There is a story we inherit, often before we are old enough to question it. For many young Black men in America, the story is written with narrow ink. It tells us there are only two doors through which greatness may pass. One is carved by the athlete, the other by the rapper. These are the faces we are taught to recognize as Black excellence. These are the images we are told to chase.
I grew up inside that story. I chased its shadows with open arms. I once believed that freedom would arrive wrapped in gold, that the weight of a chain around my neck would somehow lift the weight I carried within. I imagined a life adorned with luxury cars, sprawling homes, and the power to pay problems away as if money could erase struggle with the swipe of a card.
As a child, I believed that money would make me untouchable. I thought it would silence critics, command respect, and wrap me in a kind of invincibility. I wanted to stun the room, to dazzle the world into submission. I believed wealth was not simply a resource, but the very architecture of worth.
But time, in its patient wisdom, has a way of dissolving illusions. What I once believed to be a foundation was only a stage. As I matured, I began to see through the thin fabric of the story I had been sold. The spectacle of wealth began to look less like freedom and more like performance. The loudest displays often reveal the deepest insecurities. The obsession with being seen, with proving wealth, is often a silent confession of not feeling whole.
Real wealth moves quietly. It needs no audience. It does not beg for approval. The ones who truly possess wealth rarely need to declare it. The display of riches often betrays the ache for validation. Stunting, I have come to realize, is less about abundance and more about the fear of being overlooked.
I was fortunate not to walk this path alone. My closest friend, whom I call JR, walked a life strikingly similar to mine. We grew up in the same neighborhoods, raised in homes carved by similar hands. We carried the same weight of scarcity. Yet somewhere along the way, our reasons for climbing began to part. His ambition found its home in his children, in his family. Mine, though it leaves room for family in the future, remains more internal. I have pursued the climb for what it would mean to me, for the quiet fulfillment of self-mastery.
JR has always carried wisdom beyond his years. Though younger than me, he speaks like one who has already lived this life many times. His maturity, his steadiness, his ability to see beyond the noise—these are qualities I have always valued.
In a quiet conversation, I once asked him how he would feel if another man, one with more money, tried to stunt on him. His response was simple, but it broke something open in me.
He said, “The money does not make me.”
It is a simple truth, but it rearranged something inside me. It shattered the scaffolding I had built around money and value. It taught me that a man who is built by his money is easily unmade when it is gone. Wealth should never hold the power to define you. If your worth is tied to your wealth, you will forever be captive to the shifting winds of comparison.
There will always be a louder car. There will always be a brighter chain. There will always be a higher rung. To chase wealth as identity is to live as a shadow of oneself, constantly proving, constantly pursuing, but never arriving.
Money is a tool. It is a servant. It is a useful companion, but a dangerous master. It is not the architect of who I am. It is not the builder of my character. It does not give me honesty, integrity, discipline, or loyalty. These are the currencies that endure. These are the riches that cannot be outshined.
True wealth is not measured by how much you can acquire, but by how lightly you can carry what you build. It is not the house, but the peace within it. It is not the chain, but the clarity of the mind that wears it. It is not the applause of the crowd, but the stillness when you are alone.
To be a man of value is to be unmoved by the flex of another. It is to know your worth without external confirmation. It is to walk with quiet confidence, requiring no permission to feel whole.
The money does not make me. The work makes me. The discipline makes me. The life I choose to live makes me.
This cannot be taken.
And perhaps the real freedom is in finally understanding that it never could.
