On Proactivity

It strikes me that most of the people I have met in my life, even those who profess themselves forward-thinkers or problem-solvers, seem to consider the laws of their world immutable. For example, suburban living in the United States is a fairly new phenomenon—that is, the notion of having a house with a two-car garage, a spouse, between two and three kids, roughly one dog, between one and two careers, and an utterly useless lawn of grass only cropped up in the 1800’s. Even relative to the minuscule window of time in which humans have populated Earth, that’s not a very long stretch of history.

Yet we consider the modern lifestyle a standard that is not to be deviated from. Similarly, we complain about many of the unreasonable expenses involved in living in the United States, but do little to try and solve those problems. Many of us complain that “they” charge too much for housing, transportation, education, healthcare, or taxes, but almost no one tries to solve those problems. “They” are also “working on” some incredible scientific advancement, incredible new technologies, or new systems for how our lives should operate. “We” are never reasonably expected to accomplish these tasks, only some nameless group that is smarter than us.

This could all just be an anecdotal observation about my particular life experience here in Northern Colorado, but I suspect that it is not. I suspect that most people reading this recognize the type of mindlessly-re-parroted groupthink I am referring to here. The strange thing is that, barring some mental handicaps and a few exceptions, I think that most people could contribute to these societal problems if they truly applied themselves to the task, which is to say that they are smart enough and capable enough to do so.

For example, I recently started a business called Novum Opus, which will have the mission of eliminating the $1.5 trillion of student loan debt in the United States that less-than-wealthy kids have accumulated for having the audacity of wanting an education. It is a daunting task, to be sure, but it is how I want to approach actually solving one of the problems our culture can’t stop complaining about. Or, if I don’t solve it alone, I want to push the ball forward. I want to start solving problems instead of sitting and watching them continue to get worse.

There are some meaningful obstacles I have observed to taking this initiative. A lot of the people who are hurt the most by problems like crippling student loan or healthcare debt are so busy trying to pay bills on time that they have a hard time imagining picking up an extra, income-free grind outside of their day job to start a small business that is not off the ground yet. Life is structured around having exactly one job, most of the time, and coming home to “unwind” can be an immediate productivity killer.

Humans are not machines, and it is totally reasonable for people to pause their careers to spend time with their loved ones or do unproductive things they enjoy (I certainly play enough video games). But I wish I saw more people finding problems in the world and taking a more proactive stance to try and resolve them than complaining about it to their friends can generally accomplish.

People often underestimate themselves. Sometimes a parent, a teacher, a school bully, or someone in their lives told them they were worthless, or they sucked at math, and they believe that until the day they die. An individual’s eccentricities are squashed out of them because our school system and conveyor-belt-bullshit jobs (the retail and food jobs that mostly require warm bodies and make everyone involved miserable) encourage you to stay still, shut up, and do as you’re told. While each person’s quirks can hurt them in certain situations—an introvert may have a hard time making friends, a disorganized person may lose their keys more often than their peers—it is also those quirks that are our greatest strengths. They can provide us meaningful insight into how we learn, grow, problem-solve, and operate in general.

This is terribly unfortunate. While it is useful to know one’s limitations, it is also important to remember that people can change, learn, and improve over time in just about every measurable metric. Again, humans are not machines—our default behavior is to learn and grow, it does not have to be programmed into us. In fact, given that memories fade over time, if you are not constantly learning, you are in all likelihood going backwards.

And that only makes it harder to get engaged in resolving a problem that requires knowledge in physics, electrical engineering, computer science, or some other technical skill that most people think they’re “too dumb” to understand. You’re not too dumb. You have not applied yourself. There is a vast gulf of difference.

I struggle with these issues as much as anyone. I have a hard time buckling down and learning new software concepts sometimes, even though I work at a software consultancy. I wish I wrote more consistently, read books more consistently, and exercised more consistently. I do all of these things sometimes, but if I’m a decent writer now, I can only imagine how good I could be if I practiced more.

What I hope to get people thinking about is the notion that they can make change. People like you, dear reader, can improve themselves and the world around them. If you already have a list of excuses in your head about why you have not tried to create change where you know it needs to happen, you need to recognize those excuses for exactly what they are. Everyone around you needs your unique view of the world to improve it.

Post number 52.

Debt Wars, Episode I

I grew up in a decidedly middle-class family living a decidedly middle-class lifestyle for an American. This means a lot of good things and a lot of bad things for my experiences with relationships, finance, and making intelligent life decisions.

Some good things that came of my upbringing are that I lived in a safe neighborhood in a safe city (Fort Collins, CO). I had a moderately good education, at least by the standards of the United States. I never went hungry. I was taught from a young age that I could be whoever I wanted to be, which, I feel, is the specific hopeful attitude that is one of the largest determining factors in whether you are poor or middle class in the US. I have two little sisters who I love and have always had a pretty positive relationship with. I never got into drugs or smoking, which has doubtlessly saved me a lot of health and a lot of money.

Some things didn't go so well, yet I've found a way to make the most of them. My parents got a divorce after I left the house, having been in a fairly broken relationship for years. This meant that I never got a great example at home of how to show a girl you love her, but it taught me a whole bunch of things not to do, and has made me appreciate my fiancée more than I likely would have otherwise. The relationship was mostly broken due to my mother's bitterness and my father's alcoholism, so I have made the positive life choices of speaking to people respectfully the best I can (even when I disagree with them) and never drinking alcohol (I suspect my liver and my wallet both appreciate it).

But one of the hardest things to overcome has been my parents' mismanagement of our personal finances. Before the divorce, about the only good thing that could be said about our family's situation was that we had a mortgage on a nice house. We were the type of family that had over six figures of income to work with, yet were mired in credit card debt and personal loans. My mom's car was on a lease for years, and my dad lost his job right around the time of the Recession.

So when it came time for me to go to college, I was used to eating out on a regular basis, buying whatever I felt like buying when I felt like it, and, of course, taking out loans for things I don't have money for. Now, between my fiancée and I (she had a similar upbringing), we have about $100,000 of student loan debt. I have a car loan of about $17,000 remaining. Fortunately, we are free of credit card debt and have never had a personal loan.

I say all this in part to vent, but also with the hope of giving some advice to anyone who reads this. With personal finance, it's very important to look yourself in the mirror and be honest about both your problems and your realities, a bit like when you have a weight problem. Dave Ramsey's advice here is sound: you need to recognize you have a problem in order to solve it. I'm not 100% onboard with everything Dave says, because I think he's too quick to prescribe a one-size-fits-all solution to personal finance, but he's mostly on the right track. Don't spend money you don't have, and you should absolutely not get in debt unless you're getting a house (in which case he recommends a 15-year fixed mortgage to minimize the interest you pay).

I named this post "Episode I" as a Star Wars reference, but also to point at the time when I started taking some of my financial problems more seriously. I've tried to pay down debts faster by making more money (a good first step; my fiancée and I have gone from about $40,000 to $71,000/year of gross income in three years). I've tried debt snowballing, but my debts are so large and daunting that it's hard to keep at it.

So mostly what I've woken up to is what Mr. Money Mustache recommends about food spending, because that's the big area where I still am not where I need to be financially. I've improved greatly since leaving my parents' place, eating in more and making fewer trips to get soda and candy at the grocery store, but am nowhere near MMM's "$75/week for food for three people" mastery (if you're wondering, he's from Colorado just like I am, so his numbers should be achievable for me). We still eat out pretty often, even though we're liking the same-old handful of restaurants less by the day, and we could still doubtlessly cut down our grocery store costs.

Our next big financial goal is getting my car paid off, and the first step to doing that is freeing up a ton of our income to throw at it. I'd recommend checking out MMM's blog post I linked to earlier, and his blog in general, to find ways to severely cut down your food expenses if you're in a situation like mine (or just want to save some extra cash).

I'll keep this blog updated with how things go!

Post number 51.

Responsibilities in a Small Business

Wrote another one for Radial's blog, this time about managing responsibilities in a small business. Check it out.

Post number 50.

The Columns Section

As you can tell in the navigation, I made a new section of the site today, called Columns, to link to writing I've done for newspapers and other blogs. It contains links to the least-terrible opinion articles I wrote for CSU's newspaper, The Rocky Mountain Collegian, and the two blog posts I have so far written for Radial Development Group, the software consultancy I work for now.

I hope you enjoy the new content (well, most of it is old, but you get the idea). The Collegian required me to write extremely short articles most of the time, so you'll probably find some of them rather insubstantial, but I can also be more verbose than I need to be sometimes, so maybe it's a positive thing.

Post number 49.

UPDATE: The Columns Section no longer exists. Use the dropdown of blog categories instead.

Effective Client Communication

Or Verifiably Fantastic Discourse, as Lemony Snicket would doubtlessly prefer, is the subject of my latest (non-technical) blog post for Radial Development Group.

Post number 48.