This past weekend I made my annual pilgrimage to the very east end of Long Island. My longtime friend's parents have had a house in Montauk, a stone's throw from the beach way before the Hamptons became a playground for idiots.
Every summer we'd sit on the beach at Ditch Plains and talk about the past and future. We've known each other now for 30 years so we could spend hours discussing silly things that happened in grade school to our intimate hopes and fears when it came to relationships and who were dating at the time.
We both would have our journals in tow and between gawking at tan surfers and watching with envy the carefree teenagers off from school, our minds would spin with thoughts about who we once were and who we wanted to be and we'd record them in our books carefully with greasy, sand covered pens.
Some time in the last five or six years, those hours on the beach became like New Year's Eve for us, where we'd make resolutions for ourselves to check in with each other throughout the year. One summmer I happened to read the book The Seven Spiritual Laws to Success by Deepak Chopra which I recommend to anyone looking to simplify just about everything. http://store.chopra.com/productinfo.asp?item=55&deptcode1=512
We called these sessions "Goals" to mask their inherit significance. Plus it was easier then saying, "Let's make those lists that keep us from becoming slackers satisfied with personal and professional mediocrity." They started out with three types of goals in sets of three; what we wanted to complete in the next week, what we wanted to do by the end of the year and what we wanted to acheieve by the time we were 30. The benchmarks proved to be a challenge because some goals like, 'Own real estate,' didn't really budge for a few years so we decided to change them to what we wanted to do in a week, by the end of the month and before our next birthday.
The process of goals, having them, concrete goals, checking in on them, becoming active about acheiving them, my guess, is probably a key attribute of success for people who are DONE.COM. If you're starting to get the idea of what DONE.COM means then I think you understand goals. It's not just about cashing out. It's also about simplifying life while at the same time living with intention.
An interesting side note: my friend and I did NOT get to do goals this weekend. The plan was we'd go for a run (she ran the marathon two years ago incidentally) and then sit on the beach and do our goals but the weather and my significant had another plan. I'm hoping to get my friend on the phone later tonight so we can do our goals because this change of plan was an interesting metaphor and influence on my goals. How do relationships affect a DONE.COM plan? The possibilties are altogether thrilling and icky.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Monday, July 7, 2008
Scored Racing
Runners will recognize the term scored racing. If you finish certain distances under certain times for nine or more races, you can earn yourself a spot in the NY marathon. But then sometimes the marathon has pity on you and if you've tried the lottery four years in a row, you get automatic entry that fourth time. I fall into the persistent vs consistent category. This goes for so many things in my life.
I don't remember when I learned about credit scores. You hear of bad credit but the part about scores was a mystery to me. Remember my Fannie Mae cluelessness? Well, I was even more clueless when it came to my credit report, that I even had one!! You mean someone was keeping tabs on my tabs?? Whoever thought it was a good idea to give college students credit cards without mandatory parental approval or some sort of stringent personal finance education and approval process should drown in debt. Not only did I live on credit cards in college, I lived beyond my means on credit.
Cut to post-college with no job and a hefty (Ivy League) student loan to carry as well, I found myself with five figures worth of debt and a degree in English. Then somewhere between dodging collection calls and putting my loans on deferment, I read Suze Orman's book, The 9 Steps To Financial Freedom ( www.suzeorman.com). It was a long, painful process but I became credit card debt free and refuse to use anything except American Express. I still am paying off my students loans as admittedly that was the lion's share of my debt (one more year to go) but will be paying those off ahead of schedule. In this process I learned about credit reports and how late payments actually DO matter.
I live in NYC, the worst city to try and accumulate personal wealth, where as my friend from LA observed that fast cash from the ATM comes in increments of $100 instead of $20 as it does over there, it's hard not to think that everyone is loaded here. What I fail to remember is that many people still live on credit so I feel fortunate to have learned that lesson in my twenties. Now as I'm in the race for real estate, I am relieved that my credit score is good and I am able to prequalify for a mortgage.
So back to being Done.com, what does all of this have to do with it? Well, being Done.com is a goal of mine as is owning a home. My parting thought(s) will actually be some takeaways for you to read. Then we'll go more into goals and why working often sucks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/06/opinion/06debotton.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=workers+of+the+world%2C+relax&st=nyt&oref=slogin
http://nymag.com/news/features/24757/
I don't remember when I learned about credit scores. You hear of bad credit but the part about scores was a mystery to me. Remember my Fannie Mae cluelessness? Well, I was even more clueless when it came to my credit report, that I even had one!! You mean someone was keeping tabs on my tabs?? Whoever thought it was a good idea to give college students credit cards without mandatory parental approval or some sort of stringent personal finance education and approval process should drown in debt. Not only did I live on credit cards in college, I lived beyond my means on credit.
Cut to post-college with no job and a hefty (Ivy League) student loan to carry as well, I found myself with five figures worth of debt and a degree in English. Then somewhere between dodging collection calls and putting my loans on deferment, I read Suze Orman's book, The 9 Steps To Financial Freedom ( www.suzeorman.com). It was a long, painful process but I became credit card debt free and refuse to use anything except American Express. I still am paying off my students loans as admittedly that was the lion's share of my debt (one more year to go) but will be paying those off ahead of schedule. In this process I learned about credit reports and how late payments actually DO matter.
I live in NYC, the worst city to try and accumulate personal wealth, where as my friend from LA observed that fast cash from the ATM comes in increments of $100 instead of $20 as it does over there, it's hard not to think that everyone is loaded here. What I fail to remember is that many people still live on credit so I feel fortunate to have learned that lesson in my twenties. Now as I'm in the race for real estate, I am relieved that my credit score is good and I am able to prequalify for a mortgage.
So back to being Done.com, what does all of this have to do with it? Well, being Done.com is a goal of mine as is owning a home. My parting thought(s) will actually be some takeaways for you to read. Then we'll go more into goals and why working often sucks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/06/opinion/06debotton.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=workers+of+the+world%2C+relax&st=nyt&oref=slogin
http://nymag.com/news/features/24757/
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