It Seems Fitting...

That I find out on Halloween. Of course.

Last week they ran the blood tests. Everything looked good. Blood count was normal. No sign of the bacteria that caused my first ulcer. They suggested I go in for an endoscope.

Yesterday I was out all day as they shoved something down my throat so they could check things in my upper abdomen.

And they found what I had feared to be true. That it was worse than my ulcer. Honestly, I never thought it would happen to me. I thought this happened to unhealthy people. People that smoked, or drank too much. Maybe ate unhealthy foods frequently. But I guess you can chalk me up as another statistic.

They found cancer in the small of my intestine. “Adenocarcinoma” is what the doctor said. While I was under they decided to search further and found tumors also within my pancreas. And the sick thing was? Is that the doctor called me down to talk to me in person! You know what kind of drive that was? Knowing that your doctor wasn’t willing to tell you over the phone what was going on and wanted to talk to you “in person”?

I literally don’t know what to do right now.

I can’t do anything. I am literally sitting here in shock looking at this cursor blink. I want to delete everything I just wrote but I know it won’t change anything.

I’ve been told that since we found this somewhat late that I’ve got a very slim chance of survival. Reading on the internet tonight I found that the mortality rate for patients with pancreatic cancer is 99% after 5 years. 3 to 6 months is what I’ve been told. No point in even trying to treat it or radiate.

So, I don’t know where to go or what to do from here…

I don’t even know if I want to go in to work tomorrow. Seriously, what would be the point? Do other people that get diagnosed like this just continue on their daily routine?

Everyone was over tonight to talk about it. Hug me and tell me that they loved me. My mom was an absolute mess…I’m so sorry this is happening mom…

Everyone offered to stay the night but I told them to go home because they probably wouldn’t allow me to sleep anyway.

Not as if I will get any sleep tonight.

I was going to write this whole thing about how I feel like I’ve lived a full life already. How I’ve had almost any experience that a guy my age could ask for. That if I died tomorrow it wouldn’t be that big of a problem since I was pretty lucky for everything that I’ve been through. I’m not so sure of that anymore.

I wanted to write to all my family, friends and loved ones and just let them all know what they’ve really meant to me. Maybe I’ll do that tomorrow. I wanted to write every day that I could from here on out…because I wanted to find something in each of those days to really be memorable.

I’m waiting for the moment when I break down. I know there is going to be a point where I start crying. Where this numbness that I feel right now subsides and it hits me like a ton of bricks. I feel like I want to spend the next 3 days in bed.

…

For those of the readers that have made it this far…did I scare you enough? That was your Halloween scare! Terrible I know! The reason I wanted to write this is because it’s almost as if I wanted to prepare myself for the worst…

In all seriousness, let me please provide everyone with the real update of what’s really going on with my stomach:

I got the blood work back today. Everything is negative. This is good and bad in a way. It means that I don’t have a bleeding ulcer (I think). It means I am not positive for the bacteria that caused my last ulcer (I know). Which is all good, but bad in a way because my stomach still hurts…It means that I’m probably going to have to get more tests done…like the endoscope to check out what’s really going on in there…

I really really hope that it is just something silly like stress or weird heart burn or indigestion. Please God let it be that. I’m sure after reading the first section of this post you’ll actually hope that I do die. Seriously, I don’t want to (as much as you may want me to now). Maybe I should’ve saved this for April Fool’s? Naw, for me it was too perfect of timing. Honestly, writing this post served two purposes: First off, hopefully to scare the heck out of everyone reading it (hopefully it didn’t seem too unbelievable, I thought the part about my mom was a bit much), and secondly to almost prepare myself in a way for something that might possibly be true (all of the symptoms of intestinal cancer fit as much as I hate to admit it).

So I’m still scared. I’m very scared. I want to know that it’s nothing and that I can be fixed (if it is something minor). So there was a bit of truth to what I’ve written above – but until I get the real news that something like this has occurred – I’m sure those reading won’t find out through my blog…

So cross your fingers or pray for me or whatever you do (even though you probably don’t want to now because you think I’m a sick and morbid off-kilter SOB)…I’m going in for more tests soon…

Fire and Water Conspiracies

I love conspiracies.

And not for the reason that I’m paranoid and think everyone is out to get me, or that the major multinational corporations/national governments are watching my every move, but because I like the way they sort of make things fit. In some instances they provide speculators the ability to come up with their own thoughts on what actually is happening – or reasons behind certain events.

And just quickly going over most of my favorite conspiracies in my head, it all comes down to one thing: Money. Everyone has a price, and anything can be bought. Money can make people do things they wouldn’t ever think of doing normally.

Recently, I’ve seen a couple of things go down that definitely caught my attention. Obviously, one was much more harmful than the other, but I think both have a bit of a conspiracy to them (read: There’s a lot of money on the line).

First and worst off is the recent California fires. Ridiculous amounts of homes and land have been burned. Billions will be lost. Over the past week and a half, I have been waiting for the reports of arson. Because I knew this would create a pretty good out for a lot of people in financial trouble.

Then, on the way to work, listening to NPR I heard there was a possibility that 3 of the major fires may have been attributed to arson. That was all I needed for my conspiracy to come together. Honestly, I’m sure someone else has already come up with this…and if they have I would love to read it because more than likely they are better writers than I am.

Here’s how the California fire conspiracy has gone down:

-California has and will have one of the worst housing markets over the next few years. With so much land available in many areas, and many speculators coming in since 2001 and raising property values – the prices of homes in certain areas (San Diego *cough*) has skyrocketed to exorbitant levels. Half a million dollars for an 800 square foot condo? Please!

-Along with the rapid growth of home prices has come the ridiculous amount of lending that has been done – especially using sub prime vehicles to finance these million dollar houses.

-With luxury home prices come all of the builders looking to cash in on the next California gold rush. If homes are in demand they’re going to build as many as they can as fast as they can damn it!

-Finally someone woke up and said they weren’t going to pay $3.4 million for a 1300 square foot townhouse off of the PCH. And all of those speculators who held on for a bit too long started to get burned and wanted to get out making something. The selling pressure from everyone to cash out of their homes before the guy down the street did drove down prices. Suddenly there was way too much inventory on the market and no one could move their property because all the buyers had bought already, and those that sold had already left. Those that got in late, or way over their heads can’t move their property so they face foreclosure…bankruptcy – a complete mess. There are even some properties previous to the fire that were being auctioned off at a 50% discount!

I love San Diego so I had to check it out for myself…

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/13782125/detail.html

It’s even happening just blocks from me. I’ve recently seen a builder buy an acre lot, knock down the house, cut down all the trees, and with a dirt lot, just walk off realizing they probably wouldn’t be able to sell the houses they build on the lot for the price they need to breakeven.

The dirt lot is now for sale.

So what does money do? Money will claw and scratch and bite to save itself. Anything to prevent losing massive amounts of it. And who would be perfect to provide us with a bail out in a situation like this?

Insurance companies.

For at least the past 3 years, companies like State Farm and Progressive have posted record amounts of profit in the California area. Why? Think of all those new home buyers wanting to insure their million dollar homes. Think of the premium on a million dollar home…and without any major earthquakes, fires, floods, storms, and tsunamis…you’ve got 100% profit on those premiums.

Someone must have recognized this. In my opinion it had to be someone with a lot of money on the line. I’m thinking one of the homebuilders. When you put up billions of dollars to develop land, and you’re holding those properties for more than a year? That’s a lot of carrying costs…and a lot of lost money. How hard would it be to pay a group of people a small portion of what you’re losing every month and burn down your properties? You’ve got them fully insured until they sell right? And the deductible is nothing compared to the carrying cost you face if you continue to hold these properties…

And the insurance companies have been gouging everyone anyway right? It’s about time they got back some of that money they’ve been paying…for seemingly nothing…Suddenly that homebuilder which is carrying multiple properties on one of their unsold lots, hemorrhaging millions of dollars a month, now only owes 20-40% of their deductible on the homes if they want to replace them. Doesn’t that sound better than giving up a home for a 50% loss to a seller?

It’s just unfortunate that this might have gotten out of control…I’m not sure if it was planned to light these fires along with the Santa Ana winds…but the whole thing is kind of sickening when I start to think about it like this. All the innocent homeowners who have lost everything. All of the firefighters battling the flames 4 days straight without sleep and little to eat. California as a whole is going to suffer for years to come…in this situation I’d hate for what I’ve previously written to be right…but like I said, to me, it just fits. It makes sense. I hope I never see that this conspiracy might be true.

As a side note, I have heard of insurance companies either completely dropping clients now or upping rates in California to unbelievable amounts. So overall, this may just be a loss-loss situation for everyone out there…

Now on to a little bit lighter conspiracy – but still an interesting one for me.

In the South Eastern corner of our nation they’re currently experiencing a massive drought.

http://news.google.com/news?q=South+Eastern+Drought&hl=en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=news_result&resnum=1&ct=title

I know, that’s a link to a google search…but there’s enough articles there to fill a day of reading…

So while one side of the country burns…the other yearns for water. Sounds pretty similar. It seems kind of silly to me with more than half of the Earth’s surface covered in water that we would ever face something like this. And yes, I understand that most of it is salt water, but there is some pretty amazing stuff coming out of desalination: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination

So what does the local government do? Just like any other area would do: It tells it’s constituents to conserve…or else.

Fines for watering the lawn can be up to $1,000 in certain areas: http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/1886924/

So where’s the conspiracy here you might be asking? First off – there should almost never be any shortage of water supply anywhere in the United States. For how well our infrastructure is built here, and how we’ve got the East and West coasts – cities and entire states should always be prepared with enough water. I know it’s not easy to do, but I’m sure more “liquid rich” areas could ship down enough water to fill critical reservoirs for the South East. It just makes sense…if they need it, then fly it or drive it to them! We do the same thing with power shortages…

Here’s what a drought does though: It creates revenue. Suddenly city water workers can drive around the city citing residents for watering their lawns or just using too much water. Fines for using your water? Sounds like free money for your government! That’s better than tax since the people expect something from the tax money that they pay!

Secondly, since I’m assuming at least 80% of the population of that area will do their best to conserve in this so called drought – they’re going to change habits. A 30 minute warm bath will now become a 3 minute shower. Lawn watering will no longer be done and there won’t be a lawn to take care of any longer. Toilets won’t be flushed as often. Dish washing will be done on a full load and the same will go for laundry.

But what happens to the water and sewer company? All this conservation and suddenly their revenues – the money that they earn per gallon of water that their clients use is cut possibly in half! Now they are the ones losing money.

Well here’s a solution for them – just like they did to us here in Washington a few years ago. With everyone getting used to conserving water and energy – all we have to do as a utility or water company is just raise rates! Makes sense right? If you’re paying me 50% less per month because of your drop in energy and water consumption, I’ll make up my profits by charging you 100% more!

One of my favorite sayings has always been “they get you coming and going”. The whole cause and effect of drought = conservation will always be interesting to me as I see it play out throughout the country. Kind of sad how hard people will try to make a buck…or prevent themselves from losing one.

My best goes out to everyone struggling with what I’ve mentioned here. I’m sure the road will be long and hard, but my hope is that each day it’ll be getting better.

Three Months and the Kid Thinks He Knows Something

On the 26^th of October (this coming Friday), it will mark 3 months of trading stocks and options online for me. The starting amount was fifty thousand dollars (spelled out for effect as usual). I had no idea what to do, how to do it, or how I was going to do. All I had was a history of investing through retirement accounts and doing quite well for myself (IMO). I was confident, but at the same time very scared – I know this doesn’t make sense, but this is how the market makes you feel. At the very minimum two faced.

First, the results: After losing six thousand dollars today my account balance is roughly at eighty five thousand dollars. That means I have made thirty five thousand dollars in three months. A seventy percent return. Now I’m sure that there are plenty of pros out there that have done better, and I’ve seen with my own eyes the people out there who could have possibly made over two thousand percent return in the same time (which with an initial fifty thousand dollar investment would equate to an even million – ok I’ll stop spelling out now).

To recap from when I originally posted this – I felt I could beat the 8.74% interest I would be paying on my home equity line of credit. And I’ve done it – for now. And since I had dreams of grandeur, I figured I should take a shot at getting to my destination as quickly as possible.

My first goal was to beat out the interest rate I’m paying on the money I borrow. Once that goal was surpassed, the next stepping stone would be to beat the average for the market at 12%. (For those of you invested through other “professionals” – please ask them if they are outperforming the market and by how much – I’ve heard that 80% of fund managers don’t). My next goal was to reach and possibly surpass what I will continue to shoot for every year since my first full year investing: A 34% annual return.

This is one of my favorite calculators: http://cgi.money.cnn.com/tools/savingscalc/savingscalc.html

Check it out when you get the chance. It’s amazing what putting 15% of your money away a year and the possibility of earning a 34% return every year can get you. The goal is to make enough money so I can retire and live off of interest for the rest of my life from 42 onwards. That’s 16 and a half years from now. Not saying I’ll stop working – but maybe I’ll work for fun instead of having to.

Now on to what I really have wanted to write about (it took me freaking 5 minutes to find that calculator – someone better use it).

Over the past 3 months, here are a few things that I’ve learned. And a few things I’ve wanted to teach myself. So when I write “you” here, I’m not referring to you – it’s just something I’d like to read for myself when I go through another day like this, and remember where I came from – and hopefully how much I’ve grown.

-First and foremost, I’ll probably end up stealing from the best. Because I feel it is probably the most important thing about investing – Warren Buffet’s rules:

Rule #1 – Don’t lose money

Rule #2 – Refer to Rule #1.

Easy peasy right? Wrong. On August 16^th 2007, a day I won’t soon forget – my account balance dipped below the $50K mark, and in to the red. Although it was intraday, I was down about 40% of the way to the MAXIMUM loss point I was allowing myself (and still allowing myself) of $10K. That was a scary time. I don’t ever want to live through that again – although I’m sure we’ll have plenty more days like that over the next 17 years.

-Which brings me to my next point: Protect profits. Make them, keep them. I gambled yesterday and got killed. 2 weeks ago I was at a profit of $46K. Less than 8% return away from 100%. And I got caught with how much capital I had to swing around. A bit of hubris and they all start to fall.

-You’ve got to have guts of steel (or balls – or something) in order to play. Big returns require a lot of risk. You have to have conviction the reason you’re making a certain play will work out. I don’t know how many times I’ve sold way too early only to kick myself a week later for missing out on more profit. And I kick myself for missing profit more than I congratulate myself for getting out while the getting was good. So over the past 3 months I know my plays have been solid. One thing I’m going to try to teach myself is to let enough of a position go to where I feel comfortable in just letting it ride. I’m too quick to pull the trigger on an entire position as soon as I’m in the green. I would’ve been a much richer man if I had left some scraps on the table for myself to eat later (terrible – makes no sense, but I’m leaving it).

-Options are not for the faint hearted. Neither are hot sectors, or Chinese stocks (as of today). High flying stocks can move 20% in a day – in either direction. And you can lose 99.9% of your option value or at the same time make a 7000% return. Welcome to one of the most ridiculous games on planet earth – gambling with ridiculous amounts of green.

-Picking stocks for me is easy (I laugh). First check the fundamentals. Jim Cramer says that growth to wall street is like crack to addicts. Revenue and profit growth, and hopefully a company that’s on it’s first leg of the growth cycle – you’ve got a winner right there. Compare it with the price to earnings though. A good stock should have a P/E ratio of at most 2 times the percentage of revenue growth. (The sweet spot is around 1.5 times for me). The current average is a P/E ratio of 22 across the entire market. High growth stocks deserve high multiples. After comparing with the average, compare with competitors. One of my favorite plays I’ve made this year is investing in Hewlett Packard (and I just bought one of their laptops – awesome). The growth looked good, they make a good product – and their closest competitor (at the time I bought HPQ), Dell was trading at a 10% higher P/E multiple than them. If that doesn’t scream “FREE 10% RETURN!” I don’t know what does. After doing your comparisons, watch the stock. Don’t jump right in. Understand the movement – where it’s headed. A lot of emotion drives the price of the stocks – so get in tune with that. I’ve seen a lot of good companies with great fundamentals but wall street just hates them. And it might be awhile before that sentiment changes. Each stock has it’s own story – understand it as best you can before risking any money.

-Price. I’ve made plenty of plays these past few months just based off of price. Stocks will oscillate with no news. You can make plays on price alone. Game Stop (GME) has climbed and slipped between $54 to $60 and back down to $55 over the past month. Make 3 moves at the right time and you’ve got a 30% return (or more) and the stock hasn’t moved really at all. Buy and hold my ass. Set price points for yourself though. Entry and exit. If you’ve made a profit and if it still doesn’t hit your price point, you still have my blessing to sell (or buy to cover). A stock’s price should never be anything other than what it currently is. I believe in an efficient market where all knowledge is priced in to a stock. So when I hear that HPQ should be a $54 stock today – it bugs the hell out of me. People will pay for a stock what they believe it to be worth. Nothing more, nothing less.

-Making money is better than making no money or losing money. So what if you made only $5 in the market today? That’s more than you had yesterday. Enough said.

-Build positions in a security. Buying it all at once ties your hands if in case the position starts to move in the opposite direction you expected it to. I give myself typically 2-5 purchases at most. Buying 25% of what I want my maximum holdings to be. Then possibly doubling that position, then doubling again if need be. Building in a good average price will make for more profit when the position starts moving in your favor. Remember, it’s not a realized loss until you sell.

-Respect the market. On a given day, an average of 70-90% of stocks will move along with the market. Regardless of what high flying tech stock you own, if the Dow is down 400 points that day, I’m willing to bet (and give you odds) your stock isn’t going up. Be ready. At any time the market could fall out and if you aren’t paying attention you might have just lost your shirt (along with possibly your house in my case). Respect is definitely required – but I don’t feel that fear is necessary.

-Don’t waste mental capital. As much as I write this one out, I’m not sure if it will ever come true for me – or stick for that matter. Remember the “kicking myself” I wrote about? I do that way way way too much. Always telling myself that I sold too early – or that I should’ve sold. Or that I should’ve bought more. I need to learn to move on and stop wasting my time on the past. The market is lightning fast and there is opportunity for profit in every corner. Wasting my time thinking about how I could have had some ridiculous amount of profit in a play I screwed up on 2 weeks ago is not going to help me make profit now. Learn the lesson. Move on. (This is probably my #1 biggest struggling point right now)

-The definition of “smart” to me – in regards to the market – is seeing something way before the other guy does. Or, I suppose, the other guys - the masses. Spot your trend or the movement in a security even days before everyone else does and you’ll make enough returns to possibly go pro. Everything in the market is connected. Connect the dots before anyone else does and it’s free money. For those that realized what was going on with the sub prime market – the stated income, no money down, negative amortization loans – there were people out there who knew that sooner or later all of them would come crashing down – just a matter of time. The guys that saw that coming probably just bought themselves another Manhattan sky rise, or possibly a bigger yacht (if that’s your type of thing). Get in early, have conviction, let it ride. That basically defines this blog post.

-Research. Read as much as you can about stocks you are interested in. Understand what everyone has to say about those companies – and check your own bias against theirs. Think for yourself. Following the crowd may end up getting you trampled if they turn quickly on you and you’re not paying attention.

-Investing is a marathon, not a sprint. I have at least the next 16 years of my life to reach one of my goals. But between now and then is a lot of time. Things will happen I can’t control. Time will change almost everything. Not every day will be a homerun, or even a single. Some days I will lose, and I expect to lose. The market has made me feel rich like a king on a given day and the next day made me feel like a complete idiot novice who should quit while he’s ahead. I do hope that over this marathon, the steep climbs and the huge drop offs will start to subside as I get better at this. I’m not sure my knees (or my heart) could take much more of the swings. But I do know that as long as I continue to keep my head up and look at the big picture, I’m sure I’ll do just fine.

Good luck to us all (especially me).

*Sigh*

C’mon.

Think of something to write.

I know that I’ve had so many ideas for subjects, topics to talk about, things to be celebrated and other things to complain about. But every time I thought of something to put in here, I thought to myself how I probably couldn’t put more than a paragraph in to it. And therefore couldn’t live up to some ridiculous standard that I set for myself in this blog that each post I put up has to be at least 3 pages long, single spaced.

Last week I noticed I was starting to nap a lot more than my usual amount. (Which is about 2 naps per week – Friday afternoon and Saturday afternoon). And then when coming out of the nap I wasn’t really able to jump out of bed like I normally do. Usually when coming out of bed, I am able to just stand up, get my clothes on, stretch, maybe yawn…and just go.

Then I noticed the stomach cramps. Then the black stool (sorry, gross, I know, but my blog). And I knew it had come. Just like all the previous years. Just like my other problems – mainly the alopecia.

Every 2 or 3 years or so, the acid in my stomach burns a hole through the stomach lining…therefore creating – you guessed it – an ulcer. I attribute it to stress, I attribute it to not eating as healthy as I should be – I attribute it to a bacteria called “h. pylori” (sp). If you’re really bored you can look it up (on wikipedia) and be grossed out just by knowing me. But it’s something I’ve had since I was about 13 or so – and as much as we try and fight it with antibiotics, it always makes it’s way back in to my life.

So I guess this has turned in to “let’s learn about something weird about Seth’s body night”. Oh well, something to write about. And here’s the main point I want to make: Ladies, I know what cramps feel like. My bleeding ulcer I guarantee hurts about as bad as your cramps do, if not worse. It won’t let me sleep.

I get abnormally tired from the blood loss. Being tired makes me moody. I have problems focusing.

I am a mess.

Luckily I know how to fight it...and it’s slowly starting to work. Take an acid reducer like Prilosec (which is what I’ve been taking the past week) and also take in some iron (from something like Centrum) to help with the blood loss.

But until my stomach stops hurting, it sucks. I know, I know, I should go see the doctor. I will, soon. Of course not tomorrow or the day after that - I’m just so stubborn.

On the way home and on the way to work recently I’ve been listening to NPR. I would listen to it on and off throughout the years – jazz being the first thing to draw me in – but over the past few weeks it has been the only station on in my car. I’ve been thinking about pledging some money to their station (and I’d recommend anyone else reading this to do likewise) because they are a publicly funded radio station. I realized those few minutes of joy I receive getting “enlightened” every day is actually worth something to me.

And they made a good point last night (while I was listening on the way to my basketball game). The cable company tells you how much to pay. And then they basically tell you what to watch (you have a choice of what is available from their lineup). Just like the other utilities. They tell you how much the service is; then they take your money. NPR is free for everyone to enjoy. And they don’t force you to put a price on it. But since both my company and my wife’s company matches the contribution, I’ll be giving NPR a good donation for what I feel on most of the days I work are the smartest part of the day – actually listening to that station. (88.5). Actually, the only thing I don’t like is the Saturday night blues – since I’m not a huge fan of blues. Fun to play, but not that fun to listen to. And who is freaking listening to NPR anyway on a Saturday night?

A nerd like me.

So if you wanted to check it out (if you haven’t already), I’m a huge fan of “All Things Considered”. http://www.kplu.org/home2.html That’s the website for those that would like to check it out/donate. The best way I can put it is that their programs are informative but at the same time highly entertaining (again for a semi-nerd like me). The best mix for something to keep my attention I’ve found.

The reason I wanted to mention NPR is that they’ve been doing an afternoon series on what’s going on in the Middle East. It’s such heartbreaking stuff to hear from the kids caught up in the mess of things – Iraqi teenagers who don’t understand the war and just want to hang out with their friends and play soccer. On the way home today I heard a story about a group of officers serving in Iraq. They were talking about how they swore never to leave a fallen soldier behind. A few months ago, they were attacked and two of the men in their group were held hostage. Since then, they have been searching day and night to find them. They think the villagers know where the men are – but since it has been so long and they’ve had no luck they’re just presuming those two soldiers as dead.

A 19 and 24 year old.

And yes, it is an emotional story – but the reason I wanted to share it here is because it gives me a little perspective. Owww – my stomach hurts. But at least I’m not over there fighting or losing one of my best friends. It almost makes me feel lucky that that is the worst part of what’s going on in my life right now.

The *sigh* though is just how I’m feeling lately. Work has gotten a lot tougher – the stomach thing – and now the cold and dark are back for the next 8 months. On Sunday I took the dog out for a run and everyone was out in our neighborhood – which is rare because most of the time this neighborhood feels like a ghost town. (Suburbs = Isolation) Families were walking, people were playing ping pong and badminton, and kids were riding their bikes. I think everyone realized like I did that this was probably going to be the last day of warm weather we were going to get. I would be pleasantly surprised if I got at least one more day in of being able to run outside in my basketball shorts and feel comfortable.

If that was the last day we get – it was a good end to what was not that great of a summer (weather wise). Thanks for trying though.

For the Employed

Happy 100^th post to me!

Really short post tonight.

Meh, most of my posts are tl;dr anyway.

So for those of you who don’t like to read that much, here’s one for you (I’ll try to keep it under one page or less).

What would you do if tomorrow you didn’t have to work? Or the day after that? Or for the rest of your life? What if you had no schedule to adhere to? No commute? How would that change your life?

Recently I’ve found myself disliking my job more and more. A year ago it was the perfect job. Now it’s about 70% as perfect as it once was. And it’s mainly because we have less people to do the same amount of work as even 3 months ago – and along with that my pay hasn’t increased. Go figure.

But even if I did get a pay raise, what would be enough for me? Obviously I have a number I would be very happy with – but it’s unrealistic.

But the thing I’ve had trouble with recently is how I would be if I was at home every day with the dog. I mean, I’ve been at home sick on my own for a few days and while everyone was away at work I was just trying my best to fill time…

I always said that there were so many things that I could do on my leisure time if I wasn’t working. Go to the gym, take up new hobbies (finally get that piano tuned and finally learn something by Chopin), read all the books I want to, run errands, volunteer – sleep in and nap. But really I’m starting to notice that maybe that isn’t the ideal life. Maybe I actually need work to fill my time? Did I forget how to be a kid during summer/winter breaks? How did those months of time off fly by so quickly?

What if working hard and saving towards an early retirement isn’t what I really want?

Scary thoughts. Think about how life would be if you didn’t work – assuming you didn’t need to in order to pay for life. I wonder if a lot of people nearing retirement feel this way too? As in, “What in the world am I going to do with all my free time?”

Could you think of things to do to even fill three months let alone three weeks of free time (assuming world travel would be too expensive)? Too tough a question to ask me on a Sunday night. Back to work tomorrow…