Tag: happiness

the whole life sabbatical (part 3 of 3)


Creative Commons License photo credit: mistress_f

In part 1 of this three-part series I talked about walking away from various responsibilities in your life. In part 2 I talked about whether it would be easy to leave them. Now I’m going to bring it together with my thoughts on “walking away from it all.”Would it make you happier? In each area, it really depends on how happy you are now. Simply dropping a responsibility doesn’t make you happier. It can, however, free up enough time to allow you to pursue other activities that DO make you happy. I will argue this – almost no personal growth is possible without giving up something; without walking away from something else.

Work: For most people, this is the big one. I have a picture of a “workless” life and a picture of a “better work” life. I think most people say “oh, I couldn’t be happy without regular work, something to do, yada yada.” That’s not the case with me - I really get a lot of enjoyment out of learning and engaging in the regular business of day to day life. I’m not sure I need an avocation, per se. But I realize nobody is going to pay me to play with my kids all day every day, so I imagine “walking away from my work” ending up as walking into another job. I’d just like the hours to be flexible and more or less self-directed. But I do recognize this point: nobody will get a dream job, a dream career, the flexibility they’ve always desired without walking away from the one they have now. In order to achieve fulfillment in your work/career, you must be prepared to walk away from everything you have now.

Family: In the example I mentioned (should you take an infirm elderly relative into your home or support them by placing them in an elder care facility), it’s a tough choice people make all the time. My family has done so. You can’t ever abandon your family, but you do have to be able to let go and move on to develop other relationships. I see less of my brother than I did when I was younger and we lived together. I see less of my parents than I did when I lived at home. I even spend less time with my wife once we had a son, and now that we have a daughter, also, I have to spend less time with him. But each time when you take a little time away from someone, it doesn’t mean – or at least it doesn’t HAVE to mean – that you lose any of the strength of that relationship. In some ways it makes time you spend with those people even more intense, if you value them. By giving up time with one person you can grow your relationship with another – and it’s not a zero-sum game. I don’t love my brother or parents or wife or son any less as more people have been added to my family – if anything, it makes me appreciate everyone even more.

Finances: Walking away from your financial responsibilities is one of the best things you can do for yourself – unless you enjoy having a financial responsibility to your digital cable. Each time I’ve jettisoned a financial commitment it has not felt like a sacrifice – it’s felt like freedom. I have a long way to go, and some responsibilities are better than others: I don’t mind my mortgage because it allows me to keep my investments liquid and enjoy a pleasant home. But completing the lease on my car and buying the next one for cash, and ending that once-a-month reminder of money floating away was a source of huge satisfaction. Sometimes I think happiness can be defined more easily – on a financial basis – as the lack of things, rather than the possession of things. I will be wealthy, but I want that wealth to be expressed in a house and financial freedom and security for my family and travel and experiences, rather than in Wii’s.

Life: And finally, life. Can you walk away from your health? No. Can you walk away from other parts of your life? Yes: you can walk away from everything about your life that’s negative. How many people do you know who cling to failed relationships, or bad habits, or make themselves sick by living in unhealthy environments? Life is the one area you have to learn to walk away from. Don’t accept the idea that you have to have some misery in your life. Don’t accept “no pain, no gain.” There is gain without pain.

So what was I getting at with these posts? Too often I read about, and think about what I need to GET or ACQUIRE to achieve goals. Too often people think I NEED that to be happy, or I have an OBLIGATION to stay in this situation. Try not to think of life as a series of things you HAVE to do. These are not powerful words. Try to think of life as a series of experiences you WANT.

Identify what’s not working for you, and walk away from it – what are you waiting for, your next life?

follow the white rabbit to financial freedom

Trinity: Please just listen. I know why you’re here. I know what you’ve been doing… why you hardly sleep, why you live alone, and why night after night, you sit by your computer. You’re looking for him. I know because I was once looking for the same thing. And when I found him, he told me I wasn’t really looking for him. I was looking for an answer. It’s the question that drives us. It’s the question that brought you here. You know the question, reader, just as I did.

What is the secret to financial freedom?

If you are deeply in debt, or spending more than you earn to acquire stuff, you are living in a world that is less than what it could be. Corporations and consumer society have constructed an elaborate world that is filled with shiny things and toys and useless items. In this false world, you are told that true happiness comes with the acquisition of things, that your attention should be focused on today, that tomorrow will take care of itself. In this Matrix, it’s always Black Friday and it’s always the Presidents’ Day Sale.

Morpheus: What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad.

But just maybe, while making a call on your iPhone, driving your leased car wearing your latest fall fashions on your way to the mall on your one day off from your crushing commute and your boring job, you had a sudden thought. Maybe the world isn’t supposed to be like this. Maybe we weren’t all meant to be shopping units in the corporate world’s vast consumer Matrix. Maybe our happiness doesn’t come from owning CDs, or watching American Idol, or buying a Wii. Maybe there is another world - the real world - where your work and your life are one and the same because you love them both, where you can do what you want, when you want, where you have time to give to people and experiences, not just to commuting and working for a faceless employer. No, it’s not possible. Your neighbors look like they are doing fine, and they have lots of stuff, right? This is how it has to be. This is how it has always been.

Morpheus: I’m trying to free your mind. But I can only show you the door. You’re the one that has to walk through it. There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.

Maybe you’ve started reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad or Dave Ramsey or Your Money or Your Life. Other people are trying to show you the way out. The trouble is, you set down the book and remember “I need a new belt! I want to rent “Wild Hogs”!” Only you will start the journey out of the Matrix, and it will be difficult - there will be roadblocks everywhere: pricey restaurants, bigger homes, newer cars, fancier cell phones. The Matrix will do everything it can to keep you, because its existence depends on your continued function as a shopping unit. Without shopping units to generate power, the consumer Matrix will weaken. You have to stop, today. Put down your credit card. Stay away from the store. Cook a meal at home. Turn off the TV.

Neo: Why do my eyes hurt?
Morpheus: You’ve never used them before.


When you finally leave the consumer world, you’ll notice that your old behavior is now awful to consider. You’ll see credit card debt, still-functioning cell phones gathering dust in cabinet drawers, barely-worn clothes in the back of the closet, half-empty rooms never used in your house. Your eyes will hurt looking at all of this STUFF that you valued so much, because you never really SAW before.

Morpheus: Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?

The dream is the 9-to-5 world. The dream is a 3000 square foot home for a family of 4. The dream is a $400 per month car lease. The dream is an iPhone, a Wii, digital cable, the latest fashions. And the dream is a nightmare. You have to wake from that dream and realize that in the real world there is VERY little you need other than shelter, food, friends, family and basic clothing and entertainment. In the dream you have no time - but you can have all the time in the (real) world if you just wake up.

Neo: I know you’re out there. I can feel you now. I know that you’re afraid… afraid of us. You’re afraid of change. I don’t know the future. I didn’t come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell how it’s going to begin. I’m going to hang up this phone, and then show these people what you don’t want them to see. I’m going to show them a world without you. A world without rules or controls, borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.

(with many thanks to The Matrix)

4 quick steps to building wealth

1. Find something you can do well and (at least moderately) enjoy doing.*
2. Do it.**
3. Try to save some of the money you make doing it.***
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3.****

I think that may be it. What do you think?


Creative Commons License photo credit: woodleywonderworks

* Notice I didn’t use a phrase like “doing passionately” or “doing because you love it.” You don’t have to love it, but you have to enjoy doing it enough that it is not annoying to you. If you love helping people, maybe working as a nurse’s assistant is enjoyable. If you have a passion for music, maybe owning a record store would be fun. If you have a love of football, maybe being a sports writer is enough. You don’t have to be Brett Favre, always “having fun out there.”

**It helps, obviously, if you enjoy investment banking or building fantastic dot-com startups instead of making rag dolls for the neighborhood kids. However, I don’t think you can discount loving doing it. If you want to make rag dolls, figure out a way to get rich doing it. Launch a rag doll company, or write a how-to on the internet. Somebody got rich on Cabbage Patch Kids, after all.

***As I’ve pointed out before several times you’re always better off thinking of more ways to MAKE money than SPEND money. At the same time, UNLESS you are investing in your wealthbuilding (spending money to increase your skills or education or to grow a business, etc.) you’re better off spending no more than 99% of your income. The difference between spending 99% of your income and 101% of your income is the difference between getting richer and getting poorer, any way you look at it.

****I hope that the general theme of wealth and ‘becoming rich’ doesn’t always come off as a crass pursuit of one more dollar. I realize, for example, I might have made a lot more money continuing to claw up the corporate ladder, but I felt so drained and lifeless doing it that I had to quit (see step #1). I like the idea of doing something more-or-less enjoyable, while making money doing it. It may sound childish, but if you work hard at something that makes you miserable you have to wonder whether you’ll be able to continue doing it well enough to succeed. Something you like doing - even something you just TOLERATE doing - is a better option. If you become wealthy doing it, so much the better; life is easier when you have a little money in the bank.

happiness and links

I have a bit of cognitive dissonance when I hear that it’s still snowing in parts of these Americas. We’re already knee-deep in summer here, walking in shorts and t-shirts outside all the time. I know that climate isn’t the sole factor of happiness, but it does help greatly, in my opinion. On a related note, I’ve just finished reading The Happiness Project and it’s given me some good ideas on how to force happiness, rather than hoping it will come around. As someone who’s writing about the moody side of life – hence the name brip blap – I’d recommend this book as something that might be useful.

 

Links!

10 tips to avoid money worries

Man of concern


With joblessness still high, prices going up and a constant bombardment of bad news, everyone is worried about one thing: money. You don’t need money to be happy, but having money and watching it disappear doesn’t help your mood one bit.

I am a worrier. I have found that there are a few simple things that allow me to sleep a lot easier at night, though. Most of them are simple, and none of them require a tremendous amount of work - just a change in attitude or habits.

1. Set up an emergency fund.

Everyone should have an emergency fund. Even if you don’t think you need one, make sure you have at least a month or two of cash on hand at the bank. I recommend using HSBC or ING high-yield savings accounts for an emergency fund, because it takes a couple of days to withdraw money from each. Having money that’s easy to get to - but not TOO easy - will relieve a lot of short term stress. Don’t have an emergency fund? Even if you can only add another $10 to your fund, do it.

2. Consolidate your financial information in one place.

With free services like Mint.com and others all over the internet these days you can easily set up an account that gives you a quick “snapshot” of your financial health without logging in to 15 different sites. My bank uses Yodlee, which pulls in everything from my home’s value in Zillow to my retirement accounts to my credit cards. I don’t worry too much about net worth, but it’s still nice to be able to see it when I want to see it.

3. Pay down your debt.

I’ve seen a lot of complicated ways to go about this, but Robert Kiyosaki (of all people) has the best tip I’ve seen (and yes, it’s better than Dave Ramsey’s). If you have consumer debt, pick out an amount you can afford each month and apply it to your highest-rate debt (not your largest debt - the one with the highest interest rate) using some sort of autopay if you have it. Repeat every month until it’s gone, but this way you can forget about it and focus on your career or your business.

4. Put as many bills on autopay as possible.

Almost every bank has an online presence now. Mine lets you “pull” your credit card information straight into your bank account, so you can see all the bills lined up in one place. Paying them can be as easy as setting the autopay up to be a certain amount each month - and then forgetting about it! If you’re still writing checks and mailing them in, you’re creating a lot of worry that you don’t need!

5. Consolidate your accounts.

I wrote a guest post about this a long time ago, but it’s still true. I used to have a dozen credit cards, checking accounts at multiple banks and IRAs and other investment accounts scattered everywhere. Don’t use an account more than once a month? Consolidate! Most banks and brokerages will be happy to help you consolidate your accounts, so pick the ones that offer the most benefits to you and get started consolidating.

6. Clean up your insurance.

I had rental car insurance built into my auto insurance for a couple of years after I bought a second car. The chance I would need insurance for a rental was minimal. Money down the drain! Review your insurance policies and make sure you aren’t paying for things you don’t need.

7. Stop checking your retirement plan information.

If you have a reasonable plan set up, and you’re confident about the long-term prospects of your plan then there’s no reason - none at all - to check the value of your retirement plan more than 3-4 times per year. The money in an IRA or 401(k) is meant to be used when you’ll be in your 60s or later.

8. Set up targeted accounts.

Even though I advocated consolidating accounts above, having separate-purpose or targeted “sub-accounts” within a single account can be helpful. Many of the high-yield savings accounts are good for this purpose. For example, we have a separate “vacation account” that we put a small amount into each month, simply so we can forget about that money.

9. Overwithhold on taxes.

This strategy’s been debated for years - is it better to give the government a loan or not have the shock of an additional payment at the end of the year? Good tax planning can probably get you closer to zero, but overwithholding a bit can help you avoid nasty surprises.

10. Consider alternatives, but after considering - forget.

Study alternatives, investigate, consider, but then decide and once you’ve decided, forget about the alternatives you didn’t choose. Once you’ve chosen one path, sitting around worrying about what might have been is pointless and unproductive. Don’t fight yesterday’s battles - move forward to the next challenge!

photo credit: Lisa Brewster

green acres 2011

Steve’s note:  This is an older post I decided to drag out, simply because it’s quite amazing for me to read my mindset, about a year before we pulled up stakes and left New York City for a small town in the South… and perhaps it’s a good case lesson in why you shouldn’t be so sure about what you think you’re sure about…

Remember, this is all written late 2007 – the real estate bubble has popped but the financial crisis is yet to come.

This past weekend I took the Brip Blap crew (myself, Bubelah, Little Buddy and almost-out-and-about baby #2) on a drive over to Queens to a birthday party for the daughter of Bubelah’s friend. This couple recently purchased a nice house in a nice neighborhood with nice schools and near to the epicenter of their ethnic community. The house was a fixer-upper when they bought it, so they had to put in some substantial money to fixing it up. They have not yet finished doing so, and the total cost, to date, is over $1 million. Although that is in the almost-worthless-US-dollar, it is still a substantial amount of moolah.

Switch to a couple of days before that. Out of curiosity, I looked on Ye Olde Internet for real estate in a small town in Pennsylvania outside of Philadelphia that Bubelah and I have visited and really like. A house, finished in grand style similar to our friends’ house but far bigger with a substantially larger yard was listed for about $500,000. Bigger house, bigger yard, all finished (no fixing up really necessary) for half as much – and probably half the property taxes, too.

Switch to years earlier and swoop down South to the ancestral estates of the Brip Blap family, sprawling across 3 acres of land in the Deep South. My parents have vacated their home in the South to move closer to my brother’s family (and closer to mine, as well). Their Deep South house – which I am sure they will not mind me referring to as “stylistically dated” (but a very nice home) – is a little smaller than the Pennsylvania and Queens houses, but on a huge lot with practically no property taxes. It might sell for about 15% of the cost of the Queens house. 

So where do you draw the line? I know I could move to Kansas (no offense, Kansanians, I pick on Kansas because of the free land being offered there) and build Neverland II for what a decent-sized single family house would cost in Queens OR a 650-sq foot studio in Manhattan. Bubelah and I have often toyed with the idea of moving to Florida, a place we both like a lot, as well, and I am sure real estate on the beach is a lot more affordable today than it was two years ago. I used to joke about moving to Portugal, but I suspect with the dollar’s value where it is that wouldn’t be much of a bargain.

I think it says something about your core values if you choose to spend big on a place to live. I know there is a point at which we all draw the line, because I don’t see huge numbers of bloggers from the Soft Coasts moving to the heartland, nor vice-versa. Our friends in Queens spent big because they feel THAT IS IT. The home is in the midst of their community, near family, good neighborhood, schools, etc. etc. They have planted their flag, and staked their financial future to it; they will not have financial freedom in the next 10 years (or 30). But they are happy with that decision.

My point? I know financial freedom is not my #1 goal when I analyze it in this context. Bubelah and I could move to my parents’ home in the South and neither of us would need to work at a day job, starting tomorrow. With our various side-income producing ventures, given a little growth, we could probably support most of our needs. The schools are fine (I’m a product of them, and I think I can do sums and read a comic strip as well as the next person). But we won’t do it: family, climate, etc. enter into it but the kicker is really that neither of us can imagine living in a small town anymore. But this does mean, then, that our number one value is not financial freedom, as I often like to say it is. Our number one value may be family, or a more liberal big-city atmosphere, or the ability to eat Turkish cuisine frequently (best.food.ever) – but whatever our #1 value is, it is not financial freedom. So for now, no green acres!

But then… farewell new jersey…

how to take time off from work

I remember about two years ago when a fellow consultant expressed amazement that I was planning to take a Thursday off - after having taken Monday off. He couldn’t understand how I was able to afford to take two days off in an average week - let alone two weeks before I planned on going on vacation.

The simple truth is that I have certain rules that, if anyone follows them, makes taking time off a snap. I have five, off the top of my head:

1. Pay yourself first. I save money every month before it hits our bank account. It’s gone and saved before I even realize it exists. That makes digging into savings tricky. It also means that I’m not worried about grubbing for a dollar at the end of the year.

2. Consider whether you need it. Bubelah and I make dopey purchases - we are not ultra frugal. At the same time, we do not buy useless things on a regular basis. It doesn’t take much - try not buying overpromoted fashion and consumer electronics for a while and voila, savings. A little time off is worth passing on the XBox, isn’t it?

3. Pay in cash. I use a credit card, for the sake of cash back bonuses, but for all intents and purposes I pay cash; we wait until we have cash in hand to buy anything. I mean anything. I paid cash for a new Honda minivan two years ago. I paid cash for new rechargeable batteries last week. We don’t buy anything without the means to pay for it. We never have to worry about the upcoming credit card bill.

4. Diversify your income. I blog, and I work on a couple of other income streams. My “other” streams make up maybe 5% of my income, but at the same time that means I’m making 105% of what I would be making on consulting income alone. Better than nothing, I think. But that 5% away from work means I can take 5% off my normal work and still come out even, right?

5. Pick your battles. I have never understood people who won’t take off a beautiful day in summer. Listen, 20 years from now that extra $100 for a day’s work won’t make a difference. A day in the sun making a stab at accomplishing that wee bitty thing called life will be worth it. Maybe it’s better to stay late in the office in February and ditch in summer.

I feel sorry for so many of the employees and consultants I see around me who will complain about “needing” to work one minute and then about their new plasma TV the next minute. Not because I think they made a bad choice - because it’s not my place to judge - but because they seem unhappy with their choices. Nobody is ever happy trading their time for crap. Put yourself in a position where you can forgo money for time and you’ll be a happier person.

The Perfect Salary for Happiness

Maybe you’ve already heard. But for those who need a recap, a recent Wall Street Journal article has brought the nations’ attention to some buzz-generating findings from a Gallup survey about the economy. Princeton economist Angus Deaton and psychologist Daniel Kahneman have interpreted Americans’ responses to the survey and have found that there is a threshold, above which, money no longer contributes to “day-to-day contentment.”

The magic number: yearly earnings of $75,000.

That’s right. The emotional well-being of one who makes less than $75,000 a year rises with all gains in income, but for those who earn more, there is no change. Thus, this survey suggests there is a ceiling at which money no longer adds to daily happiness. However, there was no plateau found with regards to what the researchers called “overall life assessment,” or “broader satisfaction with one’s place in the world.” It’s still apparently true that the more money one earns, the better they feel about life in general.

What it says about us

This income plateau concept makes for some pretty interesting social commentary. Essentially, the survey seems to indicate that money, after a certain point, matters only in the larger scheme of things. Once one reaches a certain point where bills, rent, and mouths to feed are no longer an issue, then money does not add or subtract to or from one’s daily contentment.

But doesn’t that fly in face of our consumer mindset? What about the prevalent (predominant) culture of the impulse buy? The world in which weekends are spent perusing dinette sets at Pottery Barn or trying on clothes at Macy’s rather than spending time with our loved ones or going for a walk on a sunny day. Advertisements tell us to buy, Buy, BUY to look better, fit in, and feel better about ourselves. So logically if you have more money you can buy more things and feel more of that instantaneous buyer’s rush, you’ll be happier in the short-term, correct?

Well, apparently, wrong. The study reveals what the Don Drapers of the world don’t want you to know. Buying things can’t ultimately make you feel better. It may provide a quick jolt of pleasure in owning something new, but that fleeting feeling barely registers a blip on that day’s happy radar.

What you can’t put a price tag on

In this humble writer’s opinion, day to day happiness is the result of living comfortably, of taking care of the things necessary to living for one’s self and one’s loved ones and taking care of them well, such as living in a decent enough house in a safe neighborhood, without too much worry for the future. Luxuries like fancy clothes, sports cars, and McMansions - on a daily basis, do not matter so much.

But take some time and reflect on your own priorities. What matters more - happiness in the moment or happiness in the larger scheme of things? Do the findings of Deaton and Kahneman illustrate that money does not buy happiness? Do you live like it does?

Joseph Gustav enjoys musing on topics related to the economy and employment as a guest blogger for Pounding the Pavement and Guide to Career Education.

how kids (can) make you poor

Raising a child can cost up to $250,000 - and that’s from a study done almost 20 years ago. That’s only the cost through high school - college is another problem entirely, unless you don’t plan on paying for your child’s education (and I don’t). Having a kid is expensive. Having a second is less expensive - hand-me-downs and shared costs can reduce the individual costs - but a larger family is going to cost a fortune. The simple fact is that you won’t become AS rich with kids.

I’ve seen the question of children play out a dozen different ways with friends and in my own life. My parents had kids (my brother and me) when they were barely out of their teenage years. I have friends who waited until they were almost 40 to have kids. One couple fervently and frequently insisted they would never have kids - and show no signs of changing their minds. In each case, the decision to have a child (or children) was deeply personal, and made for a number of reasons - but seldom considering the cost. The simple fact is that you’ll be better off financially without kids. Kids are expensive.

It’s a potentially sensitive topic … and most people don’t want to have that conversation. “Kids bring so much joy into your life!” “Kids are their own reward!” I’m biased - the cliches are all true. My son’s a supernova of energy, creative and amazingly verbal. My daughter’s charming and almost impossibly cheerful. They are joys. But to be realistic, I have to admit that because of them I will not be as wealthy as I could have been. I regret nothing, but I also understand that I’m going to have to work harder accumulating wealth than I would have without children.

So how do we plan to compensate? If you have kids, how can you avoid spending more than you need to? It’s not the nature of my blog to talk about ways to save money on Cheerios by buying the store brand - although you should. But I do have a few “big ideas”:

  1. I’m not paying for my kid’s PRIVATE college education. If Little Buddy or Pumpkin want to attend a private school, they’d better develop tennis skills or become world-class scholars. I’m not paying for Pumpkin to attend an Ivy. I’ll help, but if they can’t pay for a private college, they can go to a public university, just like Mama and Papa did. We did just fine.
  2. We will readjust our lives around their education early on, though. We moved to Florida to escape crappy public schools in Jersey, and made sure we landed in a school district considered one of the best in the state.
  3. I will strive to teach independence. This sounds stupid, but I have seen so many of my colleagues in corporate America talking about their mid-20 (or even mid-30) year old children living at home. I know I can talk big now, but I left home at 18 and my children will too. If they can’t afford a home, I’ll tell them to move to a cheaper locale. An unmarried 35-year-old living with their parents needs to experience life.
  4. We will resist consumerism. A couple of years ago, one of my neighbors bought one of those big car-battery powered cars - with a working FM radio - for their daughters. Little Buddy loved it. I was tempted to get him one. He didn’t, and doesn’t, need it. I have fallen victim again and again to the urge to buy toys. Sometimes it makes sense: I bought him a farm set that he plays with daily. Sometimes I fail: I have bought a half dozen balls (football, baseball, soccer) and he is utterly indifferent to all of them that don’t have Spiderman on them. But I see a sickness in most parents around me: the need to buy distractions. I struggle to remind myself that learning to pretend my wooden blocks were race cars taught me to IMAGINE things. My parents would have done me a disservice by buying me Leapfrog, or whatever the 70s equivalent was. Learning how to live with less - at least as far as toys - is a gift, not a burden.

But none of these cost-saving ideas can compensate for the fact that a childless couple (or a single person) will simply be much better off than a couple with kids. I won’t recommend one choice or the other, because it’s such a personal choice. But don’t let anyone tell you otherwise: in the short term, having kids is no big deal. You can afford formula, diapers, baby clothes. But in the long run, having kids will change your career choices, affect your ability to save and limit your choices about almost everything. Make sure you’re comfortable with the long-term cost before you take the leap.

how to develop good habits

A woman walked up to a little old man rocking in a chair on his porch.
“I couldn’t help noticing how happy you look,” she said. “What’s your secret for a long happy life?”
“I smoke three packs of cigarettes a day,” he said. “I also drink a case of whiskey a week, eat fatty foods, and never exercise.”
“That’s amazing,” the woman said. “How old are you?’
“Twenty-six,” he said.

For the sake of argument, let’s say that habits fall into two general categories: good habits and bad habits. A good habit is flossing every day. A bad habit is smoking. Some habits might fall somewhere in between, or depend on frequency. Flossing every day is a good habit. Flossing once per month isn’t a bad habit, exactly, but it’s not - strictly speaking - a good habit either. Eating a huge overcooked steak once a year is not a terribly bad habit. Eating one for breakfast every day is.

But let’s stick with good habits and bad habits, because most people can tell the difference and don’t need more distinction than that. Most of them can then be thrown into another three categories:

  1. habits you should break - debt, looking down on things, negativism
  2. habits you should take - wake up early, play outside, etc from when you were a kid
  3. habits you should make - positivity, frugality, love

We’ll call that break, take and make.

Break
In a sense, it is often a lot easier to identify a negative habit than a positive one. Overeating or smoking or playing too much Halo is usually a fairly easy pattern to spot. However, the habits that you need to break are often either very pleasurable (overeating for example), or arise from addiction (smoking), or are based on deeply ingrained behaviors (negative thinking). So how do you go about modifying bad habits? What are the methods for eliminating them from your life?

  • Stop. Sometimes a bad habit just needs to cease. If you smoke, stop - get some nicotine gum instead. If you watch 6 hours of TV per day, disconnect your cable. If you gossip, turn the subject to sports or politics or movies. This method is hard, and frankly almost never works - but sometimes it’s worth a shot.
  • Modify. If you drink Coke, try switching to diet Coke, or diet Sprite, or ginger ale, or seltzericon - or cycle through them in that order. You do not have to immediately stop a habit. Take baby steps. If you don’t exercise, don’t imagine that you will run a marathon the week after you start taking a 20-minute walk; but DO imagine that you’ll take a 25 minute walk the next week, then a 45 minute walk, then a 20 minute jog and then - who knows? That marathon might not be so far away after all!
  • Inhibit. In another post I wrote about using a rubber band to help stop negative thoughts. You can use this extremely simple tool very effectively. The purpose is not to injure you or create a fear of an action, but merely to jolt your awareness. I think this is probably the easiest yet almost the most effective way to halt any bad habit. It is one of those exceptionally simple methods that most people scoff at until they try it. Give it a shot.
  • Journal. I have plenty of bad habits, but I have seldom seen one that can withstand a brutally honest journal. If your habit to break is sweets, keep an extremely detailed sweets journal. When, where, what, how many calories, why you ate it (sad? bored?) and almost inevitably you’ll notice a decrease. Writing things down will help solidify the habit in your mind, and make you think twice before engaging in it, knowing you’ll have to record that incident in your journal.

Take
When you were a child, you woke up full of energy and excitement on Saturdays. The cartoons were on, it was the day you were allowed to eat Lucky Charms instead of something good for you, and you didn’t have to go to school. You didn’t know it at the time, but waking up early was a good habit. It kept you from wasting half the day sleeping, making it harder to fall asleep Saturday night. It meant that on your weekends you accomplished “maximum fun” and really squeezed as much into the day as you could. Where did that habit go? Some of it left because you got older… because work beat you down … because you just NEED that sleep. You don’t have to leave this good habit behind you in childhood, though. Reach back into your past and take back these good habits. Take back the habits of playtime, of reading, of avoiding things that didn’t directly contribute to your health and happiness. These are habits which are just day-to-day simple tasks that improve the quality of your life. Examples could include:

  • Making time for play
  • Learning about things because you’re curious
  • Questioning “the way it’s always been done”
  • Never learning to sit still

Here are the first steps to doing this:

  • Identify those habits:
  • Remember how they felt
  • Ask yourself if there’s any reason you couldn’t still do that
  • With a nod to Prince: act your shoe size, not your age

Make
If you have seen The Secret, or read any similar self-help book, you’ll realize that the power of positive thinking is a hot topic right now. It has been a hot topic for hundreds of years, in fact, and there’s a reason for it. It works. Having a mental habit like positive thinking is a snowball habit. The more you do it, the more powerful it becomes and makes it easier and easier to maintain as a habit. There are other key “make” habits like this:

  • Eating a healthy, natural diet
  • Spending time with family and friends by actually being there; no Blackberries, no agendas, and no pressure
  • Making time for meditation
  • Daydreaming
  • Being kind

So how do you make these habits? I’ll refer back again to The Secret, but it could just as easily come from the works of Benjamin Franklin or any self-help individual in-between. You can control your thoughts. There is very little else in this world that you can control the way you can control your thoughts. Use that power to your advantage. Tell your mind “this is a habit, this will be a ritual and we will keep it.” Imagine you have already been doing this habit for years. Imagine that it has made you happier, more fit, richer, calmer - whatever it is that you want. You really have to visualize it, write it down, draw it or otherwise make it a real image in your mind. You will be amazed at how quickly your mind adapts to a “new reality” once you order it to. A habit is not a set of chains or a gun pointed at your head. It is 100% the result of your mind, so only you - as the person in control - can change your mind and therefore the habit.

welcome to the real world

Trinity: Please just listen. I know why you’re here. I know what you’ve been doing… why you hardly sleep, why you live alone, and why night after night, you sit by your computer. You’re looking for him. I know because I was once looking for the same thing. And when I found him, he told me I wasn’t really looking for him. I was looking for an answer. It’s the question that drives us. It’s the question that brought you here. You know the question, reader, just as I did.

What is the secret to financial freedom?

If you are deeply in debt, or spending more than you earn to acquire stuff, you are living in a world that is less than what it could be. Corporations and consumer society have constructed an elaborate world that is filled with shiny things and toys and useless items. In this world, you are told that true happiness comes with the acquisition of things, that your attention should be focused on today, that tomorrow will take care of itself. In this Matrix, it’s always Black Friday and it’s always the Presidents’ Day Sale.

Morpheus: What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad.

But just maybe, while making a call on your iPhone, driving your leased car wearing your latest fall fashions on your way to the mall on your one day off from your crushing commute and your boring job, you had a sudden thought. Maybe the world isn’t supposed to be like this. Maybe we weren’t all meant to be shopping units in the corporate world’s vast consumer Matrix. Maybe our happiness doesn’t come from owning CDs, or watching American Idol, or buying a Wii. Maybe there is another world - the real world - where your work and your life are one and the same because you love them both, where you can do what you want, when you want, where you have time to give to people and experiences, not just to commuting and working for a faceless employer. No, it’s not possible. Your neighbors look like they are doing fine, and they have lots of stuff, right? This is how it has to be. This is how it has always been.

Morpheus: I’m trying to free your mind. But I can only show you the door. You’re the one that has to walk through it. There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.

Maybe you’ve started reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad or Dave Ramsey or Your Money or Your Life. Other people are trying to show you the way out. The trouble is, you set down the book and remember “I need a new belt! I want to see “Avatar” 8 times!” Only you will start the journey out of the Matrix, and it will be difficult - there will be roadblocks everywhere: pricey restaurants, bigger homes, newer cars, fancier cell phones. The Matrix will do everything it can to keep you, because its existence depends on your continued function as a shopping unit. Without shopping units to generate power, the consumer Matrix will weaken. You have to stop, today. Put down your credit card. Stay away from the store. Cook a meal at home. Turn off the TV. Try to earn income a different way.

Neo: Why do my eyes hurt?
Morpheus: You’ve never used them before.


When you finally leave the consumer world, you’ll notice that your old behavior is now awful to consider. You’ll see credit card debt, still-functioning cell phones gathering dust in cabinet drawers, barely-worn clothes in the back of the closet, half-empty rooms never used in your house. Your eyes will hurt looking at all of this STUFF that you valued so much, because you never really SAW before.

Morpheus: Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?

The dream is the 9-to-5 world. The dream is a 3000 square foot home for a family of 4. The dream is a $400 per month car lease. The dream is an iPhone, a Wii, digital cable, the latest fashions. And the dream is a nightmare. You have to wake from that dream and realize that in the real world there is VERY little you need other than shelter, food, friends, family and basic clothing and entertainment. In the dream you have no time - but you can have all the time in the (real) world if you just wake up.

Neo: I know you’re out there. I can feel you now. I know that you’re afraid… afraid of us. You’re afraid of change. I don’t know the future. I didn’t come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell how it’s going to begin. I’m going to hang up this phone, and then show these people what you don’t want them to see. I’m going to show them a world without you. A world without rules or controls, borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.

(with many thanks to The Matrix)

Originally posted back in 2007 or so - just thought I would run it for those who haven’t read it before. I know the Matrix references are already very dated, but hopefully everyone’s seen it.

wealth and intelligence


When most of us were younger, we were told to do well in school - make good grades, impress the teachers in order to get good recommendations, do extra credit. Scoring well on the ACT or SAT meant a lot. Proving that you were smarter than the average bear somehow indicated future success. Yet intelligence isn’t always a marker of success - at least success as measured by wealth. Wealth is not, of course, the only measure of success - far from it - but it is a measure accepted by our society as at least a general measure of overall success.

Intelligent people are often gripped by what I’d call (technically) “smart people stupids.” If you’re an intelligent person, it’s quite easy to imagine a variety of outcomes to any given set of circumstances. If A happens, then B or C or even D might occur. Wondering whether “slim chance event D” might occur can drive an intelligent person nuts - you might sit around wondering how you would deal with situation D; would reaction D.1.1 be appropriate, or D.1.2? How will this affect you 15 years from now?

Over the last ten years I’ve started to believe that intelligence - at least as far as the ability to imagine future events based on current circumstance - can be a crippling factor in the pursuit of wealth (and happiness). Someone who doesn’t have the ability to imagine positive outcome X may also be able to avoid thinking about negative outcome Y - and therefore be freed from worrying about the result of their actions. Worrying about the future is a heavy burden; not worrying about the future would be liberating for most of us.

I know people who don’t worry - like I do - about long-term wealth. They assume that they will have “made their nut” at some point - whenever they make it. Whether it’s the blissful ignorance of uncaring or fewer smarts I don’t know. I would assume that not worrying about the future is an overall net plus. It may put you into some pretty bad situations, but at least you won’t worry about the outcome.

I suspect that being intelligent and being wealthy will always be unrelated. Just because I can play the piano, for example, doesn’t make me smart or stupid. It just marks me as a good piano player. I don’t think wealth accumulation can be associated with intelligence for much the same reason - it’s a skill, just like musical ability, or sports ability, or the ability to learn and speak foreign languages. You can’t think your way into it - you have it or you don’t.

photo credit: swambo

(originally posted 3/09, in different form)
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