Success & Motivation - 2009
blogmaverick.com
blogmaverick.com
Don't just recognize it's ok, recognize it's pretty damn awesome. Including my car (which has been paid off for at least a year), I don't have $20,000 worth of possessions, period. And that figure is based on what I originally paid for my stuff. Most people have cars more expensive than all my worldly possessions combined. That feels really good.
And what's more, I don't want anything else. This lifestyle is incredibly liberating, unless of course you have a family, in which case this article doesn't remotely apply to you anyway. Bottom line: the less you have to lose, the more you can risk.
"It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything."
It might more than you give it credit for. I realize, though, that it is socially a faux pas to not provide that caveat. I know I've been called out once or twice for not condemning risk taking in the context of a family.
That being said, having a family doesn't require that you start hoarding possessions. It does mean increased expenses, and increased responsibility, and probably not being able to live analogously to a student. But a couple I and my wife are close friends with do not own much more in the way of possessions, and are with two kids with a third on the way. It meant that when one of them became unemployed, it wasn't a huge deal even with the kids, due to the financial position that frugality created for them.
I think even people with families could take something from this article, even if it isn't with the same gung-ho intensity someone who is bachelor might.
I'm especially annoyed by this point: "In this type of economy getting a job is tough if not often impossible." This flies in the face of the rest of his thesis of point 2, which is to go try many different jobs until you find the one that is right for you. I don't see how these two behaviors can coexist unless you are becoming the waiter at your own restaurant, launderer at your own cleaning storefront, freelance door to door vacuum cleaner sales man, and a night janitor for each of these, all in a nine-to-twelve month period.
And then the usual nod to "this kind of economy," which has some amount of truth as a compounding risk factor, but has become the universal justification for refusing to change anything.
But, within the platitudes, there are some good ideas.
If you are after flexibility, then, as much as you can, live like a student. He's not the only one to say this, but it is true. Doing that will increase the rate you are saving money; enough of doing that, pretty much anything, including going income-less for a while, doesn't seem that irresponsible anymore.
"If you love what you do so much that you are willing to continue to live like a student in order to be able to stay in the job, you have found your calling." Maybe, but don't undersell yourself, either. What you provide has value which you should get some benefit from, regardless of how good you might be at rationalizing.
Finally, I disagree that everyone is a poor judge of their own abilities, and especially that everyone will overestimate. Plenty of people are, granted, but not so many I think a blanket generalization is warranted.
I sent this post to my younger sister who just graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in Industrial Design (I got to hear Larry Page speak at her commencement :-D), got engaged and moved to North Carolina without a job.
I bookmarked it for myself for when I feel like complaining.
Funny. Every time I read that, I feel better. I must be stressing too much over little things.
"You don’t have to be right everytime. You just have to be right one time."
Interesting. Kinda makes me want to try more things. The more darts I throw, the sooner (probably) I'll hit the bullseye.