April 3, 2017
(With thanks to Ms. Steward for putting into words the title of this post I’ve been ruminating on.)
We’ve been talking about happiness a lot in this area of the interwebs.
Recently, Mrs. BITA discussed happiness portfolios which I LOVE. I assiduously tend mine, nurturing the connections to my loved ones every bit as much as I do our investment portfolio.
Much as I desperately want to, I can’t control everything, or pretend that happiness is an easily attained Zen state.
I can’t wish away pain, I can’t just decide not to be first trimester pregnancy-level tired.
I can choose other things, though. I can choose to support friends and chosen family during tough times, to celebrate with them during good times. Life can be a collection of these shared moments.
Then, Ms. Steward talked about the connection we make between our income and our self worth.
For me, coming from survival economics, it’s been a journey from needing money above all else, to knowing that it plays a critical role in our lives, but money is only one of many components of comfort and happiness. It’s natural that my self worth is linked to my income and net worth. There aren’t many tangible ways to measure success and money is one of them, naturally, because that’s usually how you see it celebrated when you achieve successes at work. If you do really well for yourself, typically, you can make a case for yourself to earn more money, because you’re worth more. That was the cornerstone on which I built my career. The mentality fed my fire to over-achieve, to build success on success.
That has evolved, though. Two Christmases ago, I reflected on our contentment. It was almost puzzling to realize that I truly was content. It didn’t seem possible, but here we are, two years later and I still am content.
Obviously that doesn’t mean life is perfect. It gets bumpy when you negotiate conflicting, deeply-ingrained beliefs, it stays bumpy when I still have tension over what my next career steps will be.
Thankfully, we learned the art of compromise and that gives us the flexibility to let go of a stressor, step back, and reassess, or to know that our partner will help us if we need a hand. That’s not something we could buy. It was a knowledge earned after putting in the hours into our relationship, developing trust in the scorched earth of my heart, by showing up, repeatedly, reliably, over and over, day after day. I could have bought a whole lot of therapy, I could have made PiC try to buy his way in, but we took the harder, more austere route – the one without easy credit card swipes, but much more meaning.
Don’t get me wrong, a surprise flower and donut will always put a smile on my face. The gift of actual gifts is not to be scorned! Hanging from a hook on the necklace holder he picked and put up for me is a deeply cherished sterling silver necklace from an early anniversary. They both mean a lot to me.
But as Maggie discussed, I don’t look outside myself for validation, to form the basis for my joy. Not anymore. My acts of service are rooted in what I expect of myself, though they be for others. My sense of achievement draws from my professional and personal accomplishments, but it’s no longer rooted in the salary I draw.
Penny touched on how difficult it is to move away from that mentality, and I won’t lie – it was the work of many years, and years of solid earning – to make it.
Sometimes it puts me in a hard place. If I can only feel fulfillment, that savory-sweet new fulfillment, when I do something that I consider worthwhile, it can be a long dry spell between flashes. External fulfillment is a much quicker fix. Swiping my card for a beautiful sweater on sale gives me something tangible to hold and enjoy. It ticks the same pleasure center in my brain that achieving a desired goal does. It shouldn’t, but it does, and I know it does. So once in a while, once in a long while, I take that shortcut.
I save rigorously so that I can afford it but that’s a zero-sum game and I know that fact even better. Spending isn’t the answer. It can be once in a while, and it’s no sin, but it’s a cheap mini Snickers compared to the decadent luxurious chocolate mousse of closing a long project successfully. No sweater will beat that sense of satisfaction of saving thousands by refinancing. It’ll tide me over but it doesn’t fill my well.
Right now, in general big picture terms, life is pretty good. Zoom in a little closer and there are a lot of empty spaces to be filled in, question marks to be replaced with answers, and it’s incredibly uncomfortable when everything is in flux, but they’re not in a dire state.
My life pie chart is best when balanced between my family, working productively, and nurturing friendships.
I draw joy, grow happiness, and achieve fulfillment by working to earn money, enjoying my family, nurturing friendships that I’ve built over the past two decades. I deepen the strength of our family and our relationships and that pays back dividends in love and support.
And here’s the other side of my happiness truth: happiness isn’t solely a personal choice.
It can be an attitude but unlike some, I have not yet reached the state of nirvana. My happiness can be impacted by the actions of others that increase or decrease demands on me. With chronic pain dogging me, it’s impacted by how my pain fluctuates, daily, hourly. It’s impacted by whether my contributions to the pie are matched by those I engage with or if it’s just all me doing the heavy lifting for a while.
It’s important to recognize that in this, just like most things in life, we only have so much control over. Without that acceptance, or acknowledgement of what can unbalance our happiness, how can we hope to rebalance it?
:: How do you seek long term happiness? What brings a smile to your face on a gloomy day?
*Part of Financially Savvy Saturdays on brokeGIRLrich.*
March 27, 2017
I was an Honors and AP student in high school. I passed enough AP credits to skip half my freshman year of college, at $75 a pop, and it might have been more except my college only took several credits. On the old style SATs, I scored something like 1450. 1540? 1450? I can’t remember now but back then, academics were kind of Important.
My great shame that I’d hidden forevermore, until today, was that I failed at something. It wasn’t just a little thing, like a midterm or a final, either. Though in retrospect, calling a midterm or final something little says quite a lot about how far I’ve come since those testing days.
I did so poorly in my Honors math class sophomore year, failing week after week to grasp the materials at the pace that others were absorbing it, that I dropped out of the Honors track for math. Correction: I was dropped. That wasn’t my choice, though it would have been the wisest thing I did had I made the choice.
Miraculously, the world never stopped turning. This was in part because I hid it from my parents. This is the biggest secret I’d kept from them up until after college when I hid the extent of my illness from them – I hid my report cards and let them think that everything was fine at school. This worked because they trusted me, my sibling was a far greater worry to them so they assumed they could continue to trust me, and I didn’t flip out and overcompensate.
I failed. That royally sucked. It was humiliating to slink back into a lower track math class. And if you believe all the teen-pop movies, that’s the worst thing in the world. It felt like it, anyway.
Then I remembered that I had friends in those classes too and no one thought less of them. Absolutely no one cared if I wasn’t competing with them for the number one slot at the top of our graduating class.
This is where lack of constant parental pressure was key – I don’t know how I’d have reacted if my parents were pressuring me and judging me for not excelling. There have been times when I wished that they had, but by and large I’m almost certain that the fact they didn’t only helped me grow my own intrinsic motivation.
The lesson I took away at first was that there was safety in mediocrity. And that wasn’t completely wrong. But the important lessons were: there are always people smarter than you, working harder isn’t always the answer, and most failure won’t kill you unless you let it.
I could have started drinking and doing drugs to mask the pain. Apparently the latter was readily available at our school though I learned much too late for it to do any good! Some overachievers of my acquaintance took failure that badly, flunking out and quitting college entirely because they had no idea how to deal with failure. Instead, I dusted myself off and got back to work. I didn’t have to mask the pain, I could let go of it.
No one said a thing. It probably helped that they all knew I’d make mincemeat of them if they mocked me but I’m sure it had a lot more to do with people being people: people pay far less attention to you than you think they do. I didn’t lose any friends over this stumble. My friends were academically gifted, naturally smart, and just not that shallow.
Looking back, now, I’m grateful that I failed in exactly that way.
I made mistakes that couldn’t be denied, suffered consequences, accepted the consequences, and worked my way to graduation without further mishap. That my parents didn’t get involved was likely a good thing, their reaction wasn’t predictable since my failure would have been considered a betrayal of their trust on so many levels. But their lack of involvement helped me learn how to navigate a failure long before it did true harm. I didn’t have Ivy League aspirations or it would have much more devastating, but since a state school of one kind or another was what we could afford, the blow was a glancing one at best.
In real life, this ability to recognize and rectify failure, and to work hard even if I didn’t have the raw or native talent, served me incredibly well. I might have done well at a tougher college, but I doubt it. At a certain point, my academic smarts plateaued and my life smarts improved exponentially. There’s still a step or three between me and that CEO title, but I’m not just dreaming airy castles in the sky when I consider the possibility of starting my own business.
:: What have you learned from flaming out? What’s your most memorable failure?
March 22, 2017
Parents typically gush that having babies is a life-changer. They’re not wrong, but it’s a toss-up whether they mean in a good way or a bad way. Might depend on the day(s) they’ve had.
Two years on, I’m still happy that we made the choice to try for our kidlet and confirm that it’s transformed our lives in many unpredictable ways, and a few predictable ways though I wouldn’t have admitted it was possible years ago.
Clothing
I’ve frumped around, making do with my existing closet minus a few pieces of generously gifted maternity clothes, since getting pregnant in 2014.
This isn’t out of the norm for me. I tend to stick to the tried-and-true even when it stops working, sartorially, so it’s a self improvement project to do better at this. It doesn’t mean cycle through the latest trends with every season, nor become a wasteful consumer. Never that. Just making an effort to form a more classic and therefore all seasons wardrobe, as an adult might do.
The past 6 months, I started adding some essentials: 2 pairs of flats, replacing 3 pairs that have worn out or hurt my feet, 2 tops, and PiC replaced a couple pairs of trousers that were too dreadful.
I’ve focused on removing things first. After that, I’ll hunt down some basics that will work for my combo career and mom roles.
I look for high quality, now. I can stand the thought of spending more knowing that it will truly last me years of good wear. Of course, the same can be said for that handful of shirts bought cheaply 15 years ago that just won’t die. I can’t just toss clothes that still have wear in them, but they’re so old and don’t quite fit right anymore!
Social life
Never a partier before, I’ve morphed into even more of a homebody since JuggerBaby. It’s a lot of energy conservation and a little bit of disinterest. I’d LIKE to go out for a show or a spontaneous overnight trip sometimes, but it’s never appealing enough to try and find a sitter, or prep another meal in advance. I’m too easily entertained at home, and much more easily tired out by week’s end.
Some of this shift had already started between aging and with dog ownership. With a senior dog, you can’t just take off spontaneously if you don’t have reliable friends or family you regularly trade favors with. Back in the SoCal days, I could. My family could feed and walk the dogs if I took off to NYC for a week, but here it’d be boarding Seamus for $400 plus prepping all his food and his medications. Life was simpler in my 20s, though certainly poorer.
We have become friends with the parents of JuggerBaby’s bestie, though, and that was a nice surprise. My parents were never friends with the parents of my friends, and we only spent time with family during holidays and weekends, so this is new to me but it’s a good way to build a new network of support when all our family lives hundreds of miles away.
When pregnant, I refused to make friends with other moms solely because we were gravid together on the grounds that I didn’t want to, but also because I wasn’t prepared to invest time and energy into caring for a relationship that didn’t have staying power. I need to observe a person around their family and friends, and see how they care for them, to see what kind of person they are.
Eating habits
We trend towards healthy eating but I continue to have my vices, in small doses. I demolished PiC’s bag of Micro Snickers today, and every couple of weeks we get a box of delicious buttered, sugared pastries that I have to force myself to share. Chocolate lasts much longer in our fridge than it used to, though. This is clear evidence that I’m simply nowhere near the stress levels I used to marinate in.
Time Management
This has to be the biggest change of all. Before JuggerBaby arrived, I was pretty convinced that we could stay homebodies and introverts, even with kids. WRONG.
Our weekends are now centered around keeping JuggerBaby busy, for survival. Ze has ten times our energy so we have to keep the kid running. We take zir grocery shopping, to the park, to the errands that ze can help us with. Adult-only things like medical appointments or work are done during the last remaining afternoon nap. PiC always feels awful about ditching me for the gym when ze is awake, even when I say it’s totally ok, so any work I have to do, and any working out he wants to do, has to happen during zir nap.
I do miss the two-nap schedule sometimes.
With the two-nap schedule, I could have a nap and get work done, one per nap.
Overall
Even with a toddler on the rampage trying to eat the dog’s treats, and a senior dog with periodic health surprises, my life is more pleasant and rage-free than twelve years ago. Surprise! I have found some Zen.
:: Did you grow up in a children- or family-centric community? Did your parents welcome the changes you wrought in their lives?
March 1, 2017
After this saddish but mostly bucking up post, I decided Mrs BITA was right.
After a long day on little sleep, instead of forcing another two hours of work as usual, I traded them for an hour of house hunting on Zillow and an hour of The View from the Cheap Seats. It’s been a long while since my last reading of a new thing by Neil Gaiman and it felt almost like that was punishment for not being productive enough. That’s hardly fair, is it? Just because my to do list was digested and horked up by Tribbles, doomed to forever respawn as a zillion Tribbles, I’m hardly being irresponsible in just managing to stay abreast of the troubling Tribbles.
I’ve slipped on a ring gifted to me as part of my “inheritance” by a dear friend. She has family by adoption via mentorship, having chosen never to raise biological children, instead mentoring, supporting, and teaching scores of them. That’s after having two long and successful careers. I suspect -no, I know- her way has touched and positively influenced the lives of now countless people. The ring doesn’t quite fit me, but I love it anyway. It slips and slides, reminding me of a friendship, unlooked for and cherished all the more for the surprise, and reminding me to keep a finger on the pulse of all the people I care most about. By text, by email, by handwritten letter, it doesn’t matter how, so long as they know they’re in my heart and not just when I’m asked to remember them in a eulogy or obituary. Hm, that took a dark turn.
Still, we do all have an expiration date. It may sound morbid but it’s true. We know we don’t know what time we have left, or how good that time will be. Rather than leaning in, or out, or whichever way, I’m standing up straight and stretching, reaching as far as I can to make a difference in the small ways that are most important.
I haven’t dropped anything, just taking a little breather. My responsibilities are still all here, but I’m pacing myself with things that aren’t work.
The next two weeks will be focused on taking care of our health: a massage for my several-weeks-long backache, long overdue exams with my doctors to see if there’s anything we can do about this new rib and chest pain, a check up for Seamus, more gym time for PiC.
And completely out of the blue, I received the most unexpected email from our friends over at the Rockstar Community Fund. J. Money started off with “please say yes!”, sharing that some lovely bloggers nominated me for an RCF award, and worked hard at persuading me that I really needed to say yes. As I read his email, complete with an abandoned plot to sneak the money to me so I couldn’t turn it down, it was embarrassingly clear that my stubborn streak has preceded me.
This was not just a lesson in how amazing the people are in our community, though they are.
It’s also my reminder to accept the goodness of others with grace and openness. That’s tough to do when you’ve internalized a script of independence, where helping others is a worthy cause, but you’re on your own. But how can I be part of a community if I don’t allow it to be a two-way street? Are we part of the ecosystem when it’s ok to give, but not receive?
Less philosophically, ‘twould be churlish to refuse the help. And so I did, with a most grateful heart again for Internet-born friendships and friends out there who care.
:: How are you taking care of yourself this season?
February 22, 2017
I tend to equate my value as a person to what I can do for others or what I’ve achieved. I’m frequently guilty of fighting against being overwhelmed by things that I cannot control by taking on the burdens of others to distract myself.
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
– T.S. Eliot.
Sitting with my own problems, not solving them because they’re complex and take time, is hard. Having chronic pain and fatigue is isolating. Losing connections with others, by way of service, is another level of isolating.
It’s no surprise that my worst days are those days when I feel like I’m not doing anything. Days when I can barely sit up in bed, days when I should be working during JuggerBaby’s naps but if I do, I pass clean out halfway through the afternoon. In those moments, I get a stab of insecurity, forgetting the lessons we learned in chronic pain classes: these are moments, and they pass.
I do an awful lot on a day to day basis even if I’m not launching a massive year-long, or month-long, challenge with a billion readers following along. It’s ok that I didn’t manage to start a business or 10x my salary this year.
I’m…
living in pain. Sometimes teeth-gritting, excruciating, hold your breath til it passes but grey out, pain.
writing for this blog three times a week.
working a traditional full time office job, at least 40 hours a week.
co-raising a rambunctious toddler and co-running a household.
nursing Seamus and managing his medications and special diet.
managing my own medications and diet.
I also struggle to remember, while I’m kicking myself for not being capable of cooking dinner every night as I do when my brain is functions and I have four halfway decent limbs, that PiC remembers I’m not superhuman. He easily stepped into my shoes to head up planning and preparing dinner without a word from me. He admits that he misses my cooking but that’s the extent of it. So I shouldn’t feel guilty.
It feels to me like I really need to be spending less time on things of pleasure or leisure (as I write this post at 12:30 am), and spend that time on income replacing activity instead. Maybe that’s where the guilt comes from.
January 30, 2017
With the whole house thing dropping down on my head like I’m the Wicked Witch of the West, plus the feeling that the world is coming apart at the seams, I need a reminder that slow and steady has brought us through some pretty tough times, and can still serve us well.
I’m reminding myself that not having a cool million in cash with which to buy a home in cash does not a massive failure of me make. (Sherry bought her half of their new home in cash and I’m STILL chuffed by that.)
Highlights
- I weathered a year of unemployment during the Great Recession.
- I started investing in 2012 in one stock, 7 whole shares worth $500 in total. We now hold 1100 shares of mostly dividend bearing stocks, worth $60,000 at our brokerage with Tradeking. I heartily recommend them. It was so easy to use when I first started out and continues to serve our needs.
- We once had a large mortgage loan, a bit of retirement savings, and my cash. Now we’ve halved that mortgage and double my cash savings, doubled the value of our tax-advantaged accounts, and own an investment property.
We’re by no means wealthy, but we have done well. A dear friend pointed out my money management was nearly miraculous given the obstacles and commitments we’ve honored. While I think she might have been at least a little hyperbolic, I respect her opinion immensely, particularly with regard to money given her background in financial fields.
Health and Fitness
I’m uncommonly tickled about this discovery. I was aiming to establish an average of 2000 steps per day starting last June. It was a struggle to get out from behind the desk twice a day, but Seamus and I have hit a nearly 100% success rate in getting out the door for walks two, and even three, times a day, every week day, even when pain was so high I could barely feed myself.
We walked, dadgummit!
My average to date is about 3900 steps daily.
I haven’t been nearly as good at the yoga, so that’s a work in progress. There’s something much more compelling about telling yourself that it’s for the dog’s good, and having Seamus yodeling at me, that gets me off my duff faster and more consistently than telling myself to stretch because it’s good for me. Maybe I need to train Seamus to yodel at me until I stretch every night?
This month, I signed up for an account with Achievemint which pays you $10 per 10,000 points earned. I’m already pushing myself to walk consistently and a little more each day, why not get paid for it?
This took me three minutes.
1. Use my referral link to create an account. This nets both of us 250 points, so right away, you get points.
2. Choose an app to link to Achievement. My choice was the existing Health app on the iPhone. You can choose from, among MANY others: Fitbit, Foursquare, MapMyRide, Microsoft Health, MyFitnessPal, even Twitter!
3. Download Achievement to your phone if you’re linking to an app on your phone. Linking an app nets another 50 points.
I only started out with 50 points since I didn’t have a referral link (sadface) but you can (look up there!) leapfrog over with a lot more points. It doesn’t look like you’ll earn remarkably quickly but this is my one of my favorite things – getting paid for doing something I’m already doing.
The world
Like I said, the state of American politics and government in this very moment has me incredibly concerned for our democracy and Constitution. Is the American experiment over? Did it fail?
I was raised in the bosom of staunch Republican families, surrounded by serving men and women, but none of them recognize what the party has become today. I sure don’t. To see some conservatives still speaking out against what’s happening now does give me a little bit of heart, but I think we’re still deep in the muck and a whole lot of vulnerable people are going to be hurt before it’s over.
This weekend was Lunar New Year. The airports were filled with protests against the unconstitutional Muslim Ban, and Custom Border Patrol officers were refusing to enforce court orders. Lawyers were on the ground doing pro bono work to help those who were being illegally detained: green card holders, visa holders, citizens with dual citizenship.
It’s hardly been any time at all in the new administration and we’re already seeing civil rights being violated left and right. There is almost certainly an intent to fatigue citizens who can’t protest forever, while it’s quite easy for the administration to roll out EO after EO violating our rights. It can be overwhelming.
BUT.
PiC and I are going to stand up for ourselves and our neighbors, families and friends, all of whom are fully deserving of the rights that our Constitution affords us, regardless of age, race, sex, religious convictions, disability, sexual orientation and any other way we can be defined and divided up. I can’t physically march, but we can speak out, organize on a one-on-one basis, donate to those organizations and individuals doing tireless work to protect our civil liberties and reminding us that we were never perfect and that we can improve.
:: Can you share any financial or fitness goals you’ve achieved over time? What’s a great activity day for you? What’s your approach to defending our civil rights?
January 25, 2017
PiC and I went to a doctor’s appointment together in the middle of the work day. The skies would not stop pouring down rain and a hint of ice. I really should have taken a hint and just gone straight home afterward.
There wouldn’t be a post, though, if I did, so onward we went, though the weather be foul. (Apologies to Dr. Seuss.)
We went to exchange my discounted gift card that I’d bought for a clean one that didn’t have marker scribbled all over it. Nope, they can’t use a gift card to “buy” a gift card, and can’t transfer the balance, so I was stuck with the ugly card to gift. Classy.
Having trudged out in the rain, I figured we’d make the most of having to be at the mall. We stopped in at Target to find a pair of boots because daycare requires them. Nope. Nothing on the shelves anywhere.
Fine. I had $1000 burning a hole in my pocket. It’d been withdrawn for the appointment but it turned out that we didn’t need it after all. We went to the bank to deposit a huge wad of cash, and like a fool I told PiC it was fine to just hit the ATM. THE ATM ATE MY MONEY.
In 16 years of banking primarily through the ATM this has never happened. So of course it’d happen on this day. Me and my big mouth. “I always use the ATM, it’s fine.” “No, of course we don’t have to go to the teller.”
Idjit.
7 minutes later, I had a claim number from the Citi rep, and an assurance that when the ATM’s take was reconciled, they’d match the overage to my claim and all would be well. “Give it 1-2 business days,” she said. Mmhmm.
Four business days, and a lot of semi-panicked grumbling later, the rep I spoke to found the claim after 30 minutes of searching. “Odd, it was archived, so I couldn’t find it. But I found it! You just have to call the disputes department directly to have them complete the process though, they’re open from 9 am to 1 pm EST.” That’s great.
Another 2 business days later, because of course this would happen when I was traveling and didn’t have time to sit down and deal with it, I remembered that another phone call was due and reached for the slip of information … that wasn’t in my wallet. Many bag searches later, I had to conclude that JuggerBaby had stolen and eaten it. !!!!!
Almost exhausted, I just gave up and called the branch to appeal to them for help locating any of the claim information that would help me duke it out with the disputes department. The almost jolly young man on the other line put me on hold to go a-huntin’ and returned 8 minutes later having opened a new claim, credited my account with a provisional credit, and an assurance that that money would stay put and they’d match up the new claim to their general ledger and confirm that the money was really returned to me. I thanked him profusely, he apologized for the inane contortions they’d made me go through, and I have my money back.
It’s an ante-Christmas miracle.
:: Do you have strong feelings about ATMs or a preference for going to the teller (is it worth having to talk to people)?