This is a story that recently came to my attention that I thought would be good to use as a backdrop for a greater discussion. This story surrounds a 20 year old student named Alex Kearns who committed suicide in June 2020. He was a college sophomore who was studying management and got into stock trading. Alex was using Robinhood which is a free trading app which lets investors trade stocks and options among other things without fees or commission payments. He was using the app to trade complex options instruments. Now, the app which is geared towards milennials is a rather complex form of trading that is used by sophisticated investors. The app provides novice investors like Kearns seemed to be easy access to exotic financial instruments that is used by said sophisticated investors. To put it simply, Kearns had invested over $16k but saw a negative balance which was over $730k. While the display was misleading and was not a correct representation of his financial situation, Kearns jumped to conclusions and took his own life. Here’s the news report.

First off, there are many things to tackle here. First, it is obvious that Alex Kearns had pre-existing issues which made him far more vulnerable to this type of event which would drive him to commit suicide. I don’t believe that any one event can truly devastate a person so much that it creates this outcome for them. This person was already most likely dealing with other things in his life which he was trying to deal with. Many college students these days have many issues. These range from vast amounts of insecurity issues, depression, anxiety, stress, communication issues, confidence issues, etc. Stock trading is very popular among youngsters currently and since we live in a “get rich quick” and “me”-oriented society, this will devour youngsters who are susceptible and prey to this scheme. They are constantly inundated with social media influencers and other young stock traders who got rich and are marketing to them messages about their personal life story and how they got rich because of their ability to invest, trade, sell, etc. They see them driving these exotic cars, moving into fancy neighborhoods, and building up a hefty portfolio big enough for them to not even need a day job and just use investing as their way of work. We’re in a fast-paced society where we have been trained to just want everything at our fingertips fast. This is one of the ways in which certain teen stars on social media and channels like Disney and Nickelodeon have been suckered into signing contracts and being pawns for their own labels or agencies. It is the easiest way for these agencies, labels, and industries to keep making money by luring youngsters into contracts to then control them and use them to make profit off of them while attracting young consumers to their asset and bring in the cash flow. Either way, this entire dynamic contributes to a lot of the insecurities that so many young teenagers and young adults deal with in society because they are constantly being pressured by the thought that since this person their age was able to become a millionaire through stocks or their own clothing line or what have you, that this should be the same case for them and they should therefore put all their eggs in one basket since it is what is going to make them achieve that same success even though that is not the case. Not everyone is cut out to run a business or become an entrepreneur or become a full time investor and make money that way. Most people are just capable of working for someone else and making money from a typical job. There are so many things that go into being an entrepreneur such as knowing how to build your platform or business, how to sell your product, how to advertise, how to build support, how to be efficient, how to be responsible, etc. You need to have a certain set of intangibles and skills in order to not only create your own business but to be able to run it efficiently and successfully for the long run. This is why there is no one true blueprint that everyone can follow to build a successful business because every situation is unique to the individual who is trying to build their own business and brand. In my opinion, this is one of the things that contributed to Kearns’ state that made him vulnerable to this which ultimately led him to committing suicide.

Second, it stresses the importance of knowing what you’re getting into. Not only a 20-year old but every person no matter what age should do the proper research and studying of what it is that they’re doing which consists of them taking a financial risk. This goes into investing, buying a house, buying a car, etc. This ties back to the first point I made which is the “get things quick” trend that has everyone in this depressed and empty state in this society. When you rush into things that you don’t know about or understand thoroughly, it will almost always end in a disaster. So many people take financial risks sometimes out of mere spontaneity and or desperation to build up mass amounts of wealth or status to keep up with everybody else in this non-existent race. That is the main point that I want to make in this section which is that there is no race whatsoever! People think that everyone is getting rich just because they see ten accounts in a row on YouTube or Instagram who have exotic cars and a few million dollars in their accounts and they believe that they’re behind in the race. That is at most representative of 2% of the population which were able to get lucky and have what they have now. If people were able to understand to think and look outside the algorithm created bubble that they’re in, they’d see that most people are actually barely staying afloat and are doing their best to manage. Most people in Western society are living paycheck-to-paycheck and are trying to manage their own bills and maintain their livelihood. Youngsters are the main target because they have all the time in the world and are the main users of the internet. Their parents are too busy making money to try to keep them fed and living in their own house. They don’t really have the time to sit down and learn how to invest for the most part. So when you have a bunch of youngsters sitting with an accumulated pile of money hoping to make a lot more money quick, they will almost always take the wrong route because one, they’re unlearnt and two, they’re impatient. Kearns admitted himself that he didn’t know what he was getting himself into. That’s why it is important to practice patience! When you’re impatient, you rush into things. When you rush into things, you create an unfavorable situation for yourself. When that happens, you almost always panic since you have put all your eggs into a basket at once and didn’t properly have a well thought-out plan. Investing is a very meticulous thing which has a lot of terminology that you must be aware and understanding of and also truly research on constantly because it involves you putting forth your own money at a risk. Considering how hard money is to come by nowadays especially during this so-called pandemic, you have to invest at your own discretion if you indeed choose to invest or do stock trading. Now, I am not one to judge what people do with their money. I have no particular opinion on stock trading or investing in the stock market. It is truly up to the individual. If you have the money to invest and most importantly, you know what you’re doing then go do it. As long as you are not breaking the laws of the Most High and the laws of the land, then do what you think can best help your situation. I’m not one to tell anyone how they should and shouldn’t use their money. If you are going to invest though, you need to know what you’re doing. That is extremely important to understand and many people don’t know that because they’re once again trying to catch up in a race to get rich which doesn’t exist.

Third, it stresses the importance of parental guidance. One has to ask, where were his parents in all of this? So many parents are lackadaisical when it comes to truly supervising their kids and knowing what they’re doing. I am not one to advocate for parents to be invasive and to be intruding on their personal privacy but for some kids, this should be the case. So many kids build up money and do not have a clue about what they’re doing. Parents need to have a greater sense of awareness of their child’s weaknesses and flaws in understanding and mental conditions so that they can help prevent disastrous situations such as this one. Parents leave their kids to hang out with all of these different crowds, go out of town all these different times, and go to all these different houses with strange people they may not know in these parties. This is of course mainly seen in white American homes. Not to attack white Americans or anything, but they’re the main ones who allow this type of shit to go on unnoticed without properly nipping it in the bud. Not to say they’re the only race that does this because that would be a moronic statement but every race has parents like this. For the most part though, foreign parents are far more responsible when caring for their kids and instructing them on what is right or wrong because they understand that their child is their own commodity or stock that they invested in and if they don’t properly watch over it, their stock will drop precipitously and they will face the brunt of it. You invest in a stock which is your child the minute you marry your wife and create them. The true purpose is to establish your own prosperity and bloodline on the earth so they can carry your own teachings and fulfill the laws and commandments of the Most High to let His teachings permeate and be profound on the world that He created. However, the vast majority of humanity doesn’t have the foggiest idea of what their true purpose is nor will they ever have it. Alex’s parents clearly failed him in not already setting the foundation of him being able to depend on them for guidance whenever he felt he was in trouble or needed assistance on something he couldn’t resolve on his own. Most parents out here don’t have any understanding of how to properly take care of their children. They think that they’ve got life figured out and that things will resolve itself whenever they go through a rough patch but you have to know how to truly navigate life when all your corners are dead ends. This is what most people don’t know how to do which is why many are so depressed and have so many mental, emotional, and spiritual issues and damage. Being a parent is not an easy task whatsoever nor has it ever been. This is why couples must think twice before choosing to have a child. Truthfully, couples should not have kids if they don’t want them because the child suffers the most in the end. Many couples think about the sex first and then realize after the fact that they don’t want to be with each other which leaves the child in the middle of this hellish trap. That’s a story for another day. Point being is that it was crucial that he had someone to sit him down and assure him that the negative balance was not valid and was a false representation of his financial situation and he was in fact not in such a massive amount of debt. However, it is clear that this particular precedent was not established by his parents or his family beforehand. It goes to show you how important the people around you are when you yourself need others to lean on when you can’t pick yourself up mentally. Once again, Alex Kearns clearly had far more overreaching personal issues than just this one isolated event. It’s clear that this simply piled onto his already existing issues and was what put the final nail in the coffin.

The final point to be made about all this is to show that it is extremely important to know how to simply breathe during times of adversity. It is very difficult for people to make decisions under stress because they rush to make a decision and when you rush to do things, it never turns out in your favor for the most part. It must be made clear that we will always run into situations which may catch us off guard and will have a profound impact on us which will need resilience and strength to combat the potential negative effect that could overwhelm us if we don’t establish said resilience and strength. We may one day find out our bank account has been wiped or our account may have been hacked or we may be kicked out of our house or our loved ones may have passed away. These are all tests or rather potholes on the road to our own destination of salvation. Much of this are problems we may run into in our lives and these can only be resolved if we know how to breathe and stay calm and know how to take the proper next step to avoid further negative fallout from our poor decision making which would be made under emotional distress. We must learn and understand that nothing in this world is infinite but it is rather finite. Since everything that we deal with is in front of us and we can see it, we feel that these are our biggest problems or issues when our biggest tasks at hand are our spiritual afflictions that we often times tarry on because we simply can’t see it or touch it in the physical world. We can see that eviction notice or that hacked account but we can’t see our own spiritual affliction. This is why we must learn not to be so attached to the flesh and the physical world because nothing in this life is a guarantee and everything has an end; even our own relationships with family and friends. Even in this truth, there have been relationships between people that has ended abruptly. Remember that nothing in the physical is a guarantee and is always subject to change. Our family and friends can change on a dime at a moment’s notice and would leave us stranding if we relied on the false understanding that this bond would last forever. We must learn to keep the Most High first because our relationship to Him and His Son is the only guarantee in this life which will never change or waver; at least on His end. The only way our relationship with the Most High and His Son could change is if we ourselves change and we waver in this truth. The Most High and His Son will never change but we always can if we don’t learn to grow and truly fine tune ourselves spiritually and mentally. They will only change based on our own transgressions and mishaps. Having said that, to reiterate, it is important to just breathe when the world seems to have collapsed on you and you feel that there is no way out. Remember that no matter what adverse financial or personal situation you may find yourself in, your spiritual state is what will always matter and be of the highest regard because that will remain with us for the rest of our existence. Not to sound insensitive or harsh but while Alex’s financial trouble may have ended even though it was not trouble to begin with, he still has to account for his decision and be judged for his action to take his own life. Many people will not like that statement but that is the fact of the matter; whether people like it or not or if they believe it or not. It’s an unfortunate situation that his family has to go through and I don’t wish this on any family because loss is truly a devastating thing to deal with but it should be a lesson for us that it is important to keep the Most High first and to not bury your head in all of your worldly problems because all of these problems have an end; even if they may be most difficult at that current moment. We all must continue to learn how to simply breathe during times of adversity and to not jump to conclusions and be subject to the “sky is falling” and the “world is ending” state of mind that each and every one of us can easily fall into if we do not have our spiritual and mental state of being intact. The spiritual relationship that we all have with the Most High is and will always be what is most important to us; regardless of our most pertinent and most difficult current situations in our life that we may find ourselves in.

Peace and Blessings.

-GP