Thursday, October 01, 2015
It's over, or...
I quit.
For years I've been blogging, traveling, studying, etc. I can say I have little to show for it but knowledge I've never used. I sit here in my office, quiet and sad. The time has come to end my tilting at windmills and put these dreams and schemes behind me. There's a process in getting sober call "hitting bottom," which is when you realize that what you were doing has gotten not nowhere, but in a worse position then if you had done nothing. If the monkey on your back is large enough, and in this case it's probably a silver-backed mountain gorilla, you can only get better once this painful inflection point is reached. I have reached that point. It is time for a new path, a new direction, and new aspirations.
So what does that mean? From a practical standpoint, it means I'm not an entrepreneur, not a member of the New Rich, and I'll never be. I don't know business, and I'll never take what I've learned to become one. I'll never live outside the US, no matter what happens economically or politically. I'm still interested in the subjects I've covered in this space, but I can't even look at them right now. The less I engage with them the better at this point.
That's what I'm not. What am I then? A financial aid counselor who, while good at his job, doesn't really like his profession very much. I've never had much attention to detail, which is rather important to a job like this. Ironic then that today is my 14th. anniversary at the college. My ability to work with difficult students, mastery of arcane regulations, the ability to explain financial aid to novices (mostly confused teaching faculty), ability to master veteran benefits, public speaking abilities, and my overarching skills at bullshitting, playing dumb, and working insane hours to paper-over my mistakes saved me on the way to tenure. I've developed much greater attention to detail over the years, much to the delight of my boss. Whatever my competencies, I always felt like I'd rather be doing something else, and while I could explore other avenues, there's no impetus to expand my horizons either at my place of work or outside it.
Of course, even a cursory review of this blog would indicate there are plenty of reasons to look to a future outside financial aid, so I'll rephrase it by saying there' no immediate impetus forcing action. There in lies the rub. I'm also not discussing the other reason I've forsaken my path: a girlfriend who loves me, but is more than a little sick of my theoretical musings and absence of action. She's all for me planning for the future, but could has no taste for my chicken little proclamations. Even if she agreed with me about the direction of the country (and I'm pretty certain she doesn't), she is much more convinced that real estate is the way to go. I can't disagree, but you can't bootstrap rental properties. The learning curve is much sharper, but the payoff could be massive.
So where, on October 28th, 2015, does this leave me or this space? I don't know. Even the path I thought was available (rentals) is closed off that the moment. The reason for that is needs to be covered in another post. Until then, this is your friendly (for the most part) financial aid counselor signing off.
For years I've been blogging, traveling, studying, etc. I can say I have little to show for it but knowledge I've never used. I sit here in my office, quiet and sad. The time has come to end my tilting at windmills and put these dreams and schemes behind me. There's a process in getting sober call "hitting bottom," which is when you realize that what you were doing has gotten not nowhere, but in a worse position then if you had done nothing. If the monkey on your back is large enough, and in this case it's probably a silver-backed mountain gorilla, you can only get better once this painful inflection point is reached. I have reached that point. It is time for a new path, a new direction, and new aspirations.
So what does that mean? From a practical standpoint, it means I'm not an entrepreneur, not a member of the New Rich, and I'll never be. I don't know business, and I'll never take what I've learned to become one. I'll never live outside the US, no matter what happens economically or politically. I'm still interested in the subjects I've covered in this space, but I can't even look at them right now. The less I engage with them the better at this point.
That's what I'm not. What am I then? A financial aid counselor who, while good at his job, doesn't really like his profession very much. I've never had much attention to detail, which is rather important to a job like this. Ironic then that today is my 14th. anniversary at the college. My ability to work with difficult students, mastery of arcane regulations, the ability to explain financial aid to novices (mostly confused teaching faculty), ability to master veteran benefits, public speaking abilities, and my overarching skills at bullshitting, playing dumb, and working insane hours to paper-over my mistakes saved me on the way to tenure. I've developed much greater attention to detail over the years, much to the delight of my boss. Whatever my competencies, I always felt like I'd rather be doing something else, and while I could explore other avenues, there's no impetus to expand my horizons either at my place of work or outside it.
Of course, even a cursory review of this blog would indicate there are plenty of reasons to look to a future outside financial aid, so I'll rephrase it by saying there' no immediate impetus forcing action. There in lies the rub. I'm also not discussing the other reason I've forsaken my path: a girlfriend who loves me, but is more than a little sick of my theoretical musings and absence of action. She's all for me planning for the future, but could has no taste for my chicken little proclamations. Even if she agreed with me about the direction of the country (and I'm pretty certain she doesn't), she is much more convinced that real estate is the way to go. I can't disagree, but you can't bootstrap rental properties. The learning curve is much sharper, but the payoff could be massive.
So where, on October 28th, 2015, does this leave me or this space? I don't know. Even the path I thought was available (rentals) is closed off that the moment. The reason for that is needs to be covered in another post. Until then, this is your friendly (for the most part) financial aid counselor signing off.
