No. This article doesn’t say fake news is ok. It’s about never forgetting WHAT’S IMPORTANT TO YOU. It’s about celebrating your victories, and setting your own goals. For me my goals are designed to optimize health and happiness for me and my family.
For most of us, our job basically forces us to adhere to the company’s way of doing almost everything. We’re told to memorize and track minute details, worship our bosses, worship the customers, buy them gifts, memorize their spouses’ and kids’ birthdays, keep a clean desk, don’t put too much personal stuff in your office, and more and more rules.
And so often our cellphones, and the pressure to perform, mean that the Company’s needs must even invade nights and weekends, on our supposed personal time. This is all intensified if you’re pretty deep in debt, while you’re trying to outperform in order to pay off the debt. And the end result of this is that you’ve basically sold your soul for a paycheck. You might have turned your back on loved ones in favor of people who have paycheck power over you.
My wife had cancer in 2009. I love this woman. I stuck by her and helped her thru the treatment. Thankfully they found the cancer in time (well she found it really, then had it checked out) so the treatment seems to have worked. Then we got married and bought a house and had two kids. Happy Belated Mothers Day! In 2015, we sold a home that we liked because we felt we were wasting money on the mortgage insurance thanks to low down payment. Also, my three remaining grandparents died within two years, and I changed jobs. My parents also went thru some health problems of their own at the time too.
So much stress took place in the last five or ten years. And it has defined the rest of our lives in perhaps every way. All these events have pushed me to seek the fullest possible life for our remaining years. What does this include? Quality time together. Lots of it. And bravely trying different projects in the business world. Because why spend your life working for other business people?
We’re all gonna die some day. Everyone. I don’t give a crap what technological improvements are being made prolonging life for the rich and famous. The good part of life comes to an end at some point. Your youthful energy lasts only so long. The clock is ticking.
So we are going to use our one shot at life to do some amazing things. And we will make decisions and take actions that will maximize our healthiness and happiness.
So your boss wants you to spend your waking hours memorizing facts that will make him more money. Screw that. Pick your own facts (at least a few anyway. But until you don’t need the paycheck anymore, don’t forget to do what your company pays you for.)
For me, this means a lot of things…
FACT #1: Over 70 likes! First of all … THANK YOU! Thank you for following my blog and reading this post. The Spirit Wielder Facebook page has over 70 likes! There’s a fact that I’m thankful for. It’s not for my employer, its for me! I know it’s not a lot (yet), but it’s a start. You helped me get there. And more importantly, I think that if you liked the page, then that means I must have helped you in some way. You must have read something that you literally liked, and that encourages me to keep writing more.
Please, if you read something you LIKE on here, then click the like button and come back and read my articles as I put them out there. I think you’ll be glad you did.
This blog is my passion project, my side hustle, my effort to break free from bosses, my effort to earn the full value I create instead of letting all the people above me take a slice of my pie.
FACT #2: 14,000 days. In a few days from now I will be celebrating my 14,000th day of being alive. Happy birthday to me. Please celebrate with me! Why not?
14,000 days. It’s a nice round number. Yes, it’s kind of weird to celebrate the number of days you’ve been alive, but who cares? That’s part of the reason for doing it. Doing harmlessly out-of-the-ordinary things is a way of cutting thru the same old routine that gets forced upon us by society, demonstrating/exercising your freedom and understanding why we do some of the things we do.
Also, and maybe more importantly, counting your days like this should help you avoid taking any day for granted. Each day is a day you could start a business, learn a new skill, start writing a book, or spend quality time with loved ones.
I’ve been getting a daily calendar from History.com for several years now that tells you about an interesting historical event that happened on each day of the year. I enjoy realizing that on that same day, in the same general season with the same general weather however many years ago, people woke up and did something amazing. And you can find amazing things that happened literally on every day of the year.
14,000 days. In high school I had a classmate who had a corny sense of humor. I know… shocker right? One day he thought it would be funny to celebrate each new minute yelling “Happy New Minute!” Everyone groaned at the time. But it was actually an interesting and positive thought.
I know that there are plenty of people saying this these days, but its true that each day matters. You never know what tomorrow will bring. You never know which day might be your last.
Clichés are cheesy. But they are true. Such as “obstacles are put in your path for a reason”, “that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”, and “seize the day”. There’s also sayings about how short life is, how you should stop to smell the roses.
14,000 days. This means I’m a little over 38 years old. These numbers are finite. Quantifiable. Summarize-able. I’ve ridden this spinning ball of dirt we call Earth around 14,000 times. How many good days have I had? How many were bad days? How many meals have I eaten? How many visits did I get with my grandparents? How many times did I tell them I love them? How many days could I have been more productive?
A thousand days works out to roughly 2 and 3/4 years. To me, that’s an interesting block of time around which I can make some plans. So, I will set some reasonable goals to achieve by my next thousand days. I’ll be roughly 41 years old when I’m 15,000 days old. And then at that point, I’ll move the goal posts further to set targets to achieve when I’m 16,000 days old, and then 17,000 days old, and so on.
Tim Urban of waitbutwhy.com wrote two really interesting posts about how life is pretty short. They were titled “Your Life in Weeks” and the “The Tail End” and they arranged a 90-year life on a page in a number of different graphical representations. It’s one of the best articles I’ve read in a while and you should read it too. The point is that life is short, and you should make the most of yours.
I took his article a step further (though the WaitButWhy graphical representation is much much better) and I built a 10 x 9 grid with each box representing a year of your life. I filled the boxes with a few words describing what I had done during those years, and made some big picture plans for the future. I found this to be a useful exercise that I hadn’t really done in a while. Here’s a scaled down version (so it can fit better on the screen):
See that? My whole life fits on the page. There’s an awkward humbleness you feel when you do this. But also you realize that your life is manageable.
And when/if you can make it to 70 days past your 82nd birthday, then you will have been alive for 30,000 days. What a great feat to aim for. And what a great full life you will have lived. Ruts don’t last. If you play your cards right, you’ll live a long life and have a legacy anyone would be proud of … full of adventure and accomplishment.
But also, and more importantly, life is short. Take pride in your life. Use each day wisely. Take nothing for granted. Live life to the fullest. Celebrate some of the small victories. Pick some facts that mean something to you and memorize those, amidst all the other stuff your boss may demand of you. It’s a free country.