3D MLM

I have recently posted on my experience with Multi-Level Marketing and my style of 3D Thinking. Here I want to apply my 3D Thinking to the extraordinarily heinous problem of Multi-Level Marketing. Check out Anti-MLM on YouTube if you want an idea of why MLMs are so foul, but in a nutshell they are an entire economic sector of scammery that destroys individual lives, corrupts government, and stunts economic growth.

It sounds like I am extremely one sided on this, but I will remind you that I was once myself an Herbalife distributor, as much as I regret it. Though MLMs are most definitely not the answer, they are not-wrong about the problems they falsely claim to correct. In the USA, most people:

1. Don't have enough spare time. When you are talking about developing strong family relationships, taking care of your health, getting adequate rest, etc., this rapidly becomes an unfulfilled need rather than a fantasy luxury you would like to have some day.
2. People aren't able to pursue their dreams with the current lifestyle they have. Keep in mind there's two general types of dreams here: a) virtuous things you want to do with your life, a "bucket list," and b) perverse things you want in your life that can not contribute to your happiness, typically luxuries to boost perceived social status.
3. People don't like their jobs. Either the job is too demanding and takes up too much time, or they just don't like what they do.
4. Investments in the future often don't work out. Be it your education or your retirement portfolio, life is what happens when you make other plans.

The problem is that MLM will make all of these problems much, much worse. The more you try to get your MLM habit to pay for itself the more time it will consume. No one dreams of being involved in a scam that helps to ruin other people's lives and damage the global community. In the long term, it is more rewarding to be employed with a job you hate or just plain unemployed than it is to be in an MLM. For well over 99% of MLM participants, MLM will in no way compensate for your lack of education or savings.

But if MLM is not wrong about those things, and only wrong about themselves being a solution, what are the solutions to those things? Let me tell you what has worked for me:

1. Be mindful. Your job, no matter how terrible it is, someone is paying you to do it, and therefore it is important to someone. Let's take the lowest job on the corporate latter: the Janitor. They are looked down upon, and have to do unpleasant work for low pay. But think about it like this: there is a war going on between animals and germs. In the case of Humans, we are easily destroyed by various microbe threats. At the time of this writing we are in the midst of a COVID-19 pandemic causing serious economic damage and taking thousands upon thousands of lives. From our perspective today, janitors battle on the front line of human survival. Being a janitor IS WORTHWHILE.
2. Be frugal. Stop thinking of your income as a check that comes in the mail that you reuse each month. Instead see each and every penny that comes into your possession as an opportunity you will never have again, once you spend that penny it is gone for ever. Pinch pennies until they bleed and live off of that penny blood like some kind of coin vampire. The less you spend, the less money you need: this is the true path to financial independence. You can be sure that most rich people who were born poor will tell you pretty much this same thing. On good terms with your parents? Great, live in their basement. Picking a college? Pick a community college. Once you truly embrace this mindset you might be surprised how easy it is to own your "dream car."
3. Stop trying to buy happiness. Sometimes needs are needs and you will be miserable without something. Sometimes wants within reason are good. But happiness can not be purchased. No amount of money you will ever spend will bring you permanent bliss. No mansion on the beach, no collection of luxury cars, no harem of supermodels, no mountain of cocaine is ever going to do it for you in the long run. From personal experience I can tell you MLM won't get you there. I can also say you shouldn't embrace a diet of fast food and microwave burritos in the name of your career, spending more and more time at the office until you actually end up sleeping for a few hours a night in the emergency shelter down the hall: It's not good for you, your career, your happiness, your health, your family, your life and in the long term it's not even good for the people asking you to put in those kind of hours.
4. Be interested in things, and get good at some of the stuff you are interested in. You should probably pursue some form of formal education in a trade or in school. You may or may not be able to find a job you like. In my experience, any job you get, weather or not you wanted it in the first place and no matter how great it is, still becomes a chore sooner or later. Satisfaction from employment has something to do with being as good as you can reasonably be at whatever it is you do to support yourself. It is also satisfying to grow and become competent in things you do for hobbies and for entertainment. If you are going to be a janitor, at be a very good janitor that knows what you are talking about in casual conversation.
5. Focus on what is important to you. Ultimately large piles of green paper are not the most important thing in anyone's life. What actually IS important to YOU? Don't miss out on THAT. Take care of business: do you need mental health treatment? Get mental health treatment. Do you feel like you need to connect with a higher power? Get to it. Do you feel like you need to relive yourself of the shackles of the world view you were raised with it? Those shackles aren't going to loosen themselves. Want to have a family? I am pretty sure you know how that works. Want to be part of a family? Develop the people skills that make that possible. 
6. Don't wait for retirement: later = never; follow your dreams NOW! As a martial artist, I can't tell you how many times I have seen this end badly; to be an effective martial artist, you have to develop at least some of your skill before retirement age! Let's say you dream of walking the beach in Hawaii in your swim suit. You are going to wait until you are 65 to do that? No one wants to see that, do everyone a favor and find another way. Find a more affordable beach to visit, or save up your lunch money for a trip to Hawaii decades before you retire, or find a job in Hawaii. If your dream is to walk the beach in Hawaii, waiting for retirement is just a way for that to never happen. That said, pick your dreams wisely, pursuing perverse dreams to try to show your neighbors you are as good as or better than them, that stuff ends badly, most belief systems advise against that kind of behavior for good reason, that entire mindset is a great way to be miserable for the rest of your life.
7. The easiest get-rich-scheme I know of is to work part time. When people retire, either their health is so shot they struggle to take care of themselves, or they get bored and look for some new part time vocation. You know what that means, right? Think about it: they could have just worked part time all along! This is pretty hard to do on minimum wage, but that is part of why you should pursue some form of education, so that you can get into a vocation that has a sustainable enough wage that you can make enough money to fulfill your needs and pursue your dreams on part-time wages. Nursing, accounting, and dental hygienist positions have all been known to have part-time decent-wage positions.