#choices #decisions #options
Sink or swim?
When we analyze most choices, we generally put the worse option last.
In this one, it’s always better to swim than to sink.
TD Ameritrade’s variation, “Think or Swim,” perhaps puts the better alternative ahead of the worse.
Fish or cut bait?
This, too, has the better alternative first. It’s always better to fish than to cut bait.
The point of this analysis is that life is full of choices. In some cases, there are no good choices and we have to pick the lesser of evils.
Sometimes, there are all good choices, and we choose the best.
The problem with us as humans is that we don’t always choose the best, or even the good, option.
We fear something might be too good to be true. Or, we see the good choice as more work than we want to do. Sometimes, we find the bad choices just more fun, even if we know we will pay for that choice later.
Sometimes, also, the choices we make in our youth can determine how we will live as adults. For example, spending on frivolous things, rather than saving, can exact a cost later in life, in terms of how you will survive.
Many don’t realize, or understand, that choices, not circumstances, are the driver of life. Each choice one makes, whether it’s choice of job, workplace, lifestyle etc., often creates one’s circumstances.
When a bad circumstance arises, how one chooses to respond to it will determine how, or whether, he or she overcomes it.
This begs the question: what choices have YOU made that have enhanced your life? What choices do you now regret? And, if you are hit by circumstances, how will you choose to respond?
If your financial situation is not where you want it to be, for example, instead of waiting for someone to help you, you COULD choose to help yourself.
Sometimes, you have to look for better choices. Other times, when better choices are presented to you, you take a look at them.
If you are looking for better choices, there are many programs out there that can give you some financial options by spending a few, part-time, off work hours a week. But, you have to be open enough to look for them, and at them.
To check out one of the best such programs, message me.
A good exercise might be to list some of the choices you’ve made in life, and how they have affected you. We’ve all made good choices and bad choices. If good choices outnumber bad ones, great.
If not, it’s probably not too late to rethink, and re-choose.
You may be surprised at the available options from which to choose.
Peter
Monthly Archives: March 2021
DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE GOING?
#JazzSinger #opportunity #ChangingWorld #RegularJobs #schools
In the 1980 movie version of “The Jazz Singer,” Neil Diamond’s character’s father, played by Sir Laurence Olivier, tells him, to paraphrase: You have to know where you came from to know where you are going.
That’s a very loaded statement, as we’ll describe throughout. The background is that Olivier’s character wanted his son to be a cantor in the synagogue, not a “jazz singer” – or, in Diamond’s character’s case, a pop singer.
Olivier’s character had a proscribed life for his son. His son had other ideas.
Diamond’s character admits later in the movie that he knows where he came from, and now knows where he is going – to fulfill his dream of being a pop singer. He even decided to divorce the nice Jewish girl he married to connect with a woman who encouraged his dream. That woman was played by Lucie Arnaz.
This story illustrates how the children of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s were raised. Their parents taught them to look for safety and security as they grew. They discouraged dreams. Meanwhile, schools taught kids, in large part, how to be good employees.
They taught this by establishing routines, enforcing schedules and enacting discipline for violating the norms. They were told when school would start, when it would break for recess and for how long, when it would break for lunch (and for how long) and when it would end for the day.
That would teach kids the rigor of regular employment. After all, regular employment was the goal every parent had for his or her children. Higher education goals came in later, but top priority was regular employment.
Today’s world turns that upside down. Thinking outside the box is generally rewarded, provided it’s done with good in mind. Kids that can solve problems, or make generational wrongs right, are considered successful.
Regular employment used to mean prosperity over time. Now, it barely signifies survival, in many cases. The once steady jobs are not so steady anymore, usually through no fault of the employee.
Companies have to be nimble. They have to find ways to succeed in a changing world. Sticking to long established routines just won’t cut it anymore.
So, where do you fit in? How are you going to find success in a world that changes by the minute?
Fortunately, if you are willing to work and are willing to check out something you may never have thought you would ever do, there are many ways to prosper, or at least augment your survival, that are available to anyone, regardless of education, experience or background.
To learn about one of the best such programs, message me.
We all, or at least most of us, know where we came from. That may have nothing to do with where we are going.
We were all taught that America was the land of opportunity. We just weren’t always encouraged to take advantage of opportunities available to us.
But we can ALL change that. We just have to be willing to look at different things. We all can’t be pop singers, but anyone with the talent can certainly go for that.
We may not want to sing the same tune our parents taught us. We may have to find a sheet of music that will suit us better in a world playing in a different key from our parents’.
Peter
HOUSE OR WEDDING: THE CHOICE IS YOURS
#weddings #homebuying #coronavirus #COVID19 #FlattenTheCurve #choices
If you’ve found the love of your life, and you both decided you would get married, your first decision after agreeing to marriage might be: do we spend what we have on a big wedding, or use it for a down payment on a house?
Netflix has a series out titled “Marriage or Mortgage,” which explores that question.
Consumer finance columnist Michelle Singletary discussed the series in a March 5, 2021 column for the Washington Post.
Obviously, she would recommend the couple buy the house, rather than splurge on a big wedding.
The choice comes down to an emotional decision vs. a practical one.
Let’s break down the choices. Sure, it’s great to have a wedding in which your families and friends could celebrate your big day with you.
In the days of COVID-19, big weddings have been a no-no. Many couples are either postponing weddings, or getting married but postponing the reception/party to a later date.
But the coronavirus has made the choice more difficult. Is one day of happiness and celebration worth more than a lifetime roof over your head that, by the way, could increase in value over time? (As a separate calculation, you could figure in the gifts you might receive from a wedding, but they won’t matter in this case.)
People spend way too much on a wedding, Singletary would argue. Among flowers, photos, over-the-top bridal gowns, lots of food and open bars, that one day of celebration could cost a couple tens of thousands of dollars easily.
And the next day, the celebration is over, albeit some couples opt for multiple-day-long weddings). Certainly, you’ll have a lifetime of memories, but was it worth dumping all that cash, or, worse, going into debt, to have the big wedding?
What if you could have a much smaller, intimate wedding, minus the expensive trappings, and have enough left over to buy your house?
Singletary writes that she thought about throwing her shoe at her TV watching the choices some couples made.
It’s understandable to think that one may NEVER have a big party like that ever again. But, are the memories it will produce worth the regret you may later have when it becomes difficult, or impossible, to afford a house?
Certainly, it’s entirely possible the couple may never want to own a house, and that’s OK, too. But what if you could invest the money you put into that big wedding into something that will give you a nest egg for retirement, when that day comes?
It comes down to this: it might be better to treat yourself later as you invest now.
Of course, there are many programs out there that could allow you to do anything you want, eventually. These programs require a minimal investment in time and money, but could, if you work at them diligently over time, pay for your wedding, house and/or retirement nest egg.
To learn about one of the best such programs, message me.
Meanwhile, the pandemic has made financial survival difficult for some. We all should begin to rethink some of our spending choices. We can celebrate achievements or life changes, but we should remember that frugal fun is still fun.
The Netflix series is wrongly titled. The marriage is still happening. The wedding, or mortgage, is the real choice. When faced with such a choice, choose wisely.
Peter
MANY JOBS LOST DURING PANDEMIC MAY NOT RETURN
#coronavirus #COVID19 #FlattenTheCurve #jobs #LostJobs
The pandemic is hastening a new normal.
As Microsoft founder Bill Gates predicted in November 2020, half of business travel and 30 percent of “days at the office” will go away forever.
Heather Long discussed this trend in an article for the Washington Post. It was also published March 1, 2021, in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The article also points out that some jobs that were destined to be automated – in other words, robots and other machines doing the work of some people — will progress sooner than anticipated because the pandemic discouraged people working in close quarters.
Technology also permits people to do some jobs from anywhere, be it home or on a tropical island.
The McKinsey Global Institute says that 20 percent of business travel won’t come back and about 20 percent of workers could end up working from home indefinitely, the article says.
That has an impact on hotels, air travel, commercial real estate and neighborhood businesses that depended on clientele working in confined office buildings or manufacturing plants, the article points out.
The article even talks about a worker at Walt Disney World who had hoped to get her job back after the pandemic, now trying to learn how to code (computers) watching YouTube videos.
Though the article talks about people needing to be retrained, that has its pitfalls. You can be retrained to do one thing, only to see that retraining become obsolete in the near future.
So what does one do in this situation? Even if your job came, or will come, back, how long will it last? Was the job you had even worth going back to? Sure, you may need a paycheck in the short term, but where will you be in a year, five years, 10 years?
Fortunately, there are many programs out there that allow a person to devote a few part-time, off-work hours a week to start, that could put extra money in one’s pocket. Eventually, if one stayed with it and worked diligently, he or she could potentially earn an income that would dwarf what he or she would make on the job he or she once did.
As a bonus, there is no specific education, background or experience needed. And, if you find that such a program is for you, you could introduce it to your friends and help them do the same.
To learn about one of the best such programs, message me.
Meanwhile, you can help mitigate the disease by diligently following the public health guidelines and getting vaccinated when your turn comes up.
You can take time to evaluate your situation and determine what your new normal will look like. However, it’s dangerous to presume that someone, or something, will come along to bail you out. Though some short-term help may come, it will not solve your potential long-term problem. That will entirely be up to you.
Being cooped up at home for extended periods has its advantages. It gives you many moments to appreciate what you have, and think about what comes next for you.
As an example, what if you could work for Company X in a big, expensive city, but live in much less expensive outskirts – or, live nowhere near where your employer is?
Or, what if you could be your own boss, work from anywhere – pandemic or not — and help many others do the same?
This is a time of change and choices. Change carefully and choose wisely.
Peter
SHOULD SCHOOLS REOPEN?
#ReopeningSchools #coronavirus #COVID19 #FlattenTheCurve
The burning question of the day seems to be whether schools should reopen for in-person learning.
Some teachers insist they should be vaccinated against COVID-19 before returning to the classroom.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say teacher vaccinations should not necessarily be required, as long as schools follow safety guidelines of requiring everyone to wear masks, keeping everyone well apart, having proper ventilation in the schools and having everyone frequently wash his or her hands.
Let’s debate this on not only the safety of everyone involved, but as a practical matter.
Let’s also look at what school will look like for the long term.
As a practical and safety matter, confining, say, 50 kids in one relatively small room with a teacher and, perhaps, a teaching assistant, would seem, on its face, to be unsafe. Even if everyone were wearing a mask, the teacher(s) can be apart from the kids, and themselves, but the kids are still too close for safety.
Some schools are dividing such big classes into a hybrid model, in which some of the kids learn in the classroom, and others learn at home. They alternate days in and out of school, with a day in between shifts to allow for school cleansing.
That seems a practical and safe solution, temporarily. But not having kids in school every day is a burden on the parents, never mind the kids who need the socialization.
But once this pandemic eases to the point of whatever the new normal will be, what will it mean for schools in the long term?
Teachers have been complaining for years about classes being too big and crowded. These experiments during the pandemic may prove useful for solving some long-term problems in education at all levels.
In colleges, will the big lecture halls with hundreds of kids crammed in at a time be a thing of the past, for example?
Can EVERY student who wants to take a class with Teacher X be able to, through some online model? Will Teacher X be able to conduct his class simultaneously, worldwide, online, as other localized teachers grade the students’ work?
Will old schools have to be torn down and rebuilt to improve ventilation? If that’s not practical, will the portable classrooms make a return to provide more space to allow students to spread out?
These questions will be answered over time, as we deal with what’s going on at the moment.
Meanwhile, it may be a good time to think about how much education beyond high school a student would be suited for, and how much that student, or his family, would be willing to pay to get that education.
Fortunately, if a student is hard-working, ambitious, but not necessarily college material, there are many programs out there in which a person can make potentially great money, regardless of education level, background or experience. As a bonus, it requires minimal investment to get into these programs.
To learn about one of the best such programs, message me.
In summary, we all want kids back in school, regardless of what level they are in. Not only is it better for their social well-being (teens, especially, need to be around friends), their educational achievement and as burden relief for parents, it’s good for teachers and staff.
But this experience could change education, as it could other pursuits and business, for the long term. Don’t just wait to see what happens, do your best to make things happen for the better.
Peter