Cash Chronicles took an extended break over the past month or so due to a confluence of factors. From pressure at the job, balancing 3 kids and a 3 hour commute to take my son to school combined with catching COVID for the second time in a month even with a booster, my mind and body were overloaded. This wasn’t helped by finding out that I failed the CFA level III again for the second time.
Previously, I had quietly admitted to some that the pandemic was great for me. I was able to spend plenty of time with my family not commuting and had more time to exercise and write. Lately though, it seems that it all the stress many experienced during the pandemic caught up with me in a single month.
When times get almost unbearable, it’s a signal to change. The signal for me this time that I was stretched too thin across various projects and family life. A few years ago when I went through a divorce and a custody battle, I made a decision to put my family first. My choices to take on too much in the past few months weren’t ringing true to that decision. Exams and challenges will always be there to be tackled, however I need to put my health, both mentally and physically, first. With that in mind, I decided to consciously stop writing, not committing to writing again and to focus on getting proper sleep, exercise, nutrition and therapy.
As I was able to rest and not put as much pressure on myself to succeed, I realized a number of things. First is that success tends to come when we focus on a few things very well, not trying to do everything. The other is that I still enjoyed writing but I was pressuring myself to fit within the context of only writing on market and financial topics. The posts that do well on this site tend to have helpful tips on personal finance and markets, and that’s great. I enjoy sharing my financial knowledge and the current state of the markets but that isn’t always what I would like to write about either. Sometimes I would like to write on other topics to share with readers because I know I’m not the only one who struggles with things or goes through major challenges. I had to remind myself again, this is my blog and my outlet and no matter the name, I can write about whatever I want.
Goal Shift
Previously, when I had faced that challenging time during my divorce and custody battle, I found solace in motivational speakers on YouTube and books that inspired me mainly through a philosophy of purpose and stoicism. I have written about those in past posts, a lot of which touched on motivation.
When I faced my most recent challenge however, I found that these same sources did not help in the same way. Rather than reinforce my determination, I heard more of the relentless pressure to succeed and stand out which seems to permeate society today, especially for the younger generation.
Last year their was an article written in a spin-off magazine of The Economist named 1843, called The Perfectionism Trap. The article spoke with psychologists to understand why so many people have become dissatisfied with being ordinary. Society constantly bombards us with instructions to be happier, fitter and richer, I realized the lauding of motivational speakers was part of this trap sometimes. The drive to achieve can also fill you with a constant sense of inadequacy even in our brief private moments to ourselves. I would think sometimes, rather than just sitting on the train and resting, I could be writing in my blog, or planning for work, or reading emails, or planning on what to do with the kids this weekend. This drive to do more can sometimes rob us of the simple pleasures in life like a quiet train ride with some music or a simple walk.
There was a social experiment done back in 2007 by the Washington Post where a world class violin player named Joshua Bell donned a humble outfit with a baseball hat and commenced to play his heart out on a $3 million violin. Most nights, patrons would be charged $100 a seat to a packed concert hall to hear Bell yet when he played for free to people going about their commute, only a handful out of the thousands of people who passed by, took the time to stop and listen. It was an interesting social experiment that kind of reinforces my point that we are so busy with our day to day and trying to stand out, that we can end up missing some of the little gems that life throws us.
Future Fears and Fantasy
While I was struggling recovering from COVID, I found that I was plagued by fears of the future and what could go wrong. I spent too much time playing out scenarios and how things could go terribly wrong starting with right now.
It’s the inverse philosophy of how I usually approach things: that we fear things going bad but much of the time they can turn out better than we even expected. Not getting proper sleep just seemed to amplify these feelings and the problem wasn’t solved until I was able to get consistent sleep with the help of a prescribed sleep aid on a temporary basis.
Optimism is essential to manifest a better present for yourself but in speaking with my girlfriend the other day, we walked through a mental exercise to try and separate optimism from fantasy. For her the fantasy was to win the lottery and not have to work, to not have money troubles.
Yet I walked her through a mental exercise of what it would be like to actually win the lottery. We just bought a new home so we wouldn’t want to move again immediately. The kids would still have to go to school every day. This is mainly because we want socially well adjusted kids, not ones that are tutored at home privately and can’t relate to most other kids. We spend a lot of time tending to the kids and want to be involved in their lives so hiring a nanny to watch them isn’t necessarily an option either.
The only difference in the immediate term would be that she wouldn’t have to work during the day. Even that can be a challenge because, for high achieving and motivated people, sitting around doing nothing for too long starts to make them restless. Sure, we could travel on the weekends or during school breaks or more in the summer but we already do that. Add to that the stress if friends and family know we have tens of millions and it could strain friendships or relationships of people that feel entitled to get something from us because of their own relationship with us.
The point of this exercise was to ditch the fantasy. To realize that a big windfall of money won’t change our lives dramatically and will trade old problems for new ones. The problems won’t stop, the struggle won’t stop, it will just change.
And so on my own end, once I was able to rest adequately, I was able to shed my fears and think straight about the future. That there would continue to be challenges but hope and optimism can always push you to places that fear can’t. They can also allow you to enjoy those simple moments once again rather than be consumed by the relentless drive to be happier, fitter and richer.
Fortune and Validation
Thinking of the drive to achieve also made me think about the struggles of those that we perceive as having reached the pinnacle of success. One of the recommendations I followed to deal with my anxiety and sleepless nights post COVID was to listen to sports podcasts or stories. One story I listened to was that of baseball great Willie Mays. Yet I didn’t get out of it what I thought I would.
Mays is regarded as one of the greatest baseball players of all time. His statistics are impressive even 50 years later, 12 gold gloves (a defensive fielding award), almost 2000 RBI’s and the first player to have over 300 home runs and 300 stolen bases. He did this in 22 seasons played mostly with the New York and then San Francisco Giants.
He was a natural baseball talent. He was reported to have an amazing knack to catch anyone’s fastball bare handed. Players and commentators of his era agree that he pushed the limits of the game with innovative fielding, baserunning and hitting.
His statistics are even more impressive considering he missed an entire 2 years to being drafted into the Korean War. His return in 1954 heralded 2 World Series Championships and produced one of the most iconic moments in baseball history when faced with an outfield fly that went over his head, Mays ran towards the back wall and caught the ball running backwards, the so called “basket catch” which fans had never witnessed before. The catch prevented two runners of the Cleveland Indians from scoring and preserved a tie game of which the Giants went on to win along with the series.
Yet in 1962, in an episode I found eerily similar to my own life, Mays collapsed in the dugout and missed 3 critical games of the season. Mays was exhausted and many speculated his stress was emotional due to a marriage he had entered 6 years earlier with Margherite Wendell Chapman. When the team moved to San Francisco, rumors started to swirl around her spending much of what he earned and of partying around town. By that same year a separation was announced to the press and a custody battle ensued for their 4 year old son.
His eventual divorce in 1963 saw him lose both his wife, son and much of his fortune. Yet in 1965 he refocused on baseball and battled back to claim his second MVP award. Yet 7 years later his career was waning and he was traded to the New York Mets. Mays had remarried at this point to a woman named Mae. When the Mets went to the World Series in 1972, the 42 year old Mays wasn’t the same player, he missed 2 routine fly balls and barely played in a 7 game loss to the Oakland Athletics.
After his 1972 retirement, Mays was named to various executive roles for the Mets but his passion to play made him frustrated as an executive sitting in an office. By 1979 it was discovered that Mays was working a part time job at a casino. Baseball has had a deep aversion to gambling ever since the 1919 World Series was fixed by the notorious gangster Arnold Rothstein. The commissioner at the time ordered Mays to quit his job at the casino or be fired from the Mets. Needing the money, Mays chose the higher paying gig at the casino.
Mays is still alive at 90 years old today. His wife Mae passed from Alzheimer’s in 2013 and many have commented that he remains somewhat disgruntled that he isn’t as well regarded as he should be in baseball lore. Yet the story of his successes, his divorce and his struggles later in life made a great player somewhat more relatable for me. I can’t imagine the pain he must have suffered in choosing to continue with baseball, his talent which was supporting his family, and losing custody of his son. I can imagine how embittered one could be if they were one of the great players of all time yet have to work at a casino post retirement to keep earning money.
May’s story just reinforces the idea that the allure of fame and fortune we push so hard in our culture is a myth. Struggles will come and will go despite success. There is no magic pill that will take all problems away. Better to learn to embrace struggle and choose to be happy now despite life’s imperfections. None of us needs to win the lottery or be the greatest at what we do in order to be happy now.
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