Everything Else

Earlier this year, my wife and I visited Los Nevados National Natural Park in Colombia.

Los Nevados National Natural Park, Photo by Rob Symonds.

Driving the park roads on ATVs, we encountered rain and wind. At one point, hail started to fall, leaving red marks on my face wherever it struck me. We ended up soaking wet and chilled to the bone, but loved every minute of it.

The weather started to clear after the ATV ride ended and we decided to explore the far edge of the park in our car. But first, my wife wanted to take pictures of the volcano, Nevado del Ruiz, which had not been visible earlier. It seemed to me like the weather was getting better as the day went on, so I pushed to drive around the park and take pictures later.

Driving the length of the park and back took much longer than expected. When we returned, the weather had shifted again. Dark clouds and mist filled the sky, obscuring the volcano, making it impossible to see and photograph.

When we chose to put off taking pictures it didn’t feel like a decision of any consequence. But as time went on, my wife realized that taking the pictures was really important to her. And now she regrets the missed opportunity. We may never visit that park again. And even if we do, we may not have the same clear weather and nice light we had that morning. You never really know.

Now when we get into that kind of situation where there is something we really want to do–and can do, responsibly–we don’t put it off. You simply can’t know if you’ll ever have the same chance again.

* An alternative title might be: Learn to listen to your wife next time but it just doesn’t sound as punchy, does it?

The other morning you moved the bedding from the washing machine to the dryer. The pillow cases and top sheet had become balled up and tangled inside of the fitted sheet during the wash cycle. First you simply moved the whole thing to the dryer. But just as you were about to start the machine, you decided to pull everything back out, untangle it, and separate it. Then you put it all back in and started the dryer.

It was easy to separate the sheets and the pillow cases. But it would’ve been easier not to do it. Sure, you would’ve had to run the dryer a little longer to get everything dry and it would’ve come out a little more wrinkled. Not a big deal, though. Who but you would know or care?

The laundry may be low stakes but how many times a day are you similarly tempted by expediency? How often do you practice choosing the better option?

Ask yourself these two questions:

1. What does success look like to me?
2. Does the path I’m on lead to success (as I’ve defined it)?

Your answer to the first question will initially be nothing more than a highlight reel of messages you absorbed from parents, family, friends, church, educational institution, political party, culture, etc. Avoid judging them as good or bad. Just pay close attention to the answers. When you do, you’ll start to realize “hey, wait a minute….” On closer inspection, many of those ideas don’t actually make sense. You have begun the process of tuning in to what actually matters to you.

The second question is about alignment. Your time and energy are going to something. You better make sure they’re contributing to success as you have defined it. Ambitious people tend to put a lot of emphasis on this. But without having brought much awareness to the first question, we end up arriving somewhere that feels largely meaningless. The journey we took to get there seems similarly hollow.

An analogy that comes to mind is when you drive home from work and automatically make all the turns along the way without thinking. You pull into the driveway but you don’t remember the specific drive to get there. You were operating with a low level of awareness. How many of us tend to live more or less the same way?

Get clear on what you actually value, then bring your life into alignment with it. That’s how you lead a meaningful life.

If you’re not good with money, learn to pay yourself first. Even if it is practically nothing, even if it’s just $1 per pay check.

What do I mean by pay yourself first?

Whenever you get paid, automatically take some portion of money off the top and put it into your savings account. Do this before you pay your bills, before you service your debts, and before you spend anything. And do it without fail.

Sure, this doesn’t directly solve all your money problems, get you out of debt, and make you wealthy. However, if you are bad with money, this practice will transform you.

Because today you feel like you have no control over money. It’s something other people control, and you are at their mercy. But this is not true. And the most important thing you can do at this point is to prove to yourself that it is not true.

Paying yourself first shows you — not in just an intellectual way or in an “oh, that must be nice for other people” way but as direct, lived experience — that you do in fact have a measure of control over money. And once you feel that, everything changes.

Cultural forces move the line that separates needs and wants to the right. Over time, things that were once nice-to-haves become must-haves.

Most people do not stop to question this.

You begin to recover degrees of freedom in your life when you raise this into awareness and start to challenge it.