Let me preface this by saying: I do not believe in the law of attraction. Sometimes bad things happen to good people and the idea they "brought it upon themselves" by "thinking bad thoughts" just doesn't jive well with my cosmic understanding of the universe.
That said.
I've been thinking a lot lately about components of the future. I have found imagining what I want works better than goals because it allows flexibility and staves off a fear of failure. Often, when I reread paper journals I find I've accomplished things I was merely imagining years before by virtue of getting the idea into my head.
You have to get ideas into your head.
I had a conversation about this with one of my most successful friends who comes from one of the most disadvantaged communities in the country. He asked if he should be working a difficult, badly paying "do gooder" job or if he should sell out and make money. I responded with a story about encountering someone from his community when I was maybe eleven.
We were sitting in a circle talking about what we wanted to be when we grew up. There were "funded" kids who were shipped in from his community, a few middle class kids like me, and a large number of kids from white collar homes. The middle class and white collar kids came out with answers like "Doctor!" There are a limited range of career options you're aware of in elementary school. One funded kid said "taxi driver." Everyone laughed. His uncle was a taxi driver.
The thing is, his uncle was probably the most successful person he knew, one of few in his community with steady work. It was difficult for him to imagine anything else because he didn't know anything else. I told my friend there was nothing wrong with making money and being the most successful person kids growing up there know.
I don't personally know anyone right now with the life I want to lead. There are people with pieces, though, and I knit them together in my mind as potential ideas.
(1) A relationship like the one I have with my significant other - even if the relationship doesn't end up being with him. Specifically, I see myself leading a fairly uncomplicated life with someone who shares my most basic interests yet still challenges me.
(2) Connecting with an intellectual community on a casual basis, engaging with people able to process ideas in a capacity I respect and can engage with. This has nothing to do with education. As an odd digital example, Ask MeFi is a problem solving community full of articulate insightful people. Personally, the high school friends I still consider friends are in diverse fields but have stimulated my thoughts on many issues for over a decade.
(3) Doing good work I feel good about. Not on an abstract level, which is kind of what I work in right now. I envision myself working with people.
(4) A small office with hand selected coworkers, most of whom will probably fit the description in point two.
(5) Located in a community that facilitates my spiritual development. That sounds hokey. I'm not erasing it. I want to live around as many people as possible who are striving to lead a good life, in that philisophical introspective sense. I see myself finding a home (my Other and I have a lot of discussions about prospective cities and neighborhoods) after all these rootless years.
(6) The freedom to investigate many different ideas to maximize convergence. I see myself learning to do a lot of different things through life. I like novelty. I also think learning about a variety of things increases understanding of prior knowledge.
(7) I see myself living in defiance of my age.
Everything else, kids/money/travel is still developing. I expect the life sabbatical will offer some insights - I'm spending a great deal of time in a community containing some of my favorite minds. None of them are famous, most are wise, all offer genuine ideas about life.
Showing posts with label values. Show all posts
Showing posts with label values. Show all posts
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Trillions and Tax Credits
In The News
The NY Times coverage of the new New Deal today bluntly referred to the fed as making up money it doesn't have and potentially destabilizing the currency. True.
Did everyone miss when Warren Buffet called the USD the next bubble? Or maybe I just imagined that one. The worst part about a rapid USD devaluation would be, as usual, the ripple - smaller countries that use it as a reserve currency, and potential reactions from China who has already been warning the USA to run things a little tighter in order to secure the value of it's investment. Ruh roh.
The Joy of Refundable Credits
On a lighter note, as taxes come in I was delighted to discover what I'd assumed was a non-refundable credit was actually refundable, to the tune of about $1000. If you can bring your taxes owed down to $0, as many recent grads can, refundable tax credits essentially meant the government pays you above and beyond what you've put in. A nice general explanation is, of course, provided at Wikipedia.
Obviously I plan to use the $1000 to offset student loans, putting me in an even better position after working for a year than originally assumed.
On Wealth
It was funny to read this post over at Brunette On a Budget.
Last night I was talking to my mom about how her business in the small city I grew up in remains very busy and in fact the whole area appears 'recession proof.' One of her clients, who has always been a multi-millionaire, was purchasing something substantial but doing so frugally and they started talking about how things are where we're from.
Where I grew up, there is no real upper class. There are "rich kids" but it really is so relative there is no discernible class difference. Similarly, there was a low level of real poverty comparable to what I've seen after leaving. You cannot now, nor could you ever, buy designer jeans of any kind within hours of the city.
Growing up there, people were taught to patiently save for a rainy day. Expensive purchases - clothes or homes or cars - become the subject of gossipy derision. Even if you could afford it, most people would consider it inappropriately showing off. Even if your parents could help you out, you were expected to work in order to access opportunities. Salt of the earth people were respected, laziness was not.
Obviously, there are contradictory examples, but overall it was an isolated community where the kind of values that breed stable, long term wealth were fostered. As a result, even with net worth declines there are few people who have to change their spending habits.
Entering the real world, especially during my second degree, was completely disorienting. I dated a guy whose parents gave him a new car to bribe him to attend school, he often complained how insufficient that was. Unemployed students would buy rounds of drinks for twelve friends. Everyone dressed well whether they could afford to or not. Rather than adopting the habits of my new friends, I went into the frugal closet. Sometimes it was hard. I had a roommate who would drop two hundred dollars on two litres of hair product as I was figuring out how long I could go between cuts. There were times I felt I was living in Edith Wharton's House of Mirth where money and opulence and corruption were a necessary accoutrement of my new social stratification.
And then, I graduated.
Unfortunately, the place I grew up is exceptional. We've made wealth too important and values too relative.
It's a tragic irony Ms. Wharton could have written that those who bought into image, entitlement, consumption and a lack of personal substance in pursuit of The Dream are those who can no longer afford the cost of living.
The NY Times coverage of the new New Deal today bluntly referred to the fed as making up money it doesn't have and potentially destabilizing the currency. True.
Did everyone miss when Warren Buffet called the USD the next bubble? Or maybe I just imagined that one. The worst part about a rapid USD devaluation would be, as usual, the ripple - smaller countries that use it as a reserve currency, and potential reactions from China who has already been warning the USA to run things a little tighter in order to secure the value of it's investment. Ruh roh.
The Joy of Refundable Credits
On a lighter note, as taxes come in I was delighted to discover what I'd assumed was a non-refundable credit was actually refundable, to the tune of about $1000. If you can bring your taxes owed down to $0, as many recent grads can, refundable tax credits essentially meant the government pays you above and beyond what you've put in. A nice general explanation is, of course, provided at Wikipedia.
Obviously I plan to use the $1000 to offset student loans, putting me in an even better position after working for a year than originally assumed.
On Wealth
It was funny to read this post over at Brunette On a Budget.
Last night I was talking to my mom about how her business in the small city I grew up in remains very busy and in fact the whole area appears 'recession proof.' One of her clients, who has always been a multi-millionaire, was purchasing something substantial but doing so frugally and they started talking about how things are where we're from.
Where I grew up, there is no real upper class. There are "rich kids" but it really is so relative there is no discernible class difference. Similarly, there was a low level of real poverty comparable to what I've seen after leaving. You cannot now, nor could you ever, buy designer jeans of any kind within hours of the city.
Growing up there, people were taught to patiently save for a rainy day. Expensive purchases - clothes or homes or cars - become the subject of gossipy derision. Even if you could afford it, most people would consider it inappropriately showing off. Even if your parents could help you out, you were expected to work in order to access opportunities. Salt of the earth people were respected, laziness was not.
Obviously, there are contradictory examples, but overall it was an isolated community where the kind of values that breed stable, long term wealth were fostered. As a result, even with net worth declines there are few people who have to change their spending habits.
Entering the real world, especially during my second degree, was completely disorienting. I dated a guy whose parents gave him a new car to bribe him to attend school, he often complained how insufficient that was. Unemployed students would buy rounds of drinks for twelve friends. Everyone dressed well whether they could afford to or not. Rather than adopting the habits of my new friends, I went into the frugal closet. Sometimes it was hard. I had a roommate who would drop two hundred dollars on two litres of hair product as I was figuring out how long I could go between cuts. There were times I felt I was living in Edith Wharton's House of Mirth where money and opulence and corruption were a necessary accoutrement of my new social stratification.
And then, I graduated.
Unfortunately, the place I grew up is exceptional. We've made wealth too important and values too relative.
It's a tragic irony Ms. Wharton could have written that those who bought into image, entitlement, consumption and a lack of personal substance in pursuit of The Dream are those who can no longer afford the cost of living.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Great Expectations: How Much Do Any of Us Need?
Yesterday, an uncomfortable conversation with a coworker:
My boyfriend is angling towards a specific field that does have the potential to make him very comfortable. However, I also know there's a chance he might take a pay cut to do something less intense and that his financial situation is complicated by a variety of lending versus assets that have paid for school. Let's not count eggs for chickens, I say.
Interestingly, I haven't dated someone without potential wealth for years (familial, professional, entrepreneurial), not because I seek it out but because they seek me out. It's that obvious I'm self supporting and not a gold digger. And, I don't love money.
[Said coworker told her husband (who put her through school) that he should become a dentist instead of a teacher. To fund her expected lifestyle. In front of me.]
The whole conversation made me think about how what we do translates into what we earn, what we should realistically expect, and the values that underlie those things.
Do we get to expect more because we attained a certain level of education? Why? What does that level of education represent that entitles us to more than someone else? What if that someone else didn't have the option but was otherwise qualified? What if that someone else makes a bigger societal contribution than we do?
If you're having trouble drawing the parallel, what entitles the banking industry to... well, lately, anything? Entitlement and unreasonable expectations are two of a kind, at least in my mind, although entitlement results in taking something that you unreasonably expect whereas bare expectations can simply result in disappointment.
My standpoint on work is as follows: you need to make enough money to live, and make a threshold that allows you a safety net. Security is priceless. Beyond keeping the lights on, it's more important to do something I feel good about at the end of the day than to be able to afford life's little excesses.
I do worry this is really naive and idealistic.
I base my values on the following:
(1) I haven't met a lot of genuinely happy people, but those I have met made a conscious choice not to spend their time in ways that don't matter (the double negative is imperative)
(2) I spend too much time working to do something meaningless. Meaning can be broad - one of my childhood friends makes pizza all day and finds real satisfaction in preparing people's food
(3) Not all money is bad, but easy money is often conspicuous. I refuse to gather wealth from what I fundamentally disagree with. I have environmentalist friends who... work for the oil sands. Global warming or not, tar ponds kill living things and are virtually eternal, and arguments you can "influence from the inside" aren't yet persuasive. I never want to watch a news story and know that a disaster in someone else's life paid for the car in my garage
(4) If you can make a living doing something you don't hate, maybe even benefitting the world around you in some small way, it will outweigh the material things you surround yourself with. I always think, Titanic style, about the pictures I want to surround me as a little old lady. Those pictures are people and experiences, not so much the necklace (which you will remember, she THREW INTO THE OCEAN. Life lesson.)
Maybe in twenty years, I'll recant this one. And maybe I do find license to say it because my life is so easy now, because I have sufficient security to not worry much.
FF: I'm not in this to be rich. If I wanted to make money, I would have pursued a different kind of work entirely.
Coworker: So you're saying you could take a $20K pay cut and work for [good cause]?
FF: Yeah. Because I don't love money.
Coworker: That's easy for you to say when you're dating someone who will be incredibly wealthy.
FF: That is so not a factor.
(Awkward pause)
FF: I think that people have unreasonable expectations.
Coworker: I don't think it's unreasonable for me to expect to have a summer home and nice vacations.
(Polite smile)
FIN.
My boyfriend is angling towards a specific field that does have the potential to make him very comfortable. However, I also know there's a chance he might take a pay cut to do something less intense and that his financial situation is complicated by a variety of lending versus assets that have paid for school. Let's not count eggs for chickens, I say.
Interestingly, I haven't dated someone without potential wealth for years (familial, professional, entrepreneurial), not because I seek it out but because they seek me out. It's that obvious I'm self supporting and not a gold digger. And, I don't love money.
[Said coworker told her husband (who put her through school) that he should become a dentist instead of a teacher. To fund her expected lifestyle. In front of me.]
The whole conversation made me think about how what we do translates into what we earn, what we should realistically expect, and the values that underlie those things.
Do we get to expect more because we attained a certain level of education? Why? What does that level of education represent that entitles us to more than someone else? What if that someone else didn't have the option but was otherwise qualified? What if that someone else makes a bigger societal contribution than we do?
If you're having trouble drawing the parallel, what entitles the banking industry to... well, lately, anything? Entitlement and unreasonable expectations are two of a kind, at least in my mind, although entitlement results in taking something that you unreasonably expect whereas bare expectations can simply result in disappointment.
My standpoint on work is as follows: you need to make enough money to live, and make a threshold that allows you a safety net. Security is priceless. Beyond keeping the lights on, it's more important to do something I feel good about at the end of the day than to be able to afford life's little excesses.
I do worry this is really naive and idealistic.
I base my values on the following:
(1) I haven't met a lot of genuinely happy people, but those I have met made a conscious choice not to spend their time in ways that don't matter (the double negative is imperative)
(2) I spend too much time working to do something meaningless. Meaning can be broad - one of my childhood friends makes pizza all day and finds real satisfaction in preparing people's food
(3) Not all money is bad, but easy money is often conspicuous. I refuse to gather wealth from what I fundamentally disagree with. I have environmentalist friends who... work for the oil sands. Global warming or not, tar ponds kill living things and are virtually eternal, and arguments you can "influence from the inside" aren't yet persuasive. I never want to watch a news story and know that a disaster in someone else's life paid for the car in my garage
(4) If you can make a living doing something you don't hate, maybe even benefitting the world around you in some small way, it will outweigh the material things you surround yourself with. I always think, Titanic style, about the pictures I want to surround me as a little old lady. Those pictures are people and experiences, not so much the necklace (which you will remember, she THREW INTO THE OCEAN. Life lesson.)
Maybe in twenty years, I'll recant this one. And maybe I do find license to say it because my life is so easy now, because I have sufficient security to not worry much.
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