Friday, June 8, 2012

Consider your future

     Every time I've dropped out of life to squander my savings on various adventures, I've been told I was careless, impulsive, irresponsible; and that I should take the time to think about my future before making such drastic decisions.  I guess that's good advice, but no one ever specifies a timeframe when they say 'future'.  Tomorrow's the future, so maybe you should get a good night sleep tonight if theres something important going on then.  Next week's the future, so making plans with some friends of yours might be a good thought.  Next year's the future, so you might want to do well at your job to advance your career.  The same goes for five years, maybe you want to get married, buy a house or make some investments for retirement, but that's about as far as a lot of people go when thinking of the future.
     I've always taken it a little farther.  What about 50 years in the future? or 100?  Well, you might be around in 50 years, and hopefully you'll have some good stories to share, but in 100 we can be pretty certain anyone reading this right now will be dead...  Then what?  All we'll have then are the stories we've left behind.
     The farther we look to the future, the less our mistakes, our shortcomings, and yes, even our finances matter.  Eventually all thats left is what we did.  You can spend your whole life working for someone else and making 'good' life decisions, or you can think about your future and do something to help yourself get to where you want to be.  Maybe for you that means working a job and advancing your career, but for others (myself included) that's not the right path.  I've boiled down my decision making process to two simple questions:

     1.  Will this be a good story?

     2.  If I think of this on my death bed, will I be proud of what I did?

     If I can answer yes to those two questions, then it's a good idea; if I can't, then it's probably not.  Even if the outcome is bad on one of my 'good ideas', I've still got a good story that I'm proud of.  That's a correct decision in my book.  And like I've said in the past, we all know the 'bad' stories are the best ones anyways.



Have an outstanding day.

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