The Future is a harsh mistress

Living for the future is a good way to be let down.  I once paid for a used car in five months.  I worked two jobs simultaneously for a month to save up for the down payment and averaged four hours of sleep per night that whole month.  One job was pizza delivery, and the other was a waitress on the graveyard shift at a Denny's.  I enjoyed my day job, but my car was falling apart.  I took the waitress job thinking I would be working a couple nights a week.  The manager started scheduling me full time as soon as I was trained.  That job really sucked the life out of me.  There was one night about three weeks in where I wanted to walk out, but I was too tired to walk home and I didn't have my car that night.  As soon as I bought a replacement car, I quit that job.  After I finished paying for my car, I took a promotion to assistant manager at the pizza joint.  This promotion involved a huge pay cut since I wasn't getting tips anymore from delivery.  I went from laying down lots of money on a new lemon and still having extra cash to spend to having no car payment and no extra money.

I hurried to pay for that car because I wanted my budget clear to go back to college.  I didn't want any debt to weigh down my conscience when I needed all my will to finish school.  Eventually I got enough from loans and scholarships to quit working and just focus on school.  Then I got hit by a truck...so I'm told.  When making a left turn, I was rear ended by a truck whose driver fell asleep.  I hit my head, lost a lot of blood, and lost all memory of the incident.  All I got as proof were a few pictures of a car with a body half the length of the one I bought and the frame sticking out from the bottom.  My plan to take care of my future was dashed in an instant.  My so-called friends would not give me rides to get a new job or to go to the university in the next town over.  I realized that I had placed the bulk of my faith in material investments and shallow people.  I was sorely depressed for a long time.  I finally moved away for a long while just to get a clean break from loser friends and unemployment.

The point of my story is that the future cannot be reliably planned.  I often find myself easily convinced that if I work really hard, I can get ahead of my debt and be free.  When I fall into this mentality, I find that I'm far more easily stressed because every tiny thing that clashes with my well laid plans causes my dream future to get further and further away.  I'm tired of chasing carrots dangling from sticks.  Am I going to curl up in the fetal position until the big mean future goes away?  No, I've tried that a few times and can honestly tell you that it doesn't work.  Instead I'm going to use what I actually have: now.  I have now, and the future is just a shadow being cast by the past as the present shines through it.  Though the past is unchanging, it is not written in stone.  The past is the amalgamation of memories that we choose to keep alive.  These memories feed on energy that we give it in the now.  All energy lives in the now.  Now is the only time you have to change your life or even to take action to keep it the same.

I calculated how long it would take to pay back my student loans at what I would consider a minimum payment.  The answer is eight years.  That's not as bad as I thought it would be last year when I was breaking my brain trying to get the loans paid off in three years.  The truth is, I would be making a far better investment by keeping some of those funds for investment in my now than my later.  If it takes me three years to pay off my debt, but during that time I have to be bored out of my skull because I can't afford to have fun, then I will have freedom from debt but no will to use it wisely.  I would have only earned laziness in that time because that's all that boredom has to offer me.  Instead I will pay off my loans slowly but surely, and use the extra cash to try new things and keep learning and growing.  I believe more than anything that personal development is by far the most valuable investment anyone can make.

Already, I have lost 10 pounds without damaging my metabolism or my health.  I used to think that I would only ever have time or money but not both at once.  However, if I can reshape my own body for the better without breaking myself, then it seems to me that fixing my finances is not such a far fetched goal, either.  If I sacrifice all that I have to pay off debt, I might find freedom in a few years, but that doesn't mean that it won't be immediately replaced with another burden or misfortune.  I realize that this is a pessimistic way of looking at the future, but if my ultimate goal is happiness, then I should focus on learning to be happy instead of learning to be free of debt.  The debt will go away no matter what I do because I will still pay the bill.  What I really need to invest in is my creativity.  I have a feeling if my creative side is well nourished, the rest of me will be fine no matter what happens.

Winter planning

Every year I want to plant a garden.  Every year I start too late and wonder why nothing produces.  I am an expert at creating excuses for not going outside.  Too hot. Too cold.  Mosquitoes.  Getting used to a 40 hour work week (after spending 3 months between graduation and employment leisurely enjoying my own schedule).

By the time Fall comes around, I wonder where the time went.  My favorite time to go outside is when it's not too hot or too cold, so Spring and Fall.  Getting a job was extremely important this past Spring, but I had recovered my energy by Fall and felt like starting a garden again.  Of course, that wouldn't work because Winter is just around the corner.  However, I can still use the drive to take action to give me the energy to learn about what action I can take and when to take it.  My birthday is in September so I asked for big terracotta pots.  Container gardening is much more viable in my yard.  I have sandy soil and am downhill from my neighbors which is a disaster in April rains.  I have read a lot online about urban farming, but I wanted more detail.  I bought Urban Farming by Thomas Fox.  I really enjoy that book because not only does it tell how to backyard farm, it gives compelling reasons why backyard farming is the right thing to do.  The scope goes far beyond trying to save money on tomatoes.  It feels more like a revolution.

Given that this is the holiday season traveling to visit family is inevitable for me this time of year, I have decided to hold off on gardening action until January.  Until then I can budget my time and resources and plan for action.  I've got a head start on the terracotta pots.  I don't want to start using them until after the freeze so they don't break.  I plan on building raised garden beds out of wood in January.  February would be a good time to start seeds indoors.  In between now and then, I have plenty of time to pack my brain full of ideas on what do grow and how to grow it.