Just a little (link) love: finding Zen edition
April 4, 2019
I really enjoyed this interview with Abigail Disney. Her views and understanding about money are interesting and I imagine not that common among the very rich. I often wonder what the most effective ways to responsibly deploy that kind of money and do the most good to people least likely to get the help they need.
Who is the best you?
Being consistently grateful instead of grumpy because work is so heavy I’m sinking miserably under the weight continues to be difficult. Since spreadsheets and mony goals make me happy, I thought it was time to focus on our FIRE goals as a distraction. Boy, was I wrong. This has only served to make me an even more ungrateful frog because we’re deep in our middle years without a true end in sight. I’ve had to reread and mentally review all the things I’m doing wrong that Tanja reminds us not to do: checking account balances frequently, focusing entirely on the end goal and ignoring the incremental wins because they seem insignificant, trying to optimize every penny (well, I’d do this anyway). So I remind myself via Tanja: “Or, in more concrete financial terms, celebrate when you hit round numbers, when you pay off even small amounts of debt and when you pass psychologically significant waypoints. Doing that keeps you focused on how much you’re accomplishing instead of how far you have to go, and that mindset difference is enormous.”
It’s true. I need to go back to being happy about my small and insignificant in comparison to the large goals wins because they are each meaningful and will add up, and most importantly, focusing on them will make me happier about the process than staring at account balances that just. aren’t. moving.
