Nobody can make time. You can only spend time differently.
Time is your most valuable asset, because once you die you have none left. Make to most of the time you have, because once your time is spent, there's no way of getting it back.
You could be dead tomorrow, having more money in the bank won't make a difference then. Having spent time with you loved ones will make a difference to them, because they will have the memories.
I agree with your premise, but your last point doesn't make much sense. Your loved ones would also get the money. Maybe they value the money more than the memories they shared with you.
Yea, I thought of this too while I was writing it. It's a very personal matter probably, but I've often heard that people on their death beds are more concerned about not spending more time with loved ones than not earning enough money. So I chose to write it as is anyway.
I've always wondered how honest such statements are. Even if you'd actually enjoyed work much more than family time, wouldn't you tell your family what they'd want to hear under those circumstances?
Of course not, unless of course they happen to be assholes. Tell them what you think they need to hear to make a terrible situation as bearable as possible and try to help them have a loving memory of you. Confessing your 'sins' on your deathbed just to ease your conscience without any thoughts of the consequences is an extremely selfish and narcissistic act which does nothing to help your loved ones.
My implication that I didn't effectively communicate was that they deserve to be with the True You in life, not just on your death bed. It's not about easing your conscience. It's about giving people the feedback that they need to be fulfilled humans!
Interesting idea, but underwhelming lessons: "invest in education and training, take side jobs, push back retirement".
I personally subscribe to the genetic optimization/hill-climbing strategy:
To make sure you don't get stuck in local optima, make sure you're time-to-time riskily choosing what may seem like short-term losses, and injecting a healthy degree of randomness/mutation in your process. Over time, your degree of risk and randomness should slowly decrease. Even so, you may find that a boost of randomness/mutation/risk may be necessary even during later stages of life.
I have a better idea. Fuck "financial planning", fuck retirement, fuck all these people who think they know what's right for you and live your life NOW.
Be irresponsible. Be EXTREMELY irresponsible. Work less. Play more. Struggle less. Enjoy more. Save less. Live more. Comply less. Create more.
You don't "earn" your way to wealth and you don't "save" your way to wealth - the maths just don't work out! You can only ever play your way to wealth.
Mid and lower class people won't get rich by saving their salaries.
In fact, it's not unusual that the entire earnings of a work-life of a mid-class worker do not add up to something that would make a person rich, even if 100% of it is saved.
The other side of the coin is that mid-class life is pretty good, most of the GP advice will lead to poverty much more often that it'll lead to wealth, and the one important piece that is "create more" comes by responsible working.
"Responsible working" is how you make other people rich.
Having fun and playing ("irresponsibly"), expressing your true essence, is the only way to create ANY lasting value.
It is also the only way to create any wealth. The OTHER (much more common) way that people get wealthy is by capitalizing on what others have created. Which is fine with me (I'm all for the wonders of capitalism), but I prefer creating my own wealth.
Well, you may be the one of the few that like improving the same project, day after day, until it's good enough to get some money out of it.
Most people get bored, and will only create something for themselves if they act responsibly after a while. Unless what you call "responsible" is working for other people, instead of the more usual "hey, I don't want to do this right now, but I'm doing because I know it's good for me" meaning.
Most people get wealthy by working for other people. Depending on what you call wealthy. 1-2M in investment accounts and a paid off home is very affluent/wealthy to me.
Also, to say those people aren't creating wealth is very offensive.
Mid and lower class people can definitely get rich by saving. Of course their savings don't add up to millions, but you're completely disregarding the returns of a decent mutual fund. At 4-7% real returns, the amount they have after a 20-40 year period is wildly different from the raw amount they've put in/saved, due to the power of compound interest. So although they haven't SAVED millions, they HAVE millions.
Depends what you mean by wealth, but for the majority of middle-class people the way to wealth is highly leveraged property speculation: borrow deposit from parents, take out mortgage, wait 25 years during which time the property has gone up hugely in value.
.. which requires a steady enough job to make 25 years of uninterrupted mortgage payments.
People do not learn by reading. Reading only helps to re-enforce what you already believe in and are open to accepting (all other propositions are ALWAYS discarded - no exceptions, regardless of how "objective" you think you are).
I myself only accept what works for me. I am pragmatic to the extreme. I know of NO other person who fully agrees with my philosophy on life (my fundamental beliefs are VERY different from what is commonly accepted) - but that's exactly the point - that's what makes 'me' me.
Now I have offered the above guidelines for those who are already inclined to agree. I have no interest in arguing or convincing those who do not.
> I have no interest in arguing or convincing those who do not.
In my experience, people who say that have a lot of interest in convincing others. It's like, "I don't care what people think or say". It's mostly pre-emptive reply to criticism.
That is correct - I am protecting my (very expensive) time from having to waste it on convincing you of something that you don't believe in, when the convincing would not do me any good anyway.
This is not about trying to convince people, it is about bringing convincing arguments to make an interesting discussion. Otherwise, that's just your opinion thrown in there, and why should anyone care?
I'm glad you asked. This is exactly what the essence of my philosophy is all about. I believe that each person's opinions (and each person's existence) are valuable in and of themselves - no need for any further arguments. You either agree with someone (as some people agreed with my original comment, judging by the number of up-votes) or you disagree - and, in my experience, there is NEVER any value in trying to bring those from one camp into the other. Arguments are always a waste of time. Sharing stimulating ideas is a much better use of time and language.
So, no, this is not about "convincing arguments". As with all of existence, this is about making a statement of who you really are and inspiring others. There is intrinsic value in that. I believe in leadership by example. I do not believe in leadership by "convincing arguments".
That sounds like a fairly postmodern-ish stance, which I don't really subscribe to. To me, some opinions are better than others, and being able to articulate them well, showing where they come from and what they immply, is part of what makes many discussions interesting. I don't assume an opinion is so good that others will understand it immediately so there would be no need talk about it, or that it is a great piece of wisdom that I should study or let others study.
Good discussions can make you see things differently, take a new perspective that you had not fully considered before. If you only make "life statements" and never cordially exchange points of view, you lose a much useful way of changing your own; you risk keeping yourself in a warm sense of certitude, losing precious feedback from other people's insight.
You contradict yourself. If someone is open to accepting what they read, as anyone who was intending to learn by reading would be to some extent, then they can learn by reading.
I guess you've never had to pay rent/mortgage or had to support anyone. In the real world, your advice would get you out on the streets.
In the real world, I support a large family of which I am the only person making money. I have three young children. I pay rent for a house in London proper. Not that any of this is any of your business, but I said it before and I repeat it again - I am EXTREMELY pragmatic and ONLY believe in that which works for me. I am ruthless when it comes to dismissing beliefs that other people accept as dogmatic, but that don't work for me.
I agree with your mentality but shy away from your EXTREME-ness .. I wholeheartedly empathize that there is no point doing something you don't want to do in order to wake up the next day and do something you don't want to do.
If I were in SF i might be jaded enough to believe that "the maths just don't work out!" but where I live, i've been able to pay off my mortgage in about 2.5 years. I'm putting up solar panels so that i can reduce my monthly obligations to basically just a food co-op membership.
These aren't EXTREME or irresponsible, but they are easy, and get me closer to freedom than paying rent because it takes less planning or sleeping in the cold.
I liked the title (expecting advice to take care of your health), but was disappointed by the "you are your job and your net worth" mentality. By that measure, family, happiness, personal relationships are all distracting liabilities and should probably be avoided. Or perhaps maximizing one's wealth isn't a worthwhile goal after all and it's fine to reach a certain level of financial security - as a means, not an end?
I think it's really gross to consider anyone an investment, a piece of 'human capital'. I read a book recently by Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos. It's about how modern ideology tries to redefine human beings in this way: You are capital which appreciates in value and gives you return on investment. All other definitions of what a human being is ought to be subordinate to this definition: Human as political creature is less important than human as economic investment. Human as member of society is less important than human competing in the free market. I found Brown's observations disturbing yet plausible, but I never expected to see these pernicious ideas flagrantly advocated in a mainstream newspaper.
It feels like the void is trying to suck my soul out of my body when I try to think this way.
I wonder about the linguistic difference between the terms "human property" and "human capital". One is synonymous with "slave" and one is synonymous with "employee" and yet "property" and "capital" are virtually synonymous.
Honest question, why does anyone care about spelling errors? They aren't even grammatical errors; we know what they intended.
I'd rather they make spelling errors than factual ones, and I'd rather we focus on teaching kids problem solving rather than memorizing sequences of letters.
Thanks to software, it is extremely easy to not have spelling error. So if they can't achieve this simple thing, how can I trust them to get the facts right which requires significantly more effort? For an author I don't know, a spelling error is a huge negative signal for me personally.
Agreed. Journalism is about words. That's it. Words are the sole instrument in print journalism (excluding photojournalism). If the words are wrong, then the instrument is out of tune. No matter how great the musician, if he can't keep his instrument maintained, then how are we to trust his abilities at music in general?
If someone couldn't be bothered to even click the red squiggly to fix a spelling error, what hope is there that he put in the time to get the facts fight? Also, why do people care about manufacturing imperfections in the build of products that don't affect functionality? As customers we expect polish in our products.
Red squiggly lines? You're presuming he's using a word processor with spell-checkers. Some people just don't use them (like me, as of late - I used to, but I no longer do. No party reason why, I just don't)
People pay for the New York Times. They're writing as a profession. And an article is supposed to be a polished product, that goes through editors. People writing comments on Hacker News are amateur writers. Different standards apply.
It shows sloppiness. For a journalist, who makes a living out of working with words, such basic level of sloppiness is inexcusable. You can't expect much from someone who does not respect the most basic, elementary rules of their trade.
TL;DR: to make this work - IMHO you must also be 'money oriented'.
I would like to say that this is not always true ('invest in yourself' and expand your bank account in such way).
Basically you must be 'money oriented'.
Looking into my university, there is a whole spectrum of people, who are all invested in them selves more than 99.9% people in my country. But there are professors who have some successful businesses, and also lecturers who are not 'money oriented' and just like academia, and there are some not so lucky people, who maybe had some bad twists in their life, suffered depression, etc., and just live a basic life.
It is probably to find something similar with people who are not so 'invested in themselves'. There some well established folks and not so well..
I'm genuinely curious -- do many people with salaried jobs really have a "side hustle"? I'd feel a bit guilty working on a side project for money when I'm being paid as a fulltimer.
I wonder the same. I rarely side hustle for money doing tech stuff, mostly because I don't have enough mental energy left over after a full day of day-job work.
I suppose for side-hustles it may help doing something that's somewhat removed from your day job. Rental property comes to mind. It's fairly rote, it's social, you can put in as much/little elbow grease in it as you like (barring the rare emergency), but it does generate modest income, it's usually more than just a "hobby".
A friend, who doesn't work in finance, is really into the stock market, spends a lot of time on researching companies. That's a kind of side-hustle too I suppose.
It is difficult to do at the peon level, unless you have a lazy job where your bosses give you privacy and lax deadlines. I've had experience with both. I worked at a large insurance company / asset management company in Connecticut. Initially, management was tight, so while we generally worked 9-5, those hours were fully utilized plus some. Curiously, management was overseeing efforts, and not fully utilized, and most people in management had a side gig -- articles they were writing, speaking engagements, properties they were managing -- all during work hours.
Then HR changed the promotion policy. You could only get promoted if you had 6 people under you. My manager immediately hired three more people to "stay" a manager. Then, he encouraged each of us to hire people under us, the wordload was mostly the same, we just created a lot more processes, controls, documentation, PMO, etc. But not enough to consume all the time the now-gigantic team had. While incredibly wasteful for the company and our owner (the US government) we had so much free time we were doing contract gigs during office hours. Two guys had full-on startups in play.
I've always calculated a full time job as 2,080 hours a year. That leaves 18.3 hours per day, or 6,680 hours per year, to do with what I please. Darn sleep takes up a big chunk of that.
In the past I've done a lot of side work much to my full time jobs benefit. Not so much in the last couple of years I've changed around some priorities. It was a bunch of fun though you should give it a try!
I hate sleep. But it would probably not be a good situation if everyone didn't need to sleep, because then we'd all be expected to work that much more. Ideally, it would be awesome if I could avoid the need to sleep, but nobody else should know about it.
Are you implying that you think of "full-time" as meaning that if you want to write code on the weekend and in the evenings, it has to be either for your employer, or a personal/open source project?
Yeah, that's basically how I feel about it. I'm sure not everyone agrees, and I certainly don't mean to pass judgment. I'm just saying that I, personally, would feel weird about doing so.
I understand what you mean, although I don't take the same stance. You have an employment contract to work a certain number of hours. You have not leased your life to your employer.
It's not about agreement or judgment. It's certainly fine for values to be different. What I am confused about is this: what are the underlying values that you hold that inform this feeling of weirdness?
>Now, what does all of this mean in this great period of history? It means that we've got to stay together. We've got to stay together and maintain unity. You know, whenever Pharaoh wanted to prolong the period of slavery in Egypt, he had a favorite, favorite formula for doing it. What was that? He kept the slaves fighting among themselves. But whenever the slaves get together, something happens in Pharaoh's court, and he cannot hold the slaves in slavery. When the slaves get together, that's the beginning of getting out of slavery. Now let us maintain unity.
