Independence

We, as America just celebrated our independence. I would like to start an independence of my own. I am putting myself on the path of financial freedom. I will no longer be a slave to the credit card companies. They have enough of my money already.

I have completely redone my finances, and I have refocused my energy on living instead of consuming. There are more important things in life then being a slave. A slave to money, a slave to your job, a slave to your life.

I understand that I still have to make money and that I can not just leave my job. However my career will no longer be towards the top of my list. I do not need all of the things that I buy with my money. I do not need to work my life away.

What I need I already have. I have a family that I love. I have friends that are dear to me. I have a wife that understands me and does not feel the need to nag or question some of the decisions I make in my life. She has showed some concern now and then, but was always understanding and lent her support.

I need to live my life my way. I do not need corporate America telling me what I need anymore. I know what I need. Everyone knows what they need. So why do we let others tell us our needs. Big business and the government should not tell us how to think. They should not tell us how to spend our money. So why do they?

I think that big business just wants our money. They do not care that you have to work your life away. As long as you are buying there products. The government is one of the biggest businesses of them all. The only difference is we do not have a choice. We have to pay them in the form of taxes.

What were we told to do after 911. We were told to go shopping. Now that our economy is in a recession, which was caused buy overspending, weather it was on homes, cars, or anything else. We were told to go shopping again. We were told to spend our "stimulus checks" to help the economy.

I love this country, I really do. Take a honest look around, we as Americans have a lot of problems that we chose to ignore. Sooner or later we will have to face those problems. I chose to face them right now, to stop listening and start thinking.

I chose to take back control of my life, to enjoy the freedoms that I have, and to no longer be controlled by money, debt, wants, or societies pressures.

That is just my opinion.

Starting ones journey

The other day my wife and I attended a wedding. It was a pleasant experience, it is always nice to socialize with good people. One of my favorite things to do is sit around and have a great conversation with someone. It was your typical wedding, we ate, we talked, and we all laughed.

We were all sitting at formal tables eating a very good meal prepared by the caterer. My wife to my left, a couple that we knew, and several couples we have never met before. So as usual the conversation starts out slow and eventually gets moving nicely along. Sitting next to me was a young man 20 years of age and his cousin of about the same age.

The conversation turned to education. The young man said that he was going to take a break from college and figure out what he wanted to do with his life. The older couples at the table were totally taken back. They could not understand why someone would do such a thing.

I sat there and listened to the conversation for a few moments and then made the comment that I thought it to be a great idea. Apparently I was completely wrong and had not lived a long enough life to justify such a comment.

So my thought for the day is why not take some time for your self? This young man was not a bum, he had a job, was taking care of himself. He was not a waste on society and living on welfare. He was not taking out loans to pay for school, he was working, contributing to society.

I continued talking to this young man and learned that he wanted to travel. He wanted to see how other cultures lived. He wanted to slow his life down for a few years and do the things he wanted. He was not apposed to school but he went because of the strong influences from his family.

As for me, I wish that I would have traveled after I graduated high school. I too, wanted to see the world and how other societies lived. I wanted to explore the world that most people will never see. I did not want to be tourist, but a world traveler. Someone living in the world, experiencing all that is out there.

I tried really hard to convince this young man that his dream was worth pursuing. That he should not let anyone tell him that he can not do it. Life happens extremely fast, especially in the USA. You never know what life will bring and you should not give up the opportunity to do the things you love.

The more I talked to this young man the more the other couples at the table disagreed with me. They all felt as if he would waste his life by postponing college for a few years. I really do not understand this mentality. I believe that life experience is worth more then education any day.

I am not saying that education is bad, or that I am against it. The opposite is true, I am all for education and stress it daily in my life. The problem that I have is the time expectations that people put on others. I feel like you could pursue dreams for a while at a young age. You have plenty of time to go to college later in life if that is your desire.

Why give up an opportunity to live life for a while. Before you get "weighed down" with a mortgage and car payments and student loans. Why not do it before you have all of this baggage to carry around with you.

I still have the need to travel and explore. The fact that I did not at a younger age is one of my few regrets in my life. Instead of having that freedom, I now have a mortgage and the family life. I do love my kids and they have and are a great joy in my life. I must admit that every now and then I feel like I should be living a different life, a life where I have no mortgage. A life with very few responsibilities. A life were people and experiences are the goal not accumulating things. A life that wondered around aimlessly at some times, but with the purpose of living.

One day soon my dream will become a reality. My children will move out and start lives of their own. I hope that they pursue the things of their dreams and not let the pressures of the outside world get to them. That is my dream for my children. To pursue the things in life that they love.

That is just my opinion, and does it really matter anyway.

Consuming

So here I was sitting at my laptop working, well to be honest today I was losing money in the stock market, but that is a fairly common occurrence lately. So as I was losing money I was looking around my home office and the rest of my house, and I realized how much stuff I had. I have stuff that I have not used in years!!

I had this overwhelming feeling of being suffocated. I felt like I was drowning in "stuff". I could feel it draining the life right out of me. Well, it may not have been that dramatic.
To make it worse, I was trying to figure out why I even had bought some of the "stuff" that I had acquired throughout the years. Then my racing mind was trying to put a price tag on all the "stuff."

It added up to a lot of money. I have snowmobiles, four wheelers, motorcycles, a trailer to haul it all in. I have three cars, a boat, and all of the accessories that come with all of that "stuff.' To be fair I do use the snowmobiles and the boat, a lot. The four wheelers a few times a year, and the truck sits parked in the driveway most of the time.

I also have a lot of little things laying around that never get used. Kitchen appliances that I do not even know what they do. I have every tool known to man, carpentry and mechanical. Instead of renting or borrowing a specialty tool that I used once, I would go and buy one. The garage is so full I can not park my cars in there. Paintball gear that I used maybe a dozen times before I lost interest. A snowboard that was used one season, rock climbing gear that I never use anymore, but I would really love to get back into rock climbing, it is one of the best activities that I have ever done.

The point is WHY!! I do not really know the answer to that question. That is one of the reason I am writing this blog. I am not a writer, as you can probably tell. I will never write the next great novel or be famous. There is a chance that no one will ever read this except me. That is okay. If the only thing that comes of this is my own sanity then it will be an adventure worth doing.

So what do I do now? I feel like I have had an epiphany, but not sure what to think of it. I am not sure of the next step. Do I sale all of my "stuff?" It is all payed for, in fact I paid cash for most of it. When your self employed getting loans cost a little bit more and are kind of a pain. Should I just keep it all and forget the overwhelming feeling I have?

The rest of America seems to be very content with having a lot of stuff. In fact they feel the need to go and collect more stuff. People are always buying more and more and more. I know, I was one of those people.

So where did it all start? Why did we as a people decide that we need or even deserve all of this "stuff?" We are consuming the natural resources at a very alarming rate. We consume and consume. At one point it will all have to stop.

Look at the current price of oil. At this very second it is $140.46 a barrel and climbing. Maybe it will come down maybe it will not . I certainly have no idea. All I know is that we are moving faster and faster and eventually we will hit a brick wall.

The people of the world need to stop and think for a minute is it all worth it? I have decided that it is not worth the price that we all pay. I'm not talking about the dollar amount, although that has been climbing steadily. I am talking about the social price, the price on the environment. I am not an environmentalist, but I think that some of their ideas should make anyone stop and think about what we are doing to the world.

For example, about 4 years ago my wife and I saved our money and went on vacation to Costa Rica. it was a great experience. The people down there are very friendly and happy. The key word there is HAPPY. It was like going back to another time. Everything down there moves at a much slower pace. At least the places that we went to. Now you must understand that I come from a very small town and things move pretty slow here too. So when I felt like things moved slow down there it must have been extremely slow.

One of the first days there we were eating breakfast at this little soda. A soda is a small "mom and pop" shop that serves the local food. Most of the locals eat there and I highly recommend it. The people we went down there with had our only means of transportation, so we were walking to wherever we were going. We wanted to go on this zip line tour through the rain forest and the sign said it left at 10:00. It was 9:00 am and we where hungry. So we walked 10 minutes to this soda. We figured that we had plenty of time eat. Really, how long could it take to heat up beans and rice? Apparently they do not heat up beans and rice, they actually had to cook it.

So here it is 10:00 and we barely received our food. As you can guess I am chowing down as fast as I can and looking frantically at my watch. There was this older American couple sitting next to us and he looked over at me and asked why we were in such a hurry. I explained to him why and he just looked at me like I was crazy. He then told us that he and his wife have been down here for a few months and told me I would not be late for our tour. He told us that the people down here are on "tico time." Ticos are what the locals call themselves.

Anyways we hurried and ate and went walking back as fast as we could. The old couple just laughed and shook there heads as we left. We finally made it to the tour office, and no one was there. We thought that we had missed it and now had nothing to do for 4 hours until our ride returned. About ten minutes later a guide entered the little office and asked us if we were ready to go on the zip line tour. He then told us that he had just arrived and apologized for running one hour late. We were the first tour of the day and he told us that the 10:00 starting time was more or less a guideline to when he will be there. He then said that he lives on "tico time."

After that I took my watch off and threw it away, I have not wore one since. It was a great lesson in life for me and I try to live my life on "tico time." It does not mean that I am late for everything, it just means that things will happen at there own due time.

You will never know how fast paced America is until you step away for a while. when we returned home I was totally amazed. It was as if I was standing in the middle of the freeway of life and was just watching it zoom buy at 2000 mph. It was amazing. The people here are stressed out beyond all human form. We worry about our big house payments are fancy cars and all of our "stuff'' I read somewhere " that a man who has nothing sleeps the best." I never knew how true it was until lately. I will admit that it took me about a year to get caught up to the speed of life here in America. And after another year I was ready to leave again. So we headed back to Costa Rica!!

So last December we took some friends down there with us. It was not the same. We finally got to the town we stayed at and it was totally different. There were hotels going up on the beach, there was a brand new shopping mall. There were fast food chains, it might not have been so bad but they were American fast food chains. I could not believe it!! It was very disappointing. About half of the local sodas that we loved were gone, and were now upscale hotels.

We went and talked to a local that we had known and he told the sad truth. He said that everyone now was trying to be like the Americans. They all wanted money and very nice things. So many sold there property and shops to American business men. Everything there had at least doubled in price The people were losing who they were. A lot of them had "sold out."

They all seemed happy to have there new things and some extra money. All I could see was all of the new stress that they had received. I believe there happiness will be short lived. They will realize that there spare time that they had before will be gone as more of them are spending money and collecting "stuff" I hope that I am wrong. Either way it is a wonderful country and I will definitely visit it again!!

So the next time that you go shopping, I hope that you ask yourself is it worth it. I hope and pray that one day we will decide that we do not need all of this "stuff." The harm that it does to our environment and all of the resources it take to make is amazing.

Our economy has become so reliant on consuming I do not know if we can ever recover from it. Look at the stock market lately, banks are failing, businesses are losing money, the price of oil and fuel is out of control. The fed keeps lowering int rest rates, deflating the value of our hard earned money. To make it worse inflation is rising. The cost of everything has gone up, a lot!!

There are an amazing amount of people losing there homes and defaulted on there bills. I wonder if the day will ever come when the great people of this nation will finally stand up and say enough. The government and wall street has fed the same old crap over and over and nothing changes. Why should it? You can not blame them, after all we let it all happen. We are like sheep to a slaughter. We believe everything that we are taught and told. We do not change our habits until we are forced to do so.

We do not value saving and being frugal like we used to. If you do not have the latest and greatest thing out there you are falling behind the times. Who cares, I hope that I fall behind the times. I no longer need or WANT the latest and greatest. I do not need the stress or headache that comes with keeping up. All I want is a simple life filled with joy and peace.

FREEDOM, that is my new goal and desire in life. To be free of the corporate world. To be free of "stuff." To be free to live the life that I desire. Not the life portrayed in movies or TV ads. I do not want the American dream, my life is worth more then that. The American dream requires consuming and borrowing money. Living in debt and working your tail off to pay it off.

Now do not get me wrong I love this country that I live in. Take a serious look around and you will see that this great country is in some very serious trouble. We are on a slippery downhill slope. The more I learn the less I wish that I knew.

What do I know ,this just my opinion and doest it matter anyway?