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January 8, 2024,
Distractions are everywhere.
Sometimes good.
When it comes to the news, often not.
Deadly wars.
Global warming.
Civil strife.
Political divisions.
Public shootings.
The list goes on.
On a daily basis, hopefully you are not directly affected by any of these occurrences but you could be distracted.
Should we be?
Awareness is one thing. Losing focus on things that you cannot control, is another.
One of the ways we could reduce our sense of distraction is to keep a tight focus on what is important to us.
Think about what are the priorities in your life.
For many it is their job, family, friends, mental and physical health along with overall economics.
All of the above categories are extremely important but for our purposes here, let’s focus on work and economics because, in a way, if you are struggling there, it tends to have a massive effective on all of the other aspects of your life.
Work is fundamental to all societies, but its importance can vary widely within and between them.
Throughout history, work has been intimately connected with other aspects of society and politics, such as power, class, tradition, rights, and privileges.
How people view their jobs can vary depending upon job status or country. In terms of job status, some see it as simply a means to an end to pay the bills, others love their work and deem it as a career.
Where are you on that one?
If your job is primarily a means to an end, are you happy with that or can you take steps to upgrade your skillsets so that you can move on to a better job? In your case, if you are having a hard time making ends meet, is it a matter of what you are spending your money on in discretionary ways or, due to rising rents and the like, it is a situation where your rent takes up a large portion of your monthly budget.
Whatever it is, if you are unhappy with your situation, try and stay focused to take steps to change it.
How people adapt to challenging work situations is intriguing because reactions can widely vary.
We have found in life that if you can learn from other people’s situations, it is often a lot less painful then having to be in the situation yourself.
Let’s turn to film.
The Company Men is 2010 American drama film, written and directed by John Wells. It features Ben Affleck, Kevin Costner, Chris Cooper and Tommy Lee Jones.
Here is the storyline.
When the publicly held shipbuilding corporation Global Transportation Systems, or GTX, is downsized in the midst of the recession, many employees are fired, including Bobby Walker.
Mr. Walker is a white-collar, corporate ladder-climbing employee with a six-figure salary, a wife, and a teenage son and younger daughter.
He receives outplacement services from GTX but, without success, gradually loses luxuries such as his country club membership and his Porsche.
He finally resorts to selling his expensive house (with a large mortgage) and moves his family in with his parents. Ultimately, Walker is forced to take a manual labor job working for his blue-collar brother-in-law, Jack Dolan, renovating a home.
The movie goes from there and becomes far more involved but at least, at this point, we can see that Mr. Walker is taking steps to stabilize his situation.
Part of what is striking here was how he was living before his job loss. As the expression goes, it is not about what you make but more about what you spend.
In your situation, before you lose a job (hopefully that never happens), are you currently living within your means, or preferably, well below it.
Why?
Living below your means allows you to save money and gradually become fairly insulated from a future catastrophe. At least it will buy you some time.
Which brings us a little deeper into the economics of it all.
Are you saving money?
We know of someone in our circle who, for years, was very stable with a solid white collar job and great benefits. He was not extravagant but he once related that all the extra money he gets, he spends it.
Dinners out.
Nice vacations.
Trips to the mall.
Then he lost his job.
In part, because he had no savings, his life quickly collapsed as opposed to if he had.
Eventually his wife left him.
We know of another real life situation where another associate, due to bad decision making, also was not living extravagantly but beyond his means in a large home he could not afford.
He too eventually lost a stable job.
Then his home.
His wife left him too.
After his fall, he decided if life gives him a second chance, and he no longer has demanding family members in his life, he is going to take responsibility for his mistakes and do things differently.
He had to rent for about three years, hated every minute of that because it felt like he was throwing money out the window. At the time, his rent was $1,000 a month. He calculated that at $12,000 a year, for three years, he lost $36,000. At that rate, he was going to burn through the savings that he had left and the thought of having no savings, being older and not being able to land a good job again, he could end up homeless.
He was terrified. So, he made the decision to drain his savings and pay cash for a small Condo.
That move changed his life.
He no longer had a huge mortgage he could not afford nor was he throwing money into the streets for rent.
It took a couple of years but his life began to stabilize and then surge after he got another job. He expressed that, he wished he had thought of taking out a 10 year loan, instead of a 30 year loan, when he was younger and simply pay the Condo off, never refinance and now his savings would really mean something.
Having no rent or mortgage is massive. A huge sigh of relief. No financial predators breathing down your neck.
What was the difference between our two associates?
One saved for the future, the other (first example) did not. Then, when his second chance came, he took responsibility for his mistakes, without blaming others, and made better decisions.
It is all about focus.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_(human_activity)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Company_Men
https://www.fciwomenswrestling2.com
https://www.fcielitecompetitor.com/
https://fciwomenswrestling.com/
