Excuses Excuses Excuses

Occasionally on my morning walks, I cross paths with an English lady out walking her dog. We enjoy chatting with one another about various random topics, so if we are heading in the same direction, we walk together for a few minutes. On this particular morning, she was quizzing me about the semester I spent in the United Kingdom as an undergraduate. I answered all her questions and told her my stories, reliving one of the more enjoyable experiences of my youth.

Then she asked a follow up question, “Do you think you will ever go back to England?”

My answer was a bit complex, but honest. My wife and I do want to return to the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, but planning such an adventure seems a bit more complex than it did 45 years ago. I don’t really enjoy driving all that much anymore. I would be up for a high end package tour offering a bus to carry me from a three or four star hotel to castles, cathedrals, or concerts and back again, but my wife doesn’t enjoy living on a schedule. She rather sleep, eat, and tour when and where the spirit moves her.

Then I had one of those moments of realization. I told my walking companion, “When we are young our excuse is, “I don’t have enough money.” When we are middle aged we say, “I don’t have the time.” When we are old, we tell ourselves that, “I don’t have the health or the energy to live out my dreams.” She was in total agreement with my observation.

Writing this post is hard as it is causing me to relive a variety of failures, disappointments, and regrets. Take a trivial example. I always want to ride a motorcycle. While my parents had control of my life, this was absolutely forbidden with an irrational level of hysteria. Well, to be fair, I was an only child and my father lost a friend in a motorcycle accident. When I was first out on my own, I didn’t have enough discretionary income to buy a motorcycle. A couple of years later, taking on the responsibilities of marriage certainly did not increase my financial flexibility. There was a point in time when I could easily afford to buy a late model used motorcycle, but I really didn’t have the time or an opportunity to learn this kind of skill. I was working full time, going to night school, attending church, practicing Tai Chi, and I was still married. It didn’t happen. Now at age 66, I question my vision, reflexes, and what my injured lower back might think about a motorcycle saddle. Now all I have is a regret, not a serious regret, but when I watch my neighbors riding off on Sunday mornings on their Harleys and their Hondas, I sigh.

There are times when it is better to listen to your dreams instead of your excuses. Balancing duty and obligations to others with your dreams of self actualization isn’t always easy, but then who ever said becoming an adult would be easy.

Even when you do it right, it won’t be perfect, but don’t fail to give life your best shot.

I didn’t have the time to go back to engineering school, so I made time. I dropped out of the workforce for the better part of three years. We had savings. My wife had a job. After the dean saw that I was a serious student, he saw to it that I had a partial scholarship and later, a work study grant. I never had to borrow a dime. While earning my MS in night school, my employer paid for everything but the books. It seems that if you are heading in the right direction, the universe will sometimes decide to help you along.

The universe never helped me buy a motorcycle or teach me how to ride, but then I never made the commitment to learn even at the cost of a collision with a Buick. I wasn’t raised to take physical risks. I was also raised to worship at the altar of higher education. Maybe it was never meant to be, but then the results of my life, given my programming, seem, at least somewhat predictable.

Be honest with yourself. What excuses are stopping you from taking the next step towards a better life? Can you find a way to maintain your personal integrity, fulfilling your oaths and obligations to others, while stepping out into a future that could be better than anything you could even imagine?

Take a baby step toward your dream. See if the universe answers. Do it today.

A Little Ditty About Expectation and Reality

Happiness has been defined as the ratio of reality divided by your expectations. If life turns out better than you expected, you are happier than if your life proved to be a disappointment.

Consider: If a young man grows up in some sinkhole of rural poverty where none of his relatives ever held a permanent full time job, his expectations and those of his family would be pretty low. If this individual opens and operates a successful motorcycle repair and customizing shop in a nearby city, not only would he be excited by his success, but his family would likely consider him a jewel. If a young man who was the son of a famous New York City heart surgeon, dropped out of high school to learn how to paint skulls on motorcycle fuel tanks, his mother would most likely require years of psychiatric counseling and he certainly wouldn’t be welcome at family events.

It’s tricky this interplay between expectation and reality. If we set our expectations too low, it is pretty much a certainty we will never achieve all that we could become. If we have unrealistic expectations, we are setting ourselves up for unhappiness and disappointment. Although this is a personal finance blog, this problem appears in every aspect of life.

People who believe they can never get ahead of the repo-man are likely to remain in poverty, because they will be unwilling to take actions necessary to break out of the debt trap. The problem is complicated by not only their expectations, but the expectations of their friends and family.

I suspect that one of the reasons that 78% of all professional football players are bankrupt or in financial distress within two years of retirement is a deep seated unconscious belief that they can’t become rich or they don’t deserve to be rich. The average NFL player earns $1.9 million a year. If this player has a five year career about $10 million might pass through his hands. If he could manage to hold onto $5 million, an unimaginative group of index funds could assure his family of a $200,000 a year income for decades if not in perpetuity! While that salary won’t put you in the 1%, it will put you in the top 5%, not too shabby, especially in an area of the country with a low cost of living.

We all seem to have some spot in our lives where we limit our own ability to succeed or enjoy happiness by self limiting beliefs, fear of what others will say about us, or simple self sabotage to avoid the effort and risk involved in any attempt at self improvement.

What if I fail?

All too frequently, I hear highly intelligent, sophisticated individuals with two or three college degrees tell me they can’t learn the basics of investing their money. Usually these statements of personal inadequacy are accompanied with rapid negative shakes of the hands and head. “I just can’t think that way.”

Really, not much thought is required. Automatic deposits to a target date fund appropriate for your age will put you so far ahead of most of your peers, that at age 65 you won’t even be able to see them in your rearview mirror.

However if you believe money is evil, your subconscious or even your conscious mind might decide it doesn’t want to bring evil into your life.

If you believe that getting ahead is a form of treason to your family and friends, chances are you won’t go back and get your GED.

What’s holding you back? No matter where we are in life, we can do better in some dimension of what it means to be a self actualized human being. Listen to the words you are telling yourself when you start to dream about something better. If you hear words of discouragement and fear, perhaps there is a problem that can be addressed by a change in your expectations.

Could a little rise in your expectations change your behavior?

Could a change in your behavior change your reality?

The Rehab Song

“They tried to make me go to rehab,
I said, no, no, no.”
Amy Winehouse,

I consider Amy Winehouse the greatest female jazz singer of her generation, a talent that deserves to be mentioned in the same breath with the likes of Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday. If Amy went to rehab, the world would be richer happier place, but I don’t want to talk about that kind of rehab.

First, let’s talk about physical and occupational rehab. It is painful, difficult and unfair. Having observed our parents growing old, I have noted that both physical and occupational rehab therapists tend to be young, strong, and healthy, yet they are allowed to torture helpless old people. Does that seem fair? My mother-in-law didn’t think so. Once, while complaining about the sadist who was making her life miserable, I introduced her to Amy’s rehab song. My mother-in-law loved it and sang it every time the doctors sent her from the hospital to the rehab facility. But when the doctor prescribes physical and occupational therapy, someone has to ask the question, “Do I want to spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair or do I want to be able to walk?”

Over the years, I have noticed a frequent criticism leveled against personal finance authors falls under the category that I would describe as the, “Easy for you to say,” critique. Yes, even humble writers of anonymous personal finance blogs have probably reached financial freedom or are well on their way to that goal. Some of the celebrities in the field are rich by any standard. Dave Ramsey has a net worth of $55 million. Suze Orman rings the bell at $35 million. Is it fair for these people to tell the poor they have to do a better job living on a budget? But when Dave Ramsey offers a listener a free pass to attend one of his classes, someone has to ask the question, “Do I want to spend the rest of my life in the projects, or do I want to at least try to find financial freedom?”

In retirement, I am making an attempt to lose weight, become stronger, and live a healthier lifestyle. It isn’t easy. I am 66 years old and still overweight after four years of walking on an almost daily basis. I still have a heart arrhythmia and arthritis in both my knees. I also have an old back injury that I have discovered limits me to walking 5 days a week, max. In the past when I reached a wall in some kind of physical activity, I quit. This time, I consulted with a health science professor who suggested a change in direction. He still wants me to walk, but I have added working out on weight machines three times a week and attending a Yoga for old people class once a week. He also recommended swimming, but my first attempts were halted by water that I couldn’t get out of my ears. I purchased some ear plugs and a bottle of Instant Ear Dry, but they remain unused.

I realized that for the first time, I was applying the same kind of strategy to physical fitness that I instinctively used in a different kind of fiscal therapy and occupation therapy, rehab that involves money. When I discovered we were spending more than we were earning, we changed our fiscal behavior. When I decided I wanted to earn more money, I went back to school—twice. Finally, when it was apparent that I wasn’t going any higher in my choose profession, I started learning about investments. Every time I hit the wall, I changed directions. I didn’t give up.

Driving a 1966 VW bug without air conditioning in Washington D.C. summers for eight years wasn’t any fun, but it did allow me to pay off a 30 year mortgage in 9.5 years. I haven’t lost any weight since I started pumping iron four months ago. I don’t think I look any better, but I can see the numbers are going up, both the amount I am lifting and the total number of lifts per practice session.

If you are in need of fiscal or occupational therapy, go to the library or the Internet, find a professional who will suggest an exercise program for your bank account. Don’t expect it to be easy or fun. It will likely be painful. It will likely take some time before you start seeing any results. But if you persist in doing the right thing, your situation will improve.

You’re already in fiscal pain, at least make that pain meaningful.

Just one more set of ten lifts of that monthly budget!

Do you think that insurance companies would pay for physical therapy or occupational therapy if it didn’t work?