Category: Letting Go

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One Thing is Necessary

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One Thing is Necessary Lk 10:42

I have read in several books and blogs about the myth of multitasking.  While we can multitask at times, such as talk and walk, it is only when one of the things being done is automatic or takes no conscious thought to do.

Our brains, like computers, can only think through one thing at a time.  What we think of as multitasking is more like task switching.  We switch between many different things in a short period of time, giving us the sense we are accomplishing more.

It is becoming more apparent through research that type of task switching is counter productive.  It makes us look and feel busy, but is inefficient and wastes valuable time.

When Jesus comes to the house of Mary and Martha on his way to Jerusalem, Mary sits with Jesus listening to his teaching, while Martha is busy serving the disciples and others who have come to see him.

Martha, flustered, complains to Jesus and asks him to send Mary to help her.  Jesus responds, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary.” (Emphasis mine).

One thing is necessary.

He then says, “Mary has chosen the good portion which will not be taken away from her.”

One thing is necessary, and it will not be taken away.

This can be scaled from the big things, like saying “I do” to your spouse and “no” to everyone else for life, all the way down to “I’m working on Project X for the next 2 hours” and “no” to any other distraction for that 2 hours.  After that you move on to the next one thing.

One final thing:

No project is completed until its objective has been achieved.
– Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

Further Reading

Two excellent books come to mind as I write this that explore this concept in much more detail.  I have encountered this idea in many other books, but these two are a good place to start.

 “The key is over time. Success is built sequentially. It’s one thing at a time.”
The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan

 

 

 

 “If it isn’t a clear yes, then it’s a clear no.”

Essentialism by Greg McKeown

 

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Who wants more stuff? Not me.

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blog-image-2016-02-05

Cheech and Chong had something right in their classic comedy routine.

[Knock, knock]  “Who’s there?”

“It’s me, Dave, let me in, I got the stuff.”

[pause]

“Dave’s not here.”

(very loosely paraphrased from memory)

 

I was always particularly fond of this routine because they use my name, Dave.  But when it comes to someone bringing stuff into my life (including me) I now often respond in similar fashion, “Dave’s not here.”

The reality is none of us own anything.

We buy, borrow, sometimes steal (shame on us), stuff that we may or may not use for a time, but in reality we never own it.

If you were to die today, what would you take with you?

Nothing.

Because it was never yours to take.  It was only yours to use for a time.

So if I don’t own anything, who does own it?  The person or being that created it.  For me that person and being is God.  He owns it all.

What a relief it was to finally understand that.  It’s not mine, so I am just taking care of it for someone else.

Suddenly, my eyes were opened, and I looked around “my” condo space and asked, “Who brought all this stuff in here?”

It was me.  My floor plan had evolved to provide a pathway from the entrance to the stairs to the loft, a diagonal line from one corner to its opposite.  The rest of the place is full of stuff.  Stuff I hardly ever use (read “never”).  Stuff I thought had some value until I tried to sell it, and then could not find anyone to take for free.

I’m still buried under piles of CDs and books and furniture and some items dating back to childhood.   My goal is to do some serious Winter/Spring cleaning, by either selling, donating or throwing away the things I don’t need, to free up space for me to simply live and breathe.

I might even blog more often.

What would you do with with the space created by getting rid of your “stuff?”

 

 

 

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Finding 50 – Play the Savings Game

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blog-image-2016-01-19In my last blog post I mentioned my belief that most of us can find $50 a month for saving, paying off debt or investing depending on what your current goals are.

But how do I save fifty dollars when I can’t even pay my electric bill?  Or my car insurance?  Or rent?

The problem is that most of us never even try.   Better yet, try is all we ever do.  Trying tends to let us agree without any sort of commitment.  Taking action gets us to the finish line.

It might help to think of Finding $50 as a game.  (Tweet this)

Since we are thinking in terms of a game, it is helpful to think in terms of levels to beat.  For our purposes, I think the 7 Baby Steps used in Ramsey Solutions’s Financial Peace University will do the trick.

The 7 Baby Steps of Financial Peace University

  1. Save $1,000 as a starter Emergency Fund
  2. Pay off all non-mortgage debt using the Debt Snowball
  3. Build up you Emergency Fund to cover 3-6 months expenses
  4. Start investing 15% of your income for retirement using tax deferred programs
  5. Save for college
  6. Pay of your mortgage
  7. Build wealth and have fun giving some away

 

The following are areas you might be able to find savings, and if you end up finding $50 in one of these categories alone, keep going!  You’re on your way to winning the game!

Housing

If your rent is more than 1/4 of your monthly income, and your income is not likely to increase much in the next year or so, you might consider moving to a smaller or less desirable place for a time.  Or find a responsible roommate who can share the costs.

This can be the best way to find $50 or more, but it usually takes time to accomplish as housing either has a lease that needs to be ended, or if you own a place you have to deal with the time and effort of selling.

If you own your home but can’t make your mortgage payment each month, you may want to look seriously at selling your property sooner than later.  Falling behind on your mortgage can lead to foreclosure and losing everything you put into it.

Cable/entertainment

Almost anyone who currently has cable can find $50 a month or more just cancelling their cable.  You can stream Netflix for $12 a month and hit your local library for books and DVDs that won’t cost you anything.

Side benefit:  No cable means no commercials telling you to buy unnecessary things every 10-15 minutes.  Believe me, get rid of cable for a year and see how much the urge to buy stuff subsides.

Phones

If you have a smartphone consider switching to a prepaid tracphone to control your phone expenses.  If you have a mobile phone and a home phone, consider getting rid of your home phone.  This is usually a $40 a month bill just to have it turned on with no long distance or caller ID.

Many times you can save simply by shopping for a new service provider or reevaluating your plan needs – some of you may be paying for way more than you ever use.

Internet

If you can’t pay electric, your internet is going to be useless when your electric is shut off, so lose the Internet for a while and pay the electric and use the wifi available at your library, local coffee shop, or other location.  Obviously no internet will mean Netflix won’t work at home, but reading more might actually improve your ability to earn more, as long as you read a few non fiction books.

Given that the internet is relatively inexpensive and is used for education, blogging, online businesses, and on and on, I understand that this may be the item of last resort to cut.  It would be very challenging for me to do everything I do without it.

 

Remember:  None of these things are bad things or wrong things, just areas where we might be able to save a bit extra just by paying attention.

 

Sell some stuff

Even the poorest of us probably have more stuff than we need or use regularly.  Stuff that has been handed down or that we picked up somewhere because we thought we might use it someday.

Getting rid of stuff is also cathartic in the sense that it lifts off all the weight of responsibility for taking care of these things or the guilt for never having used them as you intended.

When you are out of debt and making more money, you can always go and buy more stuff, although you may not want to at that point.  You might find you enjoy having free space and less clutter.

This one is gonna ruffle some feathers.  SELL THE CAR.

Car payments are one of the biggest offenders in the battle over our finances.  Leasing a car is even worse.   The average car payment is somewhere in the $350-450 a month range.  That’s ridiculous!  What if you didn’t have that car payment every month?  That’s a lot more than $50 right there.

Some of you are already driving an old beater car with no car payment and so this option doesn’t help you.  However, I would like to congratulate you on resisting the urge to get into a car that is more than you can afford.

Just to be clear, if you have to finance your car, you can’t afford the car.  You can afford the monthly payment, but not the car.  Sell the car, buy a good used car for a few thousand that will get you through the next year and pay yourself the car payment you were making to the bank for the next 12 months.  If your car payment was $350 per month, you would have $4200 after 12 months that you could use to fix the car, buy a slightly nicer car or pay off some other debt.

 Check out this great video on a better plan to pay for you car.

 

If you have a car payment you will never convince me that you can’t find $50 a month.  You’re driving it and throwing and extra $50 out the window at the same time (cars depreciate in value rapidly after the first year, so it’s almost like throwing the cash out the window as you drive).

Groceries and eating out

Again this is an area where people spend way more than they realize, and often pay more than they should for many items.  Track all your food and grocery related spending for the next month and total it up.  Take that amount, subtract $50 and put the rest into a cash envelope for food and groceries.  Then  use that envelope for any food or grocery purchases.  Once it is gone it’s gone, so spend wisely.

Bulk shopping is also an area to save, but not in the way you might think.  Bulk shopping is unnecessary for most of us for most things and ends up with us wasting a lot, especially with food.  Buy what you need for the week and plan your meals ahead.  At most take advantage of two for one specials for the items you use or consume the most.

Avoid the temptation to hit the drive through; 5 trips to McDonalds or Burger King for one person can easily approach $50.  If you are a coffee drinker, and you tend to get your fix from Dunkin’ Donuts or Starbucks a couple times per week, start bringing your coffee from home and save around $25-30 per month.

 Vacation and Travel

This is a tough one, but if you can’t pay your bills, you probably can’t afford to go on vacation.  I’m not suggesting you don’t deserve a few days off, but try staying home and taking some day trips to local parks or museums instead of flying 6 hours away to some resort.  You can always do that later when you have saved up and can pay for it in cash.  Otherwise your vacation will follow you home and haunt you in your credit card statements for years.

 Get a Second (or Third) Part-time Job

First, this is not suggested as a permanent fix, but a temporary solution to help you get to the next level.  Part-time jobs offer more flexibility than full-time jobs, and if you work hard and are dependable to show up when scheduled, you will find many employers willing to work with you on this.

While this might be really exhausting for a time, the side benefit is that you are not only earning extra money, you are gaining new experiences and making new connections that will help you advance in your job searches in the future.  The idea here is to eventually find a single job that pays close to what your 2-3 jobs are paying now.

Conclusion

I hope this has been a helpful approach.  The main thing is to try.  If you don’t find $50 this month, don’t quit.  Do it again next month.  Just keep doing it.  And if you have suggestions or comments on any of this, I would love to see your comments below.

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Digging out

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So I  realize I haven’t posted here in a while.

I’ve been buried by stuff I’m working on,  work I’m doing, making a living,  and literally the stuff that has taken over my living space.

I’ve also been buried under uncertainty, doubt and the mother of all gravediggers, fear.

But I’m digging out from under, slowly getting rid of the accumulated stuff in my condo, pushing past the fear, and quote honestly,  getting over my foolish self.

My goal is to post at least once a week (for now).  To share how I have simplified my life thus far, as well as share information on personal finance, useful apps for managing your personal and financial information, and how to do it on your own from the perspective of a single person.

See you all next post!

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Letting Go: The Power of No

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lettingGo_logo-02The Power of No

In the process of letting go, there is a key word that we need to restore to our vocabulary.

That word is “no.”

No lets us steer clear of accumulating more stuff.  No lets us set boundaries in our relationships with others.  No lets us break bad habits, like drinking, eating, smoking and many others.

Maybe we just need practice saying no in front of a mirror, or just in a quiet place by ourselves, or perhaps silently in our heads as we walk through the shopping center or have the urge to satisfy one of the bad habits mentioned above.

For a humorous and fun example of the power of saying no, I have included a video clip from a movie that I watched recently called “Seven Psychopaths.”

The scene starts slowly with Christopher Walken’s character walking out of the desert to a small diner, so hang in for about 30-40 seconds until the dialogue starts.

(Disclaimer:  there is some offensive language at the tail end of the clip, so stop playback at the 1:20 mark if you do not wish to hear it.)

I love this scene.  Walken’s delivery is how I imagine myself saying “no” to many things in my life that need to hear it.

Our culture has been so obsessed with saying “yes” to everything that the word “no” can have a  truly shocking effect.

Of course, please use this new-found power wisely and not indiscriminately, and by all means share it with others!

 

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Quote: Richard Rohr

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“Success has very little to teach us in the spiritual life, but failure and fiascoes are great teachers. Continual experience of so-called conversion teaches us little, while sin is a great instructor. We learn much more from our pain than from our pleasure. We learn much more from letting go than from holding tight.”
– Richard Rohr, Simplicity: The Freedom of Letting Go

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Letting Go: Work and Parkinson’s Law

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lettingGo_WORK Letting go of work?!  Where do I sign up?

Before you get too excited, I am not suggesting you give up working or that work is bad.

I am suggesting that we tend to let work take over our lives in unhealthy and unproductive ways.

 

Let me start with Parkinson’s Law (click here for a helpful article).

Parkinson’s Law – Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.

 

Did you catch that? It’s our fault that we work too much. We assign more time for tasks than is necessary to accomplish them, and often create more stress and worry by allowing ourselves more time to think about something we should have already been able to complete.

 Imagine you are at work, and the boss gives you an assignment Tuesday morning with a due date of Friday morning:

Your brain subconsciously does the math (T-W-T-F = 4 days), counting Friday as a whole day even though the assignment is due that morning, and you automatically assign the project a 4-day time value for completion.

Only, the assignment could probably be completed in the next hour before you go to lunch.

For the next 2 1/2 days you use this looming assignment deadline as an excuse to miss meetings, stay late at the office, and generally give the appearance of being exceedingly busy on a BIG assignment.

Truth is, Thursday 4pm rolls around and you haven’t even started the project yet, and now you reallize that you don’t have a fourth day to complete it, and you have to get it done tonight!

You panic a bit, go for a coffee, and proceed to make the assignment as big as you indicated to everyone all week long, staying until 9pm to get it done.

The fact that most of us work in an environment that expects us to show up by 9am for 8 or 9 hours, 5 or 6 days a week, leaves us with the unpleasant task of figuring out how to fill the time so that we appear to be busy.

For this reason I suggest that the proverbial 40-hour workweek (for many it is more like 50-60 or higher) is doing many of us, and our employers, a great disservice by wasting valuable time and resources. The following practices might increase overall productivity as well as improve work/life balance:

Employees

  • Challenge yourself with shorter deadlines for each new task
  • Reward yourself by using some of the time saved to work on some of your own initiatives (which could lead to promotion, etc.)
  • Set a goal to leave the office by __pm everyday, communicate this with your boss, then show them how much more productive you are

Employers

  • Establish clear rewards for completing assignments early, like leaving an hour early, or inclusion on a cool new project team
  • Give deadlines for assignments that clearly indicate the time it should take to complete
  • Help your employees by prioritizing assignments when multiple assignments overlap

 

Referenced Link:  How to use Parkinson’s Law to Your Advantage, www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/how-to-use-parkinsons-law-to-your-advantage.html

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Letting Go: The Need for Control

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lettingGo_Control

Control

Sometimes I feel like I am in control and other times not so much.

The times I feel out of control are often the times I feel the need to control things the most.

Conversely, the times I feel most in control are often the times I am most free from a need to control anything.

Thus, if you try letting go of the need for control, you may find yourself more free of control (whether it is the need to control something or something that is controlling you).

Giving up Control

The best decision I ever made was to give up control over my life to God, but like Jacob, I am constantly trying to wrestle it back. The wonderful thing is that God gives me grace to wrestle with this issue of control, and little by little by little I begin to grasp what he meant when he said:

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28)

I don’t think Christ was talking about physical labor or work, but rather the labor of our spirit’s attempt to be in control of our lives apart from God.

Letting Go of Control is not Abandoning all Control

Of course I am not saying to abandon all control and thus remain children, “tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes,” but rather let go of our need to control our lives and “speaking the truth in love…grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.”

We can only do this if we learn to let go. And it’s okay to wrestle a bit, just keep in mind with whom you are wrestling.

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Letting Go: My year of Simplicity (so far)

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lettingGo_logo-02Last year I read a little book titled One Word That Will Change Your Life, by Dan Britton, Jimmy Page, and Jon Gordon, which outlined the advantages of choosing just one simple word that would shape your life for a particular year.

No big new year’s resolutions, no audacious long-winded goals, just one word.

Last year my word was “focus.”  I aimed for it, but not sure I fully achieved it.

This year my word is “simplicity.”  I am learning that the idea is to use this word as a kind of laser guidance system for my choices and actions for the year, and the journey is more important than any particular destination.

So far this is what my year of simplicity has looked like:

  • I “pruned” my closet and dresser of clothes I no longer wear
  • I organized my paper files and shredded or threw out years of bills and financial records that should have been discarded years ago
  • I went through my bookshelves and weeded out the books that “served their purpose” and could be either sold or donated
  • I simplified my grocery shopping to rice, pasta, black beans, eggs, tuna and vegetables
  • I started listing furniture or gadgets on Craigslist that I don’t really need or wouldn’t want to move
  • I began packing up my CD collection for storage until I can plan a yard sale
  • I contacted a real estate agent to discuss the possibility of selling my condo
  • I started reading books on or related to simplicity, including the following
    • Simplicity: The Freedom of Letting Go, by Richard Rohr
    • Freedom of Simplicity, by Richard Foster
    • The Power of Now, by Ekhart Tolle
    • If You Want to Walk on Water, You Have to Get Out of  the Boat, by John Ortberg
  • I started sharing what I have learned through a series of Letting Go posts (a full list of past posts is at the bottom of this post).
  • I began thinking about Letting Go as a practical concept that can be taught and practiced by others (more on this to come later)

I am probably forgetting a few things, but you get the idea.  Or, more likely, you might be asking, “So what?”

Well, at the start this was tough.  I discovered I didn’t want to just “let go” of my stuff.  So I had to exert some discipline and start small.

What I ended up realizing once I got going, was that as it became easier for me to let go, I encountered a different problem:  few people wanted to buy my stuff, and even giving it away was more difficult than I had imagined.  This inspired a new thought:

If no one else wanted my stuff, then why did I want it?

This is where I am in my year of simplicity, realizing I am surrounded by stuff that I no longer want, and that very few others might want, and its continued presence in my life is a reminder of just how complicated we make our lives by consuming so much.

To be continued….

Previous posts in the Letting Go series:

Letting Go: 2 Quick Thoughts to Help Let Go

Letting Go: Plans

Letting Go: Why it’s Hard To Let Go of Clutter

Letting Go: Negative Thinking

Letting Go: Judging People

Letting Go: Fear

Letting Go: Other People’s Problems

 

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Letting Go: Other People’s Problems

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Observations of a Pattern

Over the years, talking with people about their lives and where they are versus where they thought they should be or would like to be, I’ve observed a particular pattern emerge. This pattern is not necessarily true for all instances, but was certainly significant enough to warrant some deeper reflection.

I concluded that many people are unable to reach their goals and dreams because they are too focused on fixing or dealing with the problems of other people in their lives.

For example:

  • Financially – A family member is struggling to make ends meet and get out of debt, but cannot say no to her family whenever they ask for financial help.
  • Emotionally – A friend who is having a great day, gets a call from that one friend who always seems to be going through some emotional crisis, and is unable to say no, eventually turning a great day into one of emotional stress.

This is not to say that we should not help others, we should, but within healthy boundaries, making a clear distinction between what is their problem and what is ours.

Boundaries define what is me and what is not me…we are not responsible for other people…[but] we are responsible to others and for ourselves. (Townsend, Cloud. Boundaries)

Burdens and Loads

Authors Henry Cloud and John Townsend make a distinction between burdens and loads in their excellent book Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life.  This terminology is taken from the following biblical passage in the book of Galatians:

Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.  Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.  For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.  But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor.  For each will have to bear his own load.  (Galations 6:1-5, ESV)

This passage speaks of burdens as something to be shared, while loads are our own to carry.   Townsend and Cloud explore the original Greek words, defining burden as excess burdens – those so heavy they weigh us down, and load as cargo – the burden of daily toil.  To clarify this distinction in modern terms, the authors liken burdens to boulders, which require help to carry, and loads to knapsacks, things we are expected to carry ourselves.

The problems arise when we treat boulders as daily loads and refuse help, or we treat daily loads as boulders that we shouldn’t have to carry ourselves.

How do I know if I have a Boundary Problem?

For starters, we all have need of healthy boundaries, and we all likely have areas where these boundaries need work.  However, for purposes of our discussion here, Townsend and Cloud offer these three statements as a kind of litmus test for whether we are dealing with a boundary problem:

  1. Trying harder isn’t working
  2. Being nice out of fear isn’t working
  3. Taking responsibility for others isn’t working

Final Thoughts

  • If you are taking on someone else’s burdens or loads as your own, thinking that you can fix them, stop for a moment and let the following statement sink in:  You can’t fix them.
  • Now, answer this question:  Can I fix them?  (Hint:  The answer begins with “n” and ends with “o”).
  • Just like when you are on an airplane, when you are instructed in an emergency to put your oxygen mask on first before helping anyone else, you need to know your own boundaries and have them firmly established in order to most effectively help others with theirs.
  • Ask yourself, “Is this my problem, or someone else’s?” If it is yours, then get to work on it and seek some help if necessary, but if it is someone else’s problem, let it go.
  • Saying “No” to someone just might be the best way to help them

 

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”