6 Degrees Of Me

Yea. It’s been a while.

I stumbled upon an article that referenced 10 devices that changed the world in the 2000s.  For the most part they were electronic/mechanical in nature: iPods, Kindles, the Prius, etc etc.  But one device caught my eye:

The Lifestraw gives people access to potable water in areas where they normally wouldn’t have it.  The filter supposedly lasts for an entire year (now that I think about it I might replace my Brita with one of these things — that sucker’s filter only lasts about 27 days).

But honestly I wish I could buy a bajillion of these devices.  Here I was, worrying about my retirement plan & the future of the economy & this one site reminded me that there are millions of folks out there that can’t get a sip of water when they need it.

I’ve never urged folks to donate before but one of these devices costs 7 bucks.  Why not spend 15 bucks to provide clean water to 2 people for 1 year instead of getting smashed on an extra couple Ketel One & Tonics this New Years’?

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It’s 2.45 in the morning.  I just had 2 wisdom teeth removed yesterday  afternoon. What an experience that was.  First, in asking everyone the previous week about how there removals went and then gauging whether or not I would go through the procedure myself.

I reallized that everyone has had their teeth pulled kind of like everyone owns a timeshare (Orlando for me).  But a wisdom extraction is probably likened to a “girl’s first time”.   Every experience is different.  And boy do I wish mine was different.

(this is usually where i post a picture but the way it looks & the way it feels are two different things…. so i’ll just post what it feels like)

After the novo wore off at 7pm it felts more like i got hit with a lightsaber dead in my jaw.

3 interesting things about my extractions:

1) I thought the motherfucker wasn’t supposed to hurt.  I had the novo (which randomly I’ve never had before in my life — that was like getting blasted with the ball in the face in little league soccer in the dead of November) AND the local.  When the surgeon started to extract the first tooth all I could think was: ARE YOU EFFING KIDDING ME?  I mean really, all those drugs and I’m STILL feeling pain?

2) Painkillers: Man, Vicodin doesn’t have shit on Oxycotin. Either that or I was in that much MORE pain than my last surgery  .  By the way 2007 has a been year to remember.  Without a doubt one of my best years on planet earth.

3) I’m more a a bitch-ass than I thought. What more can we say about that people?

It’s VICO-TIME. Can’t see how these hollywood types get hooked on a drug that doesn’t do jack shit.  This is like the time my sophmore year of college when the pot-heads on the team ventured out to ventura blvd and picked up some drogas that turned out to be the equivalent of a chopped up NY times and a grond up car freshener that smelled a lot like weed.

Good times as usual.

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I was talking to one of my friends from childhood about finances a couple of weeks ago. He’s like most entrepreneurs in that he has the ability to see the “big picture” in any situation almost immediately. We were talking about retirement (remember, I think about that almost daily). Our conversation ventured off into the topic of taxes.

I asked him about the difference between being an LLC and a sole proprietor and what a certain dollar amount would end up being in both scenarios. The long and short of it is that if you own your own business you can pretty much keep 99% of the money you make if you wanted to.

The conversation then focused in my direction as he asked me about what I make and what my big expenses are. Now, I’m big willie and make a load of cheddar working for my company (relatively speaking). But I’ve started tracking both my expenses as well as the after effects of uncle sam on my salary. Lou, with some quick mental calculations and his usual dry humor spelled wrapped up my whole situation in one neat sentence.

so you spend almost 20 PERCENT of your salary after taxes to just get yourself to and from work every day?

I thought about it for 5 seconds. He was right. I drive a car that’s paid off. But between car insurance (around 2K), gas (almost 3k) tolls (about a G) and general upkeep (about 1.5K) I’m spending a good chunk of change to get around, most of which is getting back and forth from work.

I kind of like to think “big picture” like Lou. Checking expenditures on a daily level is nice and works well to some degree for me but working with big buckets in longer timeframes really points out the “exceptions”. Who would have thought that a little expense like a paid off car actually eats into my dolo so much?

Do you know how the percentages of your expenses breaks down?

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We are living in a new age of discrimination. It’s a tad more sinister than it was before and disguises itself in humor but has in the last decade or so found its way into our mainstream. I’m not sure that it will disappear any time soon.  For the longest time the hate masked itself in slavery and discrimination. It was Black and White, literally and figuratively. It existed on both sides of the fence. It was a part of our history.

We’ve come a ways in terms of Black and White. Part of that has to do with the passage of time. I think the other part of it is the “melting pot” phenomenon that is this country.  So now there’s less tolerance of racial discrimination of any kind. In fact there’s been a bit of over sensitization recently (Banning Words? are you serious?) to the issue.  But we’ve moved away as a culture from taking jabs at those that sit on difference sides of the color line.  Racial slurs, even in joke form, aren’t PC and you’re looked upon with disdain if you use them (in public at least).

So there’s been a discrimination void that’s been waiting to be filled and it’s been plugged with anti-gay sentiment.  Don’t think so?  Just listen to any mainstream radio broadcast or any twenty-something pop culture program.  The morning radio show that I wake up to does a good job of demonstrating what I’m talking about.  Every few minutes a self deprecating comment is made or an unassuming stab is made about someone’s sexuality.

“That’s so gay… you’re such a fag….” Comments like these are intended to add humor to the program. They’re also sprinkled in our everyday conversations.   Some folks come from sticks and stones school of thought.  Their idea is to keep untethered our right to free speech, no matter what the consequences.

I think that we should know better.  I’m not innocent of using this type of language in my past but life is about learning and growing.  One day it dawned upon me that you could substitute race in for sexuality and all of those little jokes, quips, and side comments that all use would suddenly be fighting words.

Just to drive the point home a little bit more let’s think about what I’m imparting in a different manner.  We’ve all joked about a different culture/religion/race at one time or another.  Let’s say you’re in a crowd of the group that you’ve joked about in the past. At this point  you know whether or not you choice of words is truly a JOKE or not.

So think about it the next time you decided to use particular adjectives to describe a person, place, or thing.  And remember, just because you hear it on the radio and see it on the video doesn’t mean that it’s okay

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I think about my retirement. A lot. It’s one of those neurotic things that I do that we all do in our own way as human beings. Some people obsess over things like the opposite sex (or having it for that matter), over looks, over buying “stuff”, or even over food. I enjoy each of those things to a degree but in the end I’m constantly stressing about finance and my financial future. More about that in a later post.

I had the most random thought about 2 weeks ago before I fell asleep and I haven’t been able to shake it even now. My mind was swirling with thoughts of typical summer slumps for my investments, creating passive streams of income, and wealth protection strategies. Just then, this voice in my head said, “You’re gonna be less than dirt in like 50 years…” And then silence. Nothing more, nothing less.

But when I woke up the next day I realized that I hadn’t shaken the thought. Fifty years is a long time and if my grandparent’s generation is any indication, there’s a decent chance that I’ll live longer than that. But the question of my future from voice-unknown caught me off guard.

Let’s add an additional caveat to that thought. What if we divided the 50 years by about 17 (because I like the #17) and I knew that I only had 3 years to live. What changes then? I posed the question to my college roommate Aaron and my mother.

Aaron: I quit work tomorrow. Pack my shit up and travel Europe/Africa/Asia for 2.5 years. Blow all of my money and then move onto credit cards. Come back and spend the last 1/2 year with my family. I also take more risks…. like buy a dirtbike and a motorcycle and do life threatening shit all day long

Mom: Travel? No, I probably wouldn’t enjoy it as much if I knew when my last day was. I would probably just stay at home and read and relax. I would appreciate the moment more often than I do. I would definitely stop working too…

So what about me? I already lead a pretty simple life. I don’t really care about acquiring more things. Just like Puff always said, more money more problems. The one thing that the 3 years til dust and bones concept would definitely do, and my mother touched on this, is force me to appreciate the here and now more frequently. That means giving everything that I do in the present my FULL attention. It means not getting so wrapped up in the mistakes/failures/triumphs of my past and also not bogged down by the anticpations/fears of my future.

For me it also means reaching out more especially to my family. Too often I get caught up in “something” and postpone making time for my mom/dad/sisters because there will always be tomorrow. But that changes if I know my time left is limited. I also changes if I know their time left is limited.

Lastly, it would mean not taking life so seriously. This kind of ties in to my first point of living in the present. I am a bit of a worrier. The future, in it’s constant state of unknowns, is a quagmire for me. I’m someone that likes answers and not being Nostradamus is often a problem for me. The funny thing is that (and I can rationalize this until the cows come home) the future really doesn’t exist until it’s in the present. And the present is a funny little beast. If you really think about it, unpleasant experiences occur in the present less than 1 percent of the time…at least in my life. Which means that for the most part, life is pretty damn good…. in the present.

So the 3 years concept is something that I can take and plug into my own life. No better time than now for me to get cooking. What about you? What in your life changes if you know when you last day on the planet is?

Special thanks to the Tombstone Generator for the Pic.

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