Before the Revamp

The Era of Paper Promises

There was a time — not too long ago — when people paid for the idea of safety.

Each month, they signed away pieces of their income to unseen corporations in exchange for the hope that, if sickness struck, they wouldn’t lose everything.

But that hope was paper-thin.

They called it “insurance,” but it insured nothing except profit.

People lived in fear of their own bodies — terrified of a cough that lingered too long, an ache that meant time off work, or a diagnosis that could turn into debt overnight.

Even those with “good coverage” felt the pinch: premiums, copays, deductibles — a pyramid of payments that never seemed to end.

Doctors wanted to heal, but they were bound by codes, quotas, and billing systems written by men in suits who never set foot in a hospital room.

The healers became clerks, the sick became customers, and the system — a machine that fed on both.

It was called modern medicine.

But really, it was a ritual of survival in a world that forgot what wellness meant.

People stayed in jobs that broke their spirits just to keep their “benefits.”

They compared coverage plans instead of comparing lives.

And the cruelest part? They were told it was normal — that this was just how things worked.

A society so advanced it could map the human genome, yet couldn’t guarantee that a child could see a doctor without bankrupting their parents.

So much wealth. So much technology. So little compassion.

But all systems built on imbalance eventually collapse.

And so, when the world began to reimagine its foundations — when “essentials came first” — this was one of the first structures to fall.

Out of the ashes of paper promises came a new framework: Living Health Accounts.

No more middlemen. No more gatekeeping. No more fear of your own wellbeing.

People began to see health as part of their birthright, not their budget.

The healers were freed to practice healing again.

The sick were treated as whole, not profitable.

And for the first time in centuries, wellness became wealth.

This reflection comes from the world introduced in my book — a place reborn under the principle that essentials come first. Each entry stands as both a memory and a message from that reimagined era.