Our Perception of Time
Why am I perpetually behind? Why do I always have 20 magazines to read, 20 emails to return, a couple of presentations to give and all these great thoughts for posts that never get written?
I seem to walk a fine line between getting things done and being hopelessly overwhelmed by what needs to be done NOW.
I am begining to think that I am one of those people who always seems to bite off way more than I can chew. In all honesty, I realize that I do it because on some level I like it. Some people climb shear rock walls 200 feet above ground without a harness for their adrenaline. I just try to squeeze 80hrs of work, time for family, what used to be a social life, maintain a healthy lifestyle and attempt to get out of debt into a 168hr week.
But, I digress.
How does this apply to personal finance? What I perceive I can accomplish has been warped by our instant gratification, technology based, information society. People lease a new car every three years. Movie stars change their S.O’s about once every two years, I seem to need a new cell phone at least once a year and computers, ipods, TV’s, and the internet change almost monthly if not weekly.
The one thing that doesn’t seem to change is how often I get paid and how long it seems to take to accumulate savings. In comparison to how quickly I could spend my paycheck on new gadgets it seems like an eternity to watch our savings account grow each month.
I start to question what am I doing wrong? Did I choose the wrong field? Are the mistakes I made in the past going to haunt my forever?
Luckily these thoughts pass quickly. I look at my day to day life and realize that although I am perpetually tired(show me a Resident who isn’t!), I have a happy, comfortable life with many blessings.
The problem I suffer from is being impatient and having an altered sense of where I should be. Perhaps I should stop reading MM’s blog. When this happens, I try to redevote myself to “doing the right thing” and realize that I don’t have to be ready for retirement tomorrow. I have good old Uncle Sam to take care of me(wink, wink)
Heck, as I mentioned before, I still have a few years before I get what I would consider my first real job. I just have to remind myself from time to time to focus on forming good habits and pay attention to the big things.
such is life….
