Book 2
'Create Your Own'
A collection by MoneyBear
'Create Your Own' is a statement.
The decision to ignore what you have been told is possible and build the life you actually want.
Every project is a story. Every painting is a chapter. This is not a catalogue - it's a book.
Chapter 1.
"Know where I'm from"
“Your roots do not determine your ceiling.”
This is the opening statement. A declaration that knowing where you come from is the foundation for deciding where you are going. It is a self portrait of me wearing headphones, surrounded by flowers and butterflies - music as the escape, art as the truth. All my life I was told which way to go. But I've made my own choice and this painting is the start of that journey.
I’ve always had big dreams and set goals that everyone around me called impossible. Not because I was naïve - but because I genuinely believed I could achieve them. My friends, my family, my teachers - they all told me the same thing. “Everyone has those dreams. No one actually gets there. Just get a normal job. Start living in the real world.”
This is not a painting about where I am. It is a statement about where I am going. Chapter 1 sets the tone for everything that follows. This is me choosing - on a canvas, in front of anyone who sees it - to create the life I actually want. Not the one I was handed. If my story finds someone who feels the same way - who has been told their dreams are too big - then this painting has done exactly what it was made to do.
"I just wanna paint what I feel... and hope people get inspired from it... 'cause in my opinion that's real."
But something in me refused to accept that. I looked around and saw a life that had been pre-built for me - and I knew that wasn’t the life I wanted to live. The flowers and butterflies in this painting represent new life, rebirth, and transformation.
"Me and 2 of my friends wrote and performed this song... a way for me to tell my story in a medium we love.
It was just a bit of fun for us."
Own This Chapter
This is where the story begins. One original exists. Only three prints will ever be made.
Chapter 2.
"Cards we are dealt"
“Time is our real currency.”
Not money. Money is renewable - lose it and you can make it back. Time is not. Once it’s spent, it’s gone forever. How are you spending yours?
Four paintings. Four suits. Four ways we spend our time - Money, Conflict, Environment, Love. Hidden inside every canvas is the concept of time itself. The four aces that live with the originals, standing alone but read together, carry the message: "Life is a game. These are the cards we are dealt. It is our time that we are gambling. How are you spending yours?"
Painting 1/4.
Diamonds - Money
“I may be broke now, but I’ve got a rich mindset.”
“Money isn’t everything,
so why on earth does everything need money?
Everyone blind by it, tryna chase it.
But more grind can’t fix a bad spending habit.
My mentor taught it...
‘Wealth is the slave of a wise man, but the master of a fool.’
Use it as a tool,
or learn how it will abuse you,
that’s the number 1 rule.
You have the power to earn it,
so never stand begging for it.
I may be broke now, but I’ve got a rich mindset."
"We don't earn money, we spend time... the question isn't how much you earn, it's how much of your life it costs."
..."The rich don't work for money. They work to build systems that will create money for their future selves."
You should never get paid by the hour. Money is a renewable resource, but time isn't. When you spend or lose money, you can always make it back. But with time, you can't. So why are we taught to trade time for money? It makes no sense to me. There's nothing wrong with having a normal job - the world needs those people. But my message is not for those people. My message is for the people who want to be rich, because getting paid hourly will never make you rich...
Painting 2/4.
Spades - Conflict
“Avoiding the conflict to keep the peace, will start a war inside yourself.”
“We have beliefs in our cores,
so we clash when we hear yours.
But I’m so sick of this back and forth Always trying to write an argument piece.
Sometimes I think it’s easier to stay quiet and keep my health.
But avoiding the conflict to keep the piece, will start a war inside yourself.
And why do we fight?
it’s a fire we ignite with no foresight,
over a barrel staring down the headlight of a sport driven by spite.
It’s just an invite to play feral,
and where’s the ref?
wars don’t determine who is right,
only who is left.”
Conflict has always been integrated into our lives... from the battlefield all the way to the inner conflicts we fight within ourselves. There's always two sides to the story, but both sides believe they are right... we shouldn't fight to determine who is right, but more learn how to live alongside one another. How much time do you spend battling with yourself or others?
"Conquer yourself rather than the world..."
So many disagreements come from a war that's burning within. But we avoid the conflict with ourselves and find it easier to blame everyone else. Only when we change our inner world will our outer world begin to change.
Painting 3/4.
Clubs - Environment
“The earth is what we all have in common”
“The earth is what we all have in common, so why is caring for our home such a problem?
If we cannot sustain the environment, we cannot sustain ourselves.
We’ve made a habit of trying to own our habitat,
we can call it our own but it’s just a planet that we inhabit.
We must all nurture it plus care for it and not destroy it.
It was nature that made us and helped us feed,
earth provides enough to satisy every man’s need,
but not every man’s greed.”
We think we have time. The environment... our money... our health... our lives... we don't. The best time was 10 years ago. 10 years from from now the best time is today. So start caring for what you've got. Or you might just lose it.
This painting is about the habit we've made of thinking we have time. We already crossed the 1.5 degree limit in 2024. The damage is compounding now - not later. The same way debt compounds. The same way doing nothing compounds. Compound interest works both ways...
... "Do the work now and it grows. Do nothing now and the damage grows."
Painting 4/4.
Hearts - Love
“Go with all your heart ‘cause I put mine in this art”
"Why do i make decisions with my head, when i feel it in my heart?
if i don’t listen to the beat in my chest then i might as well be dead.
Go with all your heart ‘cause I put mine in this art,
for the red that i bleed on this canvas will be thicker,
a smile hides a thousand tears and a ticker that’s been torn apart.
I thought we were on the same page,
your love was not a home, but a cage.
Now I’m doing better solo and without you. It hurt but you helped me to grow.
one day you’re going to remember me, and how much i loved you...
then you’re going to hate yourself for letting me go.”
Most people look for the right person, instead of looking at themselves and making changes.
"You shouldn't chase. You should become someone people can't ignore."
A heart broken enough times starts to close. But you have a heart - it would be a waste not to use it. In order to gain something, you must give something. So go with all your heart.
Love can bring the most joy and the worst pain. Relationships don't cost money. They cost something worth more... your time.
Every playing card has two sides. So does every truth. Every card in this collection works the same way. The positive and the negative. The hope and the consequence. Two truths in the same painting. Because that's how life works...
..."What you see depends entirely on which way you're looking at it."
Own This Chapter
Four paintings. One complete set. This chapter is only available as a whole.
Chapter 3.
"The 1% Club"
“If you only see the surface, look again.”
99% of the work the 1% do is never seen.
The effort, the sacrifice, the hours no one witnesses - that is what seperates the people at the top from everyone else. Not Luck. Not connections. The invisible work. This painting is for everyone who has done that work. Who has built in silence. Who knows exactly what it costs to get to where they are.
"There is always more beneath the surface."
We live in a world obsessed with what's visible. Social media. Status. Appearances. Everyone performing the highlight reel while the real story - the struggle, the sacrifice, the 3am decisions - stays hidden.
This painting was built on that truth.
Look at it. On the surface - white squares. Clean. Simple. Innocent. Pure. Almost nothing.
But peel back a corner.
Underneath is colour, chaos, energy - a whole world that was there the entire time, compleley invisible until you looked closer.
"That's people. That's success. That's life."
There is more to this painting than what you can see... the full story lives with the original.
"Don't judge a book by it's cover."
You've heard it your whole life. But have you ever actually looked at the people around you and wondered what's really going on underneath?
The surface is rarely the truth. The person who looks like they have everything figured out is fighting battles no one can see. The person who appears ordinary is building something extraordinary in silence. The person at the top didn't get there by luck - they got there through years of work nobody witnessed.
Own This Chapter
The surface is just the beginning. One original. Three prints. That's all there will ever be.
Chapter 4.
"Expensive Taste"
“I didn’t argue, I painted it.”
Since I was eight years old, I told my family I’d have a Lamborghini, a yacht, a private jet...
They called it expensive taste - like it was a flaw. Something to be embarrassed about. Something to grow out of.
But I learned early that quality lasts. That buying cheap costs more in the end. And my mentor taught me something I’ve never forgotten - greed is not a bad thing, as long as you don’t take from or harm anyone else.
So why wouldn’t you want the best for yourself? This is the only life you are ever going to have. Why not live it exactly as you want?
You probably know that feeling.
The moment you said what you actually wanted and watched someone's face change. The way people dress up their own limitations as concern for you. "Be realistic. Be grateful for what you have. People like us don't live like that."
I've heard it my whole life.
Wanting the best for yourself is not a character flaw. Ambition is not arrogance. Having expensive taste simply means you refuse to settle for less than what you know is possible. And for the people who told you to shrink your vision? They settled. And now they're uncomfortable watching you refuse to.
"This painting is my answer to everyone who ever said that vision was too much."
Own This Chapter
One original. Three prints. Once they're gone, this chapter closes.
Chapter 5.
"Build a Garden"
“You either chase, or attract what you want...”
You can build a net - swing harder, move faster, optimise every angle. But the moment you stop swinging, you stop catching. And the harder you chase, the further away it flies.
Or you can build a garden.
A garden attracts without chasing. It works without you. It grows while you sleep. The butterflies come to you.
A garden doesn't chase, it attracts. You plant it once - with intention, with patience, with the boring unglamorous work of preparing soil no one sees. It doesn't happen over night. You have to go through all the seasons. You have to trust it is growing slowly out of sight. And then one day, in the summer season, it's time to harvest what you planted a long time ago. The butterflies come to you, not because you ran faster than them, but because you built something worth landing on.
This is the part most people are never taught. We're handed a net at birth and told it's the only tool that exists - get a job, work hard, trade your hours for your wage, repeat until you retire. No one hands you a seed and says: 'this is the other option, it just takes longer to bloom'. You have to find that out for yourself, usually the hard way, usually after years of swinging at something that keeps getting away from you.
This painting is for the ones who found it. Or who didn't stop swinging until they did.
Money was never the goal. It's just what grows in a well built garden. The net catches money.
Most people spend their whole lives swinging. They: move faster, say yes to more, work weekends, work evenings, optimise every hour until there's nothing left to optimise. It works - and you'll catch some - and this is where most people start. Everyone who's ever built anything from nothing knows this stage. You have to swing at the start.
But what no one tells you is 'there's no version of this method that lets you rest'. Stop moving and the income stops with you. That's not freedom. That's just a busier version of the job you were trying to escape. And the harder you chase - the more hours, the more hustle, the more grind - the further the thing you actually want seems to fly. Because...
...The net gives you neither.
... "what you wanted was never the money. It was the freedom the money was supposed to buy you"...
"The garden catches freedom - and money follows".
Own This Chapter
Art is my garden... and I hope it will inspire people along the way.
