Just a little (link) love: Live and laugh now edition
February 6, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $521.62; Rural libraries, $321.62.
I love everything NK Jemison has written. The New Yorker does a good interview / profile with her.
Pick that scat up and/or let it go, a story from Rich and Regular.
“Spending money is a failure to solve problems by smarter means.” This is just a snippet from Jacob’s (ERE) update that made me smile a bit. I don’t REALLY think it’s a failure but this is the gist of a philosophy we try to practice: try not to spend money until you’ve explored other options. For conservation, for practicing self reliance, for exercising brains that might become flabby and weak. There are plenty of times I will actively choose to spend money instead of trying to find the smarter means because I don’t have the time and leisure to do it myself but I like to remind myself to try, too.
PSA: Don’t postpone joy. I am constantly having to remind myself this and trying to figure out that balance in the big picture. It’s hard not to just intensely stare at savings goals for the future when they help me have hope and they take me out of today. That’s a good thing when I’m in so much pain. BUT they also take me out of today. It’s a hard balancing act.
One thing I have gotten good at is making a bit of time every single day for people I love. I may not be able to travel to them but I can email them, text them, or write a letter. Well, I’m mostly all tied up with a couple of loved ones who are going through the most rocky periods of their lives so I’m not sharing that around as much as I would, ideally, but that’s also part of the balance. Right now, they need constant support more than other friends do.
Do you have an internal monologue? I didn’t think about whether it was normal or not to have full conversations with yourself, arguing and whatnot, but I assumed it wasn’t.
If I needed any more reminders that we have to live in this moment every bit as much as save for the future (and I shouldn’t, with the number of family and friends we have buried), our own community is losing Mr PIE to glioblastoma. They closed down their blog after early retirement and shared why in September 2019:
We always forget that money isn’t everything. It is why I am alarmed at people giving up on vacations and special dinners just to retire in 5 years.. a lot can happen in 5 years. <3
Yep and I definitely forget to enjoy today when I’m so focused on planning for the future.