The Journey to Financial Freedom

What can we do to live longer? I wonder about that. I can’t say that I’ve really dedicated any time to really studying this. But I’ve got a few ideas on the subject.

Here’s a question I like to ask people - it’s quite interesting. So here is that question…How old will you be when you die? Now, please don’t be offended. It’s a quick, easy question really. How old do you see yourself getting to? 70? Maybe 64? I want to see at least 100. My grandmother has recently turned 98. How about you?

Now, one of my theories about this is that if we reduce our stress, both total stress and sustained stress - things like horrible traffic stress - we should live longer. There are lots of ways to reduce stress. For example, my wife and I like to avoid traffic now. When possible, we don’t schedule meetings at 9am. By shifting them to 10am, we get to drive on nice, virtually empty roads. Ok, so there might still be some traffic, but you get the point. 40 minutes driving versus 15 minutes. Less fighting over your space on the road; less chance of dings or real accidents. I think that will have a positive effect over time.

We’ve also moved recently to a place that seems like a village. And the amazing thing is, we only live about 5 minutes from our old condo. We had no idea this entire area of town existed until we went out house hunting. Truly amazing. The feeling now as we drive off the main road and back through the tree-lined neighborhood to our little corner of the world is distinctly “peaceful”.

One more idea is this - reduce the monthly built-in cost of your life. Raise the monthly built-in income you have.

I know that this idea can be painful, or almost impossible for some people to think about. Some people do “need” a large BMW, a couple vacations a year or a second house. But if you are able to just give up on the “keep up with the Joneses” mentality, I think you’ll improve your life. I really think it can help you to live longer. And if you spend 10 years stressed out, versus 10 years without that stress. I’d consider that to be a lifestyle improvement. Even if it doesn’t help us to stretch out our lives, it will make the life we do have more enjoyable.

What I’m going to talk about today is more a personal fault than anything else. Maybe some of you will be able to relate to it.

When I graduated from college, my Bachelor of Science degree was in Computer Science and Spanish. Not a very normal combination, I think you’d agree.

Last night I finally, after maybe 6 months, got myself in motion again on a personal project - learning Mandarin. It’s part of a life goal to speak at least 10 languages. My aim is to speak each one well enough to be mistaken for a native of the respective country. It has been flattering each time I’ve had someone in Mexico believe that I’m from Spain. It’s likely that the Spanish gentleman I was speaking to in Manila was just being nice, but he also said I sounded like a native of Spain.

The real point of this is that my life goal, while important to me deep inside, gets pushed aside all to often - and for months at a time. Urgent things get in the way. Some weeks and months seem to get lost to paying bills, or a broken hip, or moving - to a new country, or just to a new neighborhood. Does this ever happen to you?

So I’m working on balancing out the things that are pressing on me today, and this week - and this year. I’m balancing that out with my need to make progress on this life goal. Part of the reason I haven’t made progress on this goal is that I put myself down too much. There’s a part of me that feels that I don’t deserve to complete this goal. It’s time to get over that! Once I can speak Mandarin relatively well, that will put me at 3 languages.

(Side note - My grasp of the Malay language here in Malaysia is not very strong, and I’m not sure if I’ll ever count that as one of the languages I’ve mastered.)

My sincere hope is that this experience - picking up and making progress on this life goal - will be a very large experiential learning lesson for me. It should help tip the balance on how I value myself and the use of my time. Deep inside, this should help to accelerate my ability to accomplish bigger, and admittedly, selfish goals. Since I believe that I have things to contribute to the world, it’s actually more selfish to not reach my goals and transcend them as quickly as possible! My worldly contributions will begin to kick in that much sooner.

One idea that pops into my head once in a while is that an hour a day should be enough to learn a language really well in 18 to 24 months. Well, maybe I’ve got an advantage there. Although I am a “white boy” from the US of A, I’ve already studied 2 foreign languages. I’ve got some language learning skills as a result.

But like any project, anyone should be able to pick up a new language or two. I can’t imagine a person not getting a good level of mastery of a new language they might pick up and study for 2 years. It’s really a matter of diligence and continual, small efforts. Well, that and some good materials that fit in with the way to each person learns, and the ways that effective language learning is accomplished.

I think that simple idea applies to a lot of life. I’ll dedicate a small amount of time, but work on my Mandarin consistently. So you see, this is a personal project I’ve chosen to learn the lesson of slowly accomplishing much more intimately. But if learning a language in 2 years is slow, how slow is not learning any languages in the last 10 years?

Do you speak Mandarin? Do you speak Spanish or Portuguese? Are you learning any of these?

What personal life projects are you working on? Are you making progress? Or is the urgency of life crowding those things out?

What gives you peace and satisfaction? What are you grateful for?