I have always had a to do list…even back in high school — I had a Palm Handspring! Now, in an effort to rethink, how I get things done: I am considering adopting this idea that I read about in Daniel Pink’s The Flip: To Don’t List. Here are some ideas for keeping a to don’t list:
Don’t keep checking my email
Don’t keep my phone on me all day
Don’t eat and watch TV
Don’t eat 2 hours before I go to bed
Don’t get out of bed without taking a deep breath
Don’t hang out with negative people
Don’t be mean
Don’t get ahead of yourself
Don’t rush
Don’t look at your iPhone before you go to sleep and right when you wake up
As Mark Twain said, “If I had more time, I would have written you a shorter letter?” In the same way, what we leave out of our day-to-day is just as important as what we leave in. What about you?
“If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either. So we can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are. “Interbeing” is a word that is not in the dictionary yet, but if we combine the prefix “inter-“ with the verb “to be,” we have a new verb, inter-be. If we look into this sheet of paper even more deeply, we can see the sunshine in it. Without sunshine, the forest cannot grow. In fact, nothing can grow without sunshine. And so, we know that the sunshine is also in this sheet of paper. The paper and the sunshine inter-are. And if we continue to look, we can see the logger who cut the tree and brought it to the mill to be transformed into paper. And we see wheat. We know the logger cannot exist without his daily bread, and therefore the wheat that became his bread is also in this sheet of paper. The logger’s father and mother are in it too. When we look in this way, we see that without all of these things, this sheet of paper cannot exist. Looking even more deeply, we can see ourselves in this sheet of paper too. This is not difficult to see, because when we look at a sheet of paper, it is part of our perception. Your mind is in here and mine is also. So we can say that everything is in here with this sheet of paper. We cannot point out one thing that is not here – time, space, the earth, the rain, the minerals in the soil, the sunshine, the cloud, the river, the heat. Everything co-exists with this sheet of paper. That is why I think the word inter-be should be in the dictionary. “To be” is to inter-be. We cannot just be by ourselves alone. We have to inter-be with every other thing. This sheet of paper is, because everything else is. Suppose we try to return one of the elements to its source. Suppose we return the sunshine to the sun. Do you think that this sheet of paper will be possible? No, without sunshine nothing can be. And if we return the logger to his mother, then we have no sheet of paper either. The fact is that this sheet of paper is made up lonely of “non-paper” elements. And if we return these non-paper elements to their sources, then there can be no paper at all. Without non-paper elements, like mind, logger, sunshine and so on, there will be no paper. As thin as this sheet of paper is, it contains everything in the universe in it.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
A woman sued the the City of New York for $900,000,000,000 (trillion) dollars for taking away her kids. My college roommate once asked me, “How much do you want to earn?” I told him $500,000 per year. The crazy woman from NYC and I have a lot more in common than I want to admit.
My younger self foreshadowed my financial needs in life to be sustained by a salary of $500,000. Similar to the crazy woman’s number, mine was just as arbitrary. At that time the most I had ever earned was $5,000, but I needed a 9990% increase in my annual income to be worry free and happy.
I often think to myself: Why is it that in work we work countless hours planning for next years budgets, but in our personal lives we are so laissez-faire?
Money enables you to support the lifestyle you want, but the reality is that many of us never take a moment to think about what lifestyle we want, why we want that lifestyle, why will that lifestyle make you happy or, what is enough?
Despite all of our informal education — reading books, watching TV and movies, listening to family and friends, etc. — and formal education — K-12, College, etc. — the only thing we learned was “earn a lot of money.”
If you never question your needs and wants, then you will be like zombie chasing something that does not exist.
What do you really, really, really want? Or, what really, really, really makes you happy? I try to ask myself this almost every morning, but the question is really important. Do I want to be the CEO of Google? Do I want to be a teacher? Do I want to be a farmer? Do I want to be an artist? Do I want a family? Do I want children? Do I want a roof over my head?
On average you have ~30,000 days to live: ~15,000 of them will be spent working; and, the remaining 15,000 days are hopefully spent living how you want. 15,000 days worth of work are financing the remaining 15,000 days.
If you are happy and passionate with your work and it is helping you enjoy the remaining 15,000 days, you are blessed — be grateful. If you are happy with your work and it is helping you enjoy the remaining 15,000 days, awesome — you are living the good life. If you are not happy with your work and it is helping you enjoy the remaining 15,000 days, good — congratulations you are living half the good life. If you are not happy your work and it is not helping you enjoy the remaining 15,000 days, run — cut your losses and make some big changes.
Whatever scenario you find yourself in, you should seek to optimize your 30,000 days.
What is my number? I have pulled together a Google Spreadsheet here (or, click image). Copy it to your Google Docs and figure out what your number is!
Step 1: What are the basics of your lifestyle? Think about the basics shelter, food and healthcare. At the end of the day, those are the things you need to “survive” as a human.
Roof over your head? Utilities?
Food?
Healthcare expenses?
Other?
Step 2: How much do you want to save? Think about retirement savings, life insurance, etc.
Roth IRA? 401K?
Life Insurance?
Emergency Savings?
Step 3: What are all the expenses beyond the basics? Think about all the movies, the iPhones/iPads, clothes, etc.
Entertainment? Movies?
Vacation?
Travel?
Charity?
Now, that you have your number: Ask yourself why? Why do you want x, y or z? And, then ask yourself why five more times? Do you want this amount of money because you watched Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous all the time? Or, is it based on a sincere and authentic desire based on what you want.
Please share your thoughts below and pass this on if you feel it is useful.
