Defaults are handy placeholders, but are only that. Replacing the default version of anything will help you find your individual opportunities.
I started this site as a solution to the problem my financial advisor presented to me. When I’d inquired into the viability of a home purchase, he ran his program and told me I’d be out of money by 82, pointing to a red area on a graph.
In my mind, I thought about selling that house at that time and downsizing, if possible. I contemplated whether I’d still be alive and all the other life changes that might happen in a span of thirty years, because that was the runway I was looking at.
With thirty years, I was sure that I’d figure out my individual opportunities, or it wouldn’t matter.
Defining Personal Priorities
Right now, it does matter. I was deeply frustrated and unhappy, and I needed answers that helped, not hemmed.
I requested that different numbers be entered into his program just so I could see, but he was not interested. He scoffed at the numbers I provided and refused to run them.
To get answers, I built my own program in Excel, ran my numbers over and over again, and was confident I could pull it off.
Shortly after, I requested money for my down payment, but didn’t want to tell him that I was going ahead against his advice. I made up a different reason, lying to my financial advisor.
Recently, I met with a different financial advisor. I told her of my career background and my desire to run that program many, many times, just to see. She responded, “Let’s go.”
With her program, she said, “You could have paid cash for that house and been fine.”
Then, she followed through on the idea of downsizing that house at 82, just to see the numbers that he wouldn’t run.
Numerous answers later, a tear rolled down my cheek in frustrated relief. It shocked me, and I had to wipe it away.
With a completely altered perspective, I’ve reflected on my decisions over the past eight months. Upon receiving that news I didn’t want to hear, I compromised my dreams accordingly, if only for the time being. I knew I’d find a solution, and this blog was in pursuit of those individual opportunities.
I spied a solution earning money writing, or at least filling that red area in my future financial analysis. To do that, I needed to start writing in a way that sells, and that would be nonfiction, straightforward how-to.
Going Through Details
Dry and boring, I thought, but I can do it.
My heart sank a little at the prospect of the compromise.
Here, I wouldn’t be writing the personal essays that I find highly interesting and rewarding to write and read back later, but in a way that other people would be interested in.
More, writing in ways that internet robots would be interested in, so that I’d serve the marketing machine that makes social media possible to get the numbers to approach the publishers, to get the contracts that paid the cash.
Sunk a little? Well, it’s all relative. With limited individual opportunities, it’s what you do.
Like my new financial advisor, who showed me why his analysis was off. “Did he go through this detail with you?” she asked.
“No,” I confirmed.
With the default information replaced with the detailed version, it explained the difference between his analysis and hers.
To that end, then, I’m writing to make myself happy. Spending time with my best friend, the white page, who never argues back. Just listens. Just begs for more. The one who is always there, no matter the weather or time of day.
That’s it, that’s all. There’s no more red space in some graph I need to fill, and I’m confident in the analysis this time.
Besides, I have no idea of the changes that will occur in the next thirty years, so why not pursue meaning and purpose instead of going through the motions to satisfy some machine?
I was never well described by the default version of anything.
I have been described as a ox, as someone who just kept running the wood splitter despite teaming rain. “It had to get done and I was already wet,” I shrugged.
Playing the Right Game
On the other hand of perseverance, I’ve been described as a job hopper, a runner, and someone who only pushes hard when she cares. Like you are supposed to push when you don’t care? I’m not a machine – I have a heart.
The difference that broke me free was obviously financial, but it was also the difference between that of a finite game and an infinite game.
In an infinite game, you keep playing because it’s fun to play. You just want to keep going. In a finite game, there is a finish line, and someone is declared a winner, necessitating losers, ranking, comparison, and endings.
According to James Carse, an infinite player seeks to change the rules, while a finite player seeks to play by the rules. Going past the default version into a customized version of anything is infinite thinking. Within the detail and past the default are individual opportunities and openings waiting for you to find them. With everything.
With anything. Your job description, with your identity, with your narration, and perspective and description of the life you are living and experiencing.
No two people tell it the same way. They don’t notice the same details, make the same mental notes, even see beauty as the same.
Your choice of attention, voice and vocabulary are all up to you. What kind of energy surrounds you? When it’s complaining, it’s draining. When it’s angry, it’s disturbing. First notice your default version, and then swap it up for something that’s uniquely yours.
That’s what I’m going to do here, with my writing, and over at resilienceimagined.com. Mondays are for pushing forward, Wednesdays are for bouncing forward. Push and recovery, perseverance and resilience, for what else is there in life, but the ebb and flow of it.
Artificially Imposed Finish Lines
I was living life by artificially imposed finish lines. You can retire when you’ve saved this much, they said. How does she take such vast amounts of time off, they asked.
By not seeing finish lines, but rather a game to keep playing – the economy. Earning and spending, and earning and spending, as they never really go away or stay in their own lane.
A woman’s search for meaning and purpose, when she’d checked the education and career boxes and refused the next round of them. “You should get your Masters,” they pushed. “You should get married,” they pushed. “When are you going to have children?” they pushed.
But I’d seen the inside of those boxes up close and suspected they were devoid of meaning and purpose for me, knowing my insides and my heart. It can’t be for everyone, for we need academics and mothers, and some people thrive in partnership.
I didn’t thrive, but I like to think I finished growing up. More confident, capable, and backed by real resources, I’m no longer looking for help in the building phase of life.
I’m in the enjoying phase now, and that means no longer looking to be someone’s cook, cleaner, or chief bottle washer. Maybe that role, too, was an artificially imposed finish line, because I could have remained dependent forever.
“Do you have any dependants?” she asked.
“No,” I firmly replied, and that’s my answer. I know others who nurture and warmly answer, “Yes.” I know others whose egos swell with the number of people they are capable of supporting, beam with pride and assert, “Yes.”
Your Own Answers
You know your own answers to every question. There are some questions you are afraid to ask yourself because you know the answer and aren’t sure you can handle it. Like when I was on the precipice of swapping financial security for my own roof over my head, it wasn’t the easy road, but I knew it was the right one.
It might take a while for you to warm up to it, but the truth doesn’t hide forever. Get second opinions. Ask new sources of advice for a fresh perspective. Go slow and take your time. Refuse to be pressured. Other people have agendas, and they become clearer the more adamant they are.
Your individual opportunities might be more favourable than what you know right now, or new truths may upend a status quo that needs to go.
But the future is waiting, and the truth will always empower you. Lies and laziness just do not stand the test of time.
Find your individual opportunities by replacing the default answers, assumptions, and stories with the genuine truth. Prepare to be shocked by the sheer amount of unquestioned games, rules and finish lines you find.
To question everything was simply the first principle in my mind mastery manifesto, and here I am decades later, still reminding myself to do it, pushing others to let me do it, and finding those who are willing and able to help me do it.
Quality of Thought
To help with the shortcuts, here are the five principles of Quality of Thought.
- Question Everything
- Contribute Uniquely
- Reconnect Intelligence
- Analyze Truthfully
- Create Progress
In the big ways and the small ways, these five principles have helped me expose defaults that were limiting my individual opportunities, confront beliefs that were restricting my success, and dismantle prisons of my own making that I thought were keeping me safe.
A mere 47 pages remind me that it’s one thing to know and that only practice, refinement, and repetition can ingrain them into a life. Time will pass anyway, or so we assume when we play the infinite game.
Might as well spend it getting a master’s degree in my own principles of life. At least, (at most?), I can say I did it my way, like Frank Sinatra, like Jon Bon Jovi, like all the rebels who did it with pride, confidence and a big fat grin.
Need some motivation to get going? Here are my seven secrets to building everlasting motivation.
Leave a Reply