Hello everyone,
Although this is not my first post I would like to introduce myself.
First things first. I am obviously a slowlaner who is looking outside of the window and admires a lot of the people on the fastlane. I recently decided to steer to the left. I apologize for the long post.
A Brief History of my Universe:
I was born in Europe thirty-two years ago, I have no real college degree, but a lot of working experience in the Aerospace industry, especially in engineering, working mostly on experimental aircrafts. I began working for a big aerospace firm when I was twenty, moved to the US, began working to a different big aerospace firm. My tasks were deemed critical, I was doing a lot of overtime, the products were pretty cool to work on.
September 2013 arrives and on the same day my supervisor assigned me more critical tasks I receive the pink slip by my supervisor’s boss (a dude that had no interest on what I was doing). Then the job search began. As a father of two, and a person who liked a nice salaried job, it wasn’t easy. Yet, after the first initial traumas, I was able to do some introspection and learn a few things about the Game of Life. And myself. FYI, I also used the time off to do some volunteering, which helped me greatly in putting things in perspective. I also learnt that 401(k) is a legalized scam.
On February 2014 I finally got a job, the day job I currently have. It’s a government job, absolutely not challenging, and I am underpaid. I dread coming to work every single morning.
Some of the lessons:
As I mentioned, what happened in September 2013 was a key learning moment. In brief, I understood that job safety is a myth. Of the worst kind. The game is hidden to most of the eyes. Being employed carries the same safety of opening a business, with the only difference of the immediate cash flow (aka salary). In a company, no one is safe and if you think that it’s the quality of your job that matters, you are wrong. It doesn’t. My company had a great year, I was working on critical projects, I was appreciated by my direct supervisors. The pink slip I received also caused a two/three month delay on the project I was working on, for a cost as much as twice as my yearly salary. In addition, the dude that “let me go” (what an idiotic term!) said that my professional record was impeccable. In other words: “though luck, I just don’t like you, but if you want you can blame an ethereal decisional system”.
Another lesson is that no matter what, if you are employed you gotta live like you’re going to starve soon. I spent way too much, depleted my checking account in restaurant, Starbucks, and useless stuff. Nothing really fancy, but small expensive that accrued can make the difference.
Third lesson… 401k is a scam. As soon as you need the money, you will have to pay taxes and a fee. For your money! And if you’re not vested you even lose the company’s matched amount. In other words, do not listen to financial advisors.
Current status:
My job pays $2000 every two weeks, I have $13000 in my savings, credit cards almost paid off, mortgage to pay. I feel humiliated.
Plans (in general):
I want to reach a million dollar in my yearly revenues, and then never go under that amount.
A First Epiphany:
As it might sound stupid, I always loved pulp fiction (not the movie, the genre). And I always wanted to be a writer. The pulp writers motto was “be prolific or starve”. I realized – thanks to this forum – that the pulp era is still here, and can make you some good money. It’s e-publishing, it’s Amazon Kindle. Now I have to be a prolific writer, or starve. I can try to live one of my dreams. The odds of making a decent living out of it are low, but yet what do I have to lose?
The first actions I took:
I can talk all day and take no action. As an introvert, I decided that I had to go outside of my comfort zone. Here are my first baby steps.
- Read business literature. As a booklover, I read both for pleasure and for information. I don’t believe that business can be learned from books, but they are important to understand some concepts and learn some terminology.
- Start writing. As I said, I wanted to write so now I write.
- Submit/Publish. To get money, I have to submit and/or publish. I think that this is the hardest step for any aspiring writer. I decided to submit a short story to a famous magazine. I know that my chances of publication are slimmer than a photoshopped model, but this step is PIVOTAL to get out of a mental bubble. And let me tell you, if I receive a rejection letter I will celebrate the fact that I went where most aspiring writers never been before. In addition, I plan to release my first Kindle story (5k to 10k words) next week, under a pen name.
- Invest $10.000 in the stock market, buying Apple stocks. Reason? I need to get away from the fear of losing. $10.000 are nothing , and if I don’t even try to make a few bucks they will be spent (lost) anyways in other crap.
- SAVE. Each cent counts. F-off DirectTV, f-off T-Mobile (reduced my data limit), f-off buying things I don’t need (see next bullet).
- The Hardest Step. As I said I am a book lover. My house had literally hundreds of books. You read it well. HAD. I boxed a good 50% of them, and sold them. I made more than I expected. I don’t like having to sell books, but I noticed that most of the books were either unread or unused (will not read). And most of them are available free of charge at the Library. It was HARD guys, like selling a kidney. But I did it, and I moved forward.
Fears:
Hand in hand to any endeavors there is fear. The uncharted territory is always feared, the unknown beasts are always scary. Yet, they might bring opportunity. I realize now that I will lose everything if I don’t try new things. Being employed is no more a thing I look forward to (btw I am not irrational, I won’t quit today; I need some cash flow for a few weeks at least).
However there is one thing that makes me more afraid of anything else.
Watching the sidewalk, everyday:
I work at a Public Library. Every single day I see something scary. Very scary. Being at a library means surrounded by the masters such as Poe, Dostoyevsky, Hemingway, Dante. Right?
No.
Being at a library means that every day I see people coming in doing nothing. Literally nothing. Young kids come here at 9am, use public computers to play videogames or stay on Facebook until 5pm. Middle aged guys come here and play solitaire. Other people just waste time. Not a book in their hand. Ever. Not an informative website is browsed. Ever. A good chunk of them are regulars, here daily. They have more knowledge available here than what they could find at a course at Yale. They don’t use it. They don’t have the slightest curiosity. They just gave up on life.
I don’t want to be like them. I’d rather die.
Although this is not my first post I would like to introduce myself.
First things first. I am obviously a slowlaner who is looking outside of the window and admires a lot of the people on the fastlane. I recently decided to steer to the left. I apologize for the long post.
A Brief History of my Universe:
I was born in Europe thirty-two years ago, I have no real college degree, but a lot of working experience in the Aerospace industry, especially in engineering, working mostly on experimental aircrafts. I began working for a big aerospace firm when I was twenty, moved to the US, began working to a different big aerospace firm. My tasks were deemed critical, I was doing a lot of overtime, the products were pretty cool to work on.
September 2013 arrives and on the same day my supervisor assigned me more critical tasks I receive the pink slip by my supervisor’s boss (a dude that had no interest on what I was doing). Then the job search began. As a father of two, and a person who liked a nice salaried job, it wasn’t easy. Yet, after the first initial traumas, I was able to do some introspection and learn a few things about the Game of Life. And myself. FYI, I also used the time off to do some volunteering, which helped me greatly in putting things in perspective. I also learnt that 401(k) is a legalized scam.
On February 2014 I finally got a job, the day job I currently have. It’s a government job, absolutely not challenging, and I am underpaid. I dread coming to work every single morning.
Some of the lessons:
As I mentioned, what happened in September 2013 was a key learning moment. In brief, I understood that job safety is a myth. Of the worst kind. The game is hidden to most of the eyes. Being employed carries the same safety of opening a business, with the only difference of the immediate cash flow (aka salary). In a company, no one is safe and if you think that it’s the quality of your job that matters, you are wrong. It doesn’t. My company had a great year, I was working on critical projects, I was appreciated by my direct supervisors. The pink slip I received also caused a two/three month delay on the project I was working on, for a cost as much as twice as my yearly salary. In addition, the dude that “let me go” (what an idiotic term!) said that my professional record was impeccable. In other words: “though luck, I just don’t like you, but if you want you can blame an ethereal decisional system”.
Another lesson is that no matter what, if you are employed you gotta live like you’re going to starve soon. I spent way too much, depleted my checking account in restaurant, Starbucks, and useless stuff. Nothing really fancy, but small expensive that accrued can make the difference.
Third lesson… 401k is a scam. As soon as you need the money, you will have to pay taxes and a fee. For your money! And if you’re not vested you even lose the company’s matched amount. In other words, do not listen to financial advisors.
Current status:
My job pays $2000 every two weeks, I have $13000 in my savings, credit cards almost paid off, mortgage to pay. I feel humiliated.
Plans (in general):
I want to reach a million dollar in my yearly revenues, and then never go under that amount.
A First Epiphany:
As it might sound stupid, I always loved pulp fiction (not the movie, the genre). And I always wanted to be a writer. The pulp writers motto was “be prolific or starve”. I realized – thanks to this forum – that the pulp era is still here, and can make you some good money. It’s e-publishing, it’s Amazon Kindle. Now I have to be a prolific writer, or starve. I can try to live one of my dreams. The odds of making a decent living out of it are low, but yet what do I have to lose?
The first actions I took:
I can talk all day and take no action. As an introvert, I decided that I had to go outside of my comfort zone. Here are my first baby steps.
- Read business literature. As a booklover, I read both for pleasure and for information. I don’t believe that business can be learned from books, but they are important to understand some concepts and learn some terminology.
- Start writing. As I said, I wanted to write so now I write.
- Submit/Publish. To get money, I have to submit and/or publish. I think that this is the hardest step for any aspiring writer. I decided to submit a short story to a famous magazine. I know that my chances of publication are slimmer than a photoshopped model, but this step is PIVOTAL to get out of a mental bubble. And let me tell you, if I receive a rejection letter I will celebrate the fact that I went where most aspiring writers never been before. In addition, I plan to release my first Kindle story (5k to 10k words) next week, under a pen name.
- Invest $10.000 in the stock market, buying Apple stocks. Reason? I need to get away from the fear of losing. $10.000 are nothing , and if I don’t even try to make a few bucks they will be spent (lost) anyways in other crap.
- SAVE. Each cent counts. F-off DirectTV, f-off T-Mobile (reduced my data limit), f-off buying things I don’t need (see next bullet).
- The Hardest Step. As I said I am a book lover. My house had literally hundreds of books. You read it well. HAD. I boxed a good 50% of them, and sold them. I made more than I expected. I don’t like having to sell books, but I noticed that most of the books were either unread or unused (will not read). And most of them are available free of charge at the Library. It was HARD guys, like selling a kidney. But I did it, and I moved forward.
Fears:
Hand in hand to any endeavors there is fear. The uncharted territory is always feared, the unknown beasts are always scary. Yet, they might bring opportunity. I realize now that I will lose everything if I don’t try new things. Being employed is no more a thing I look forward to (btw I am not irrational, I won’t quit today; I need some cash flow for a few weeks at least).
However there is one thing that makes me more afraid of anything else.
Watching the sidewalk, everyday:
I work at a Public Library. Every single day I see something scary. Very scary. Being at a library means surrounded by the masters such as Poe, Dostoyevsky, Hemingway, Dante. Right?
No.
Being at a library means that every day I see people coming in doing nothing. Literally nothing. Young kids come here at 9am, use public computers to play videogames or stay on Facebook until 5pm. Middle aged guys come here and play solitaire. Other people just waste time. Not a book in their hand. Ever. Not an informative website is browsed. Ever. A good chunk of them are regulars, here daily. They have more knowledge available here than what they could find at a course at Yale. They don’t use it. They don’t have the slightest curiosity. They just gave up on life.
I don’t want to be like them. I’d rather die.
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