r0dman.com

So I was just on a car forum that I regularly talk on to kill my days at work. People were talking about “cheating” in a relationship and what they consider to be ok and not ok. I told a comical story from a few years back where I ended up in a less than ideal situation with a girl from a party that I was at. I didn’t do anything that I considered as “wrong”, although probably pushing the boundaries a bit, and my girlfriend didn’t see it as an issue either. The point that I was trying to make, was that everyone has differing opinions, and what works for some won’t work for all.

I think the biggest mistake that some people make is pretending to be someone who they aren’t, just to make a relationship work. If you are your true self 100% of the time, there’s nothing to lose. Your partner knows what you are like, who you really are, and what to expect. This in my opinion is how quality relationships are formed.

Anyway, I copped a barrage of abuse. Closed minded sheep that are set in their ways. The comical thing was that the majority of them posting abuse at me had never had a decent long term relationship. By the sounds of it, most don’t communicate when in a relationship and try to conform to the rules that society set for their relationship, only to end up failing each time they try.

The point that I then brought up was whether or not they would dump someone for cheating, or try and work things out. Literally all except one of them said they’d dump the other person.

Now I hate talking about this crap, but it is interesting. I think it’s a perfect example of people getting hung up on small things in their life, rather than just living it an experiencing it for the journey. I’m not suggesting that people let their partner walk all over them, but I just believe that people are too quick to break things off nowadays. Fact of the matter is, life won’t always go your way.

I was talking to my fiancee the other day, relaxing down by the river on a Sunday afternoon. After talking about her niece and nephew, she said “imagine if we couldn’t have kids”. In the past I’d have thought that she would be devastated, but after asking her what she would do she just said “that’s life, you’ve gotta move on”. For sure, I’d be disappointed for a bit too, but it’s not as though my life would be over. I think some people place too much emphasis on too few things. To me, life is a journey. Ups and downs, good times and bad, but ultimately every time there is a good or bad occurrence, it just opens a new door.

I get annoyed or unhappy from time to time like everyone does, but I really think you can make a conscious decision to “look on the bright side of life”.

When we talked about the possibility of not having children, I realised that although at first we’d be disappointed, it would mean a life of togetherness. Most parents I speak to say that the time before they had kids was the best time in their relationship. I could handle living my whole life like that!

Being a kid, life is just fun. You roll with the punches and keep on going. You don’t hesitate, because nothing can stop you. If you fail, you just get up and try again. As we get older, we lose this carelessness. We get hung up on the small things and let life beat us down and stop us from living the life that we really want.

If you take a step back and think about life, it’s amazing. Embrace it for what it is and enjoy as much of it as you can. It’s the best journey you’ll ever experience.

How much do you need to earn to sustain your lifestyle?

My mates pull figures out of thin air. On the weekend one of them said that if he could earn $100,000 he’d be happy, and he’ll do anything to earn that sort of money… “Even work 80 hour weeks!”

But to me, I think we’ve all got it a bit wrong sometimes. Why is it, that when I earned around five grand a year working for McDonald’s, I never had enough money, yet now that I’m earning over ten times that, I still “don’t have enough money”. Well, to be honest, that last bit is a lie.. I do have enough money, but only because my lifestyle has changed. My change of income hasn’t changed my situation, but rather my change of mindset. For most people I know, and most people I don’t know, they simply never have enough money because they always spend the extra money they earn on more “stuff”.

It’s not our fault that we always want more “stuff” (it’s what we’ve been taught for a long time), but it really locks us into our working life. Put simply, I have no intentions of working for my whole life. I am working full time now while I’m “getting set up”, but later in life I hope to be able to have my wife as a stay at home mum (as that’s what she wants), and ideally I will just work a few days a week.

I think the biggest issue with being able to do this is the ongoing costs that come attached to almost everything in our life nowadays. Mobile phone contracts, Internet contracts, pay tv contracts, petrol, car rego, club membership, insurance, etc. We’re committing to more than we realise. Now obviously some things you can’t live without, and obviously most people need to spend money to make themselves happy sometimes. For instance, I enjoy using the Internet, and I spend more than most people I know on it, but it’s a genuine interest of mine. I don’t have pay tv, because I don’t really watch much TV. I feel as though I can justify that expense.

The issue is that most people don’t really think before they commit to things (eg, $99 a month on their phone), and before long they are so used to having it, they “need” it. Now when you stockpile all of these weekly, monthly, yearly financial commitments up, plus the combination of getting into the habit of buying things regularly (eg, DVD’s, clothes, even expensive food), you end up broke. (Once again, I’m not saying “you should never buy a DVD”.. Some people love collecting them, it’s their hobby. Good on them. But so much stuff is thrown at us, that we just don’t think sometimes and that pay packet ends up spent.)

I tried to explain to my mate that if he earned $100,000 a year by working an 80 hour week, he wouldn’t have the time to service his car. He’d have to get someone else to paint his house… And so on. Heaps more outgoing funds, so his massive income would be eroded.

I’m actually starting a veggie patch at the moment. I intend on having a big one eventually, but I don’t really know what I’m doing so I’m starting small. A veggie patch is a prime example of an area where time means money. Later in life, my family could end up being self sufficient, but it would take a lot of time to do that. I don’t believe you could work full time and be self sufficient. But even having a small veggie patch, and working on it after work would save a family quite a lot of money. If you work an 80 hour week it’s the last thing you’d want to do in the dark when you get home, so inevitably you’d just end up buying more from the shops. More outgoing funds that erodes the huge pay packet.

I link to a blog by a dude that calls himself durianrider. He’s pretty “out there” for a lot of people, but I admire the guy. He’s stoked on life, yet works very little and just earns enough to eat and live. Now I’m not saying that I want exactly that, but I think it’s a perfect example of the other extreme. How can one man that earns next to nothing, be so happy, yet others that earn more than most of us can comprehend be so depressed that they have to be on drugs daily, and often end up killing themselves in the end because “it’s all too much”.

It gives me hope that in a financial sense, there IS more than one way to live your life. I intend on “playing the game” for the next few years and getting setup for life, but after a few years I intend on scaling back work so I can enjoy life with my family.

I work to live, and I only ever want it that way.