life, family, the world, wealthbuilding and the pursuit of happiness

Jun 5, 2008

Multumesc May!

If this is your first visit to brip blap, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed and visit my about page. Feel free to send me an email by clicking here, too.

Bonus linguistics points: what language is “multumesc”? Hint: I had many, many tuicas there. The picture below is from a brutal-yet-beautiful monument in that country:

Romania People's Palace view

As usual, I have a few thanks to distribute to everyone who made brip blap something I look forward to working on this month. I also have a thought, and a quote. First, the thought: I was talking to a fellow consultant today… the Fortune single-digits company I’m consulting for now has a plague of consultants, and we all tend to flock together. His point was this: he had fallen into consulting a few years ago by accident, but with 2 kids in their 20s he saw little incentive for change: consulting covered a couple of trips a year to a place with sand, the house was almost paid off, and the cars were paid off, too. I thought about it a bit and said, yeah, there’s a goal. Not everyone needs to be a billionaire; sometimes it’s enough to aim for paid off house, paid off cars and a decent consulting gig that covers the extravagant vacation 2-3 times a year. This guy’s cool with the fact that he has to work for his fun, but not for his necessities. Maybe that’s the key.

Second, the quote, from a sportswriter for Sports Illustrated, Peter King. He’s very, very well known if you follow the NFL, and probably completely unknown if you don’t. He’s a good writer - I read him when he’s writing about things I could care less about, simply because of how well he writes. He had this gem today in a column. He was answering a question from a reader: Don’t read the full article unless you care about pro football - this quote is the main point:

LIFE IS GOOD. From Sage Tweedie-Yates, of Denver: “How do you find time for everything? You travel, do TV, research articles, coach softball, watch TV shows, and in your ‘off-time’ write well-thought-out articles for one of the biggest magazines around. Not to mention it sounds like you spend a fair amount of time with your family. I am 27 and am supposed to still have limitless energy, but after my fulltime job, taking care of the house, the wife, and my puppy, I can still barely find time to do simple things like the laundry and grocery shopping. In addition, at the end of the day I am exhausted! What is your secret and do you ever have time for Peter King?”

Peter’s response: Sage, come on. I’m blushing. I don’t know. I just try to do lots of things that are fun to me, and do them with enthusiasm. If a person can’t enjoy doing the jobs I have, and doing the family and recreational stuff I do in my leisure time, then there’s something wrong.

If that doesn’t sum it up, what does? Could someone please, please, please slap me a few times and tell me to stop doing something I don’t like and start doing something I do? I am begging you. I have moments where I enjoy my work but reading things like this make me think that there HAS to be something better out there.

Anyway.

Top Commentators for May: the people who churn the butter:
Dividend Growth Investor
Curmudgeon
deepali
FFB
Four Pillars
AJC @ 7million7years
Hunter Nuttall
Writer’s Coin
Ron@TheWisdomJournal
Mrs. Micah

Top Referring Sites for May: the people who send the foot traffic:

Generation X Finance
Million Dollar Journey
Smart Spending
Lifehacker
Lazy Man and Money
The Digerati Life
The Simple Dollar
Quest for Four Pillars
Moolanomy
My Dollar Plan

Don’t forget about the next edition of the Carnival of Careers: it’s a weekly thing, baby, yeah! Anything related to work is fair game. Akemi from Yes-To-Me asked if entrepreneurial articles were OK, and I said of course they were. One of the ugly truths about the idea of careers is that a career requires an employer. If you’re self-employed, does that mean you don’t have a career? Of course not! I’ll let you in on an ugly secret: most of us non-business-owners LOVE hearing stories about entrepreneurialism. Let’s go for it, people. Submit by clicking on the image!

Plus, I’ll be hosting it this time but next time it’s moving to a new blog! If you’re interested in hosting, send me an email at bripblap in the gmail.com place. Amongst other things I’d love to see other people host simply so I can submit, too! :)

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Viewing 9 Comments

    • ^
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    Thanks for the link!

    Mike
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    • v
    Brip Blap,

    I am glad that I was the biggest talker on the block. Isn't MultiMesc in Russian?
    • ^
    • v
    So, multumesc means "thank you" in Romanian and tuicas is "plum brandy." Thank you, Google! I sense the angst in your writing today (no, angst was yesterday, wasn't it?) and would like to urge you to take a deep breath and look around at what you have. Sure, we'd all like to have that fabulous job that we'd do even if we didn't get paid, and we'd all like to have the time and means to travel. I hope you get it, but not everyone does--not even close to everyone. But from reading your blog, it certainly sounds like you have a lot and, not to sound too Pollyanna-ish, it's good to think about the things you have instead of the things you don't. But I think you know that already.
    • ^
    • v
    Thank you for the mention.
    The article I submitted for this week is just that -- "If I have to work for an idiot. . ." I think many of us are so conditioned to think in the box of "career -- job -- find employer -- paycheck" but entrepreneurship is just out there within reach.
    • ^
    • v
    Seems like you are searching for the meaning of life. Lately, it appears your articles have been dedicated to a bit of soul searching. I've found them quite interesting. Many of the personal finance blogs I read deal with very specific "financial" topics that I cannot or do not want to understand. But with yours lately I can really relate. I too find myself wondering if all this saving, frugality, blah, blah, blah is really worth it. Lately I have been trying to find a balance between all of it and enjoying life to the fullest.

    My greatest question is enjoy it now or enjoy it later!! Personnaly, I would rather be playing golf 3 times a week now (while I am in my mid 30's) versus playing 3 times a week when I am 65. However, having a young family doesn't allow this anyway - so I have accepted the fact time has become my most important factor. I would rather spend time with my wife, 2 year old son, and 4 year old daughter than be on the golf course. Besides, my daughter helps me bargain grocery shop!!

    Best of luck and I hope you find that Holy Grail.....

    Eric
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    Ok, so I am not into NFL news and I don't know Peter King, but I bet he doesn't spend his time taking care of chores: doing laundry, cooking, cleaning, going grocery shopping, taking car to a repair-shop, taking his shirts to dry-cleaner, etc.... you get the point. Sometimes we don't realize how much time is spent on petty but necessary day-to-day tasks. Imagine how much free time you suddenly would have if you didn't have to do all those things. Sometimes I wonder how Angelina Jolie can manage 6 kids: does she feed them, bath them, wake up at night when they have nightmares or when they are sick with fever??
    • ^
    • v
    Thanks for all of the insights. I have one that I found recently that I'd like to share.
    James Ray said, “If your not growing, you’re dying.” Six simple words that I really needed to hear. I guess it was because I was complaining to my friend that I just wasn't feeling stimulated enough. It wasn't as if I was doing anything "bad" in my life, so I was not sure why I was not feeling right. After learning this idea, I realized that "staying at even par" is not enough. That bad feeling was because by not growing, I was staying in the same place, just plodding along towards my death in a way. Doing nothing has negative consequences. But if I was to start growing, I would be moving my life forward, expanding it into something much more exciting! That’s what living is all about.
    After I finished reading Harmonic Wealth, I realized I needed to commit myself to a lifetime of learning – it did not end when I threw my graduation cap in the air. Check it out for yourself… (Link) By the way, the Spanish classes I singed up for are going great :)


    Here’s the link to the website where I bought the book: harmonicwealth.com/read
    • ^
    • v
    Mmmm...butter. Glad I could help make some!

    Don't tell anyone, shhh, but I tend to blog at work! Shhh. I find I enjoy putting energy into bogging much more than my work. No way am I ready to be a full-time blogger but it would be fun. Work for me pays the bills and puts money in retirement but I think I want more too. Doesn't have to be lifestyles of the rich and famous just time to spend with the family having fun. Your questions lately have definitely been resonating with me. Been thinking of what kind of business I could create. Wish I had the answer though.

    Thanks for keeping the flame alive though!
    • ^
    • v
    I have to second the Peter King observation.

    I need slapped too. 3 years as a consultant with all the usual bonuses...mind numbness, loss of IQ points, feeling of uselessness, feeling that you have read the entire internet, etc.
 

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