. You may not know where it is or what it looks like, but you have a lot of time to think about it.

Perhaps it’s moving to another country, or opening a small business, or fixing up old cars, or doing charitable work full-time, or painting every day, or sitting on your goddamn ass and doing nothing but drinking goddamn umbrella drinks.

Whatever it is, it’s something you keep it in your mind at all times. When you’re tempted to spend your discretionary dollars on things that don’t substantially contribute to your overall happiness, remember your Zihuatanejo.

With enough strikes of your rock hammer, you can crawl through a river of shit and come out clean on the other side.

You… headed for the Pacific…

What’s your Zihuatanejo?

What is your Zihuatanejo? What’s put you on the path of financial freedom? What’s the dream life you’re working towards? I’d love to know! Please tell me about it in the comments.

If you need some help discovering what your Zihuatanejo is, maybe start here!

And if you’re struggling with your Captain Hadley, you’re not alone. Jobs give us money and power, but they demand so much from us. Sometimes the balance gets thrown off, and it can be really hard to recognize when that’s happened and make a plan to escape that situation. Which is why we have a whole-ass course about healing from burnout. I know I’m biased, but this course is great. It’s the best stuff we’ve ever written, full of very personalized exercises and actionable advice. We’re super proud of it. If you’re burned out and losing hope, we wrote this FOR YOU. Go check it out!

And if you like what we do and you want us to keep doing it, please join us on Patreon. Patreon donations allow us to pay our staff a living wage, and it keeps corporate sponsors farrrrr away from our content.