I was talking to my buddy Gaye who runs the StrategicLivingBlog site and we got t o comparing notes on how our lives have run, versus how Millennials seem to be setting up their personal outcomes for “down the road.”
Gaye and I have known each other since 1973, and over the past 45-years, we’ve shared a lot of philosophical concepts. Perhaps, the most important was when we agreed (1974, or so) that the only way to really “make it” in the world was to commit to “MSH” – making sh*t happen.
Although either of us could have dropped into “victimhood” – that was just coming into its own – neither of us did. I stuck-it-out in the news business for another 10-years and she went on to become a serial computer entrepreneur and did very well for herself.
Our spouses get along well…but we’ve got a common interest, cut from the same cloth, when comes to writing. One of these days, our old book, 11 Steps to Living a Strategic Life: A Guide to Survival During Uncertain Times, will be updated. Reason? Times have changed.
The effects of “political correctness” and “teaching to the tests” has begun to have its impact on America. We may have somewhat higher scores, in some measures, but our citizenry has been dumbed down. A lot.
To you, or me, the inability to change a tire sounds absurd. Statistically, if you read UrbanSurvival, you’re 40+ and middle-upper income. You’re not the problem.
The problem is younger folks who seem to think that life owes them a free-ride. That explains a lot – including the recent rise of free-lunch politics – the socialists – who can’t handle the back-end accounting to save their souls. Moreover, socialism has never scored a long-term success.
The Russians as a people are very smart. Yet, for all the bodies stacked up in the Stalin purges and worse, the Russian/Communiust model of socialism blew up in one ultra-long wave economic cycle: 72-years from the October 1917 revolution until the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.
Socialists don’t mention Venezuela much, either. Oh, sure, a lot of Bitcoin shills pimp-around the idea that Venezuela will emerge – any day now – as the socialist poster-child for a new (insert every hackneyed phrase imaginable) world. We’ll be up to our ears in whales, GMO-free food, polar bears, eagles and other such, all based on the delusions of youth.
When one accepts the personal ownership of life – which is standard with the MSH viewpoint – a few key realizations reveal themselves.
If You Want something, Take Action
No, if you’re 21, mom and dad do not owe you the time of day. Particularly if you don’t offer respect and full participation in the running of the household in return. Mom and Dad don’t owe you a car, and education or a free cell phone. That’s on you.
Get an Education and Use It
As a former college director, I assure you that Everything’s a Business Model in Education. Sure, it gets wrapped up in a flag, workforce competitiveness blatherspeak, and saluted by politicians (bought by Education Interests). But, the fact of the matter is that the FedGov’s approach to Student Loans is a simple violation of Anti-Slavery Laws. So, in my view, any court-ordered support past voting age.
By the way, this doesn’t mean a parent has to stop giving money or housing, or anything else to the offspring. It’s just that it should be voluntary.
The government – in cahoots with higher ed – makes it possible to deduct part of child-rearing until age 24 if they’re still in school. However, an alternative view of the universe hints that parental indentures (PLUS loans in particular – parent loans for undergraduate students) have failed to hold the cost of higher-education in check. Another long rant on that one of these days.
What’s Transfrugalism?
When a young person hits age 16, or so, the Transfrugalism Boundary begins to come into view.
Transfrugalism can work out many ways: You can go from a middle-class home to abject poverty – requiring frugality. Or, you can come out dirt poor from a horrible childhood, bust your ass and “live the dream.”
Sadly, the American education system does not teach effective – algorithmic problem-solving. They teach “test scores.”
Allow me to help?
Every morning when you awaken, you choose what kind of day you’re going to have. If you actively plan to get things done, you will likely get them accomplished if you stick to the list. On the other hand, if you put on the crown of victimhood (which is a nice way of saying loserhood) you won’t have a plan and rudderless, you’ll be kicked all over the backfield of life.
A lot of people, so kicked by life, find they get wrapped up in gangs, malcontents, socialists, “cause politics” that bleed money from them, and they work at “filler” jobs.
So, on mornings like this, before you run off to the next website, let me ask you if you have either a) a piece of paper with a half-dozen action points for the day or b) if you are over 40, you can tell us all what your six “daily deal points” are?
If you’re going to MSH, you need to target which piles of Sh*t to work on for the day.
It’s a lot like going into town when you live in extreme rural America. You don’t run in for a gallon of milk. Planning really matters.
Last week I wrote down what I needed to continue to MSH around the homestead: Car safety inspection, license tabs, special wiring for a re-do of some solar panel connections, pick up prescriptions, get some special bolts are the farm store, and a 50 pound back of rock salt at the feed store. Gas stabilizer for the 2-cycle power equipment, and fresh French bread…. the usuals.
Each task would get done in a 3-hour period and it supported a much larger task in life. Since I knew exactly what to budget for each, there was no worry about moving closer to frugality.
Some Takeaways
- You can either MSH or you can have the Sh-part happen to you.
- To MSH consistently you need three things:
- Some education in a field where there’s demand.
- A plan to rise to the top of that field over time.
- Persistence and immunity to adversity, rejection, and so forth.
- Daily List-Making is a great start .
- But to do this, a Master Plan for your Life is useful. Puts things in order.
This may not seem like prepping. But, it really is.
Because if TSHTF, you will be staring at the biggest pile of opportunity to “crash and burn” and end up in victimhood you’ve ever heard of. You will need an attitude I call “prosperity thinking.” Short for (looking at the wreckage) “What can I make new and better out of this mess?”
When it comes (compound interest is relentless), it can be met with aggressive possibility thinking and thereby maintain personal sovereignty. Or, you can put on the “Everyone owes me” victimhood hat. Government will have camps for victims.
Simple enough choice…yet I am amazed every day at the number of people entering the zone of transfrugalism with a plan to win simply because they lack personal hustle. To these sorry peeps, holding down their butt is more important than lifting up their future..
Write when you get rich,
george@ure.net
George
Sounds like a lot of people are going to get a serious dose of “What for ” ?? here shortly. I guess just sit back and say, ” I told you so” !! Sometimes the school of hard knocks is the only way to seat things into long term memory !!
“The problem is younger folks who seem to think that life owes them a free-ride.”
I agree and disagree..
first I started working a real job at 12 sacking groceries.. and did a little lawn mowing and weed pulling.. today that is done chemically with gmo crops..
and a child is no longer able to start a job at that age.. the earliest is 14 around here and they can only work an hour or two.
I don’t know one person that wants a free lunch.. not one everyone of them would rather than get federal assistance make it on their own. but prices go up wages go down due to not following the cost of living while companies utilize the list of federal programs to improve their gains.
the few companies that are not out for the increased earnings off of the backs of the middle class laborers usually hire only when they have a slew of retiree’s.
School.. well there is a reason why one in five of the young ladies going to college are looking for an older sugar daddy to offset the cost of living and school expenses. five thousand in books donated to them will save them what over thirty years.. possibly up to fifty grand.. my grand daughter who got a full scholarship would have had to take out student loans for living expenses.. the interest they were looking at was about ten percent the kids luckily the father ( my son in law)_ owns a huge construction company..so he took out a signature loan for her. the other grandkids that have scholarships aren’t that lucky.. their parents only make around a seventy grand a year and with children at home and their own school loans cannot afford that luxury.. they do help in other ways.
I never had enough money for college and because I dumbed myself down to fit in socially I wasn’t able to get a formal college education. I got credit for a couple of years just by challenging their curriculum and testing out. But that is it.
As a bottom feeder I can tell you that I never went for any of the free programs unless it was absolutely needed and then only for a short time which is what they were designed for.. I have starved.. ( made a vow not to ever let that happen again) I worked a lot in the medical field.. how that works around here.. is if you are a full pay the companies make enough money to keep afloat. yup a half million up dollars a wing for room and board makes a huge difference.. ( which at a minimum of ten grand a month not counting the extra’s like laundry etc.they can make a profit) But if you are on a social program that figure is reduced accordingly. ask any doctor they would rather have a patient that pays out of pocket than one that only has medicare..One nursing home looses a half million a year just on adult diapers..now consider this.. if that wing that makes a half million dollars plus a month goes down to lets say a hundred and eighty thousand dollars a month.. six nurses ten aides housekeepers maintenance.. their share of gardeners, the social workers share etc etc.. the cost of the building the profit is not there.. usually if they are three beds down in the whole facility everyone has to cut their hours by a half hour a day.. if they are five beds down there is several that is going to be fired.. usually the older that aren’t vested in the retirement funds. ( which I might add they did away with now it is full contribution) the requirements ( at least for this area and state is so low that if you own a home car or anything at all you don’t qualify.. I have heard that some states banking gives out loans to anyone walking in without collateral and after my wifes last employer getting a two billion dollar loan with a shizty credit history I believe that. and anyone asking for federal assistance will pay out more than they can make working.. I totally believe that is a possibility. ) well medicare did an eleven percent drop the facility she worked at dropped everyone that had two decades of work history with them every single one.. the hospital they did a mass firing of nurses replaced them with tech’s…we went a year without an income luckily we had a nice food stock and enough in savings to get us by..( seems that if you are fifty to sixty five you are unemployable )the guy that bought the facility she last worked at got the two billion dollar loan and didn’t pay any of the utilities bought just the bare essentials and wasn’t paying employee’s to the point that they had a skeleton crew.. she had to find a different job I worry about this years taxes because the firm that was handling the bookwork isn’t any longer handling any of that) the cost of an education comes with a price. One young lady that is like a grandchild of mine ended up going to germany to get her education because there they want to see the youth become self sufficient. Here the cost would have been almost twenty grand plus her living expenses.. another young lady that is like a grand child to me went to Jamaica to get an education because for her the cost was fifty grand a year there it is ten grand.( her biggest issue to date in Jamaica is that their water utilities system sucks.. LOL about once a week there isn’t any water at all I hear about that all the time) the cost.. what is a loan payment on a couple of hundred grand.. my one grandson that just became an engineer he has to pay almost seven dollars an hour even though he had scholarships. the good thing is my son in law hired him and he flips houses in between with his father so he will do it nicely.
Lean on daddy.. yup.. even now with children in their middle forties they come to dad for help.. and I only worked labor positions. the minimum jobs I worked was two.. and the most was during the eighties when I had to work six jobs.. my egg timer years.. I lived and breathed by my egg timer.. the worst year was three full time jobs and one part time job 140 plus hours a week..I worked full time to the hospital to pay off a surgical debt to them.( they didn’t want to do that at all.. I begged the administration to allow me the ability to retain some dignity) two full time jobs and a part time to make enough to live on.. It about killed me.. I worked off the debt to the surgeon by resurfacing his parking lot in exchange for his services.. by hand.. let me tell you what a job that is.. but in exchange it is how I really got to know my present wife.. she had been taken advantage of by a hospital and she was worried about my health..
the list..
shoot only a half dozen.. I have my hit list if an emergency project comes up it goes to the top and everything else follows with them being checked off as I finish them..
all in all our whole system has slowly been changing to get the working class to depend on social programs. Have you read adolph hitlers second book.. get the people to rely on govt. then take it away give it to the wealthiest twenty nine percent then get the sentiment of the people to imprison them.. pretty classy .. and we as voters and industrialists have let that happen..
I forgot Health insurance.. to have the ability to only see a doctor a maximum of three times in a year is 12,000.00 with a 7500.00 deductible before they pay on anything.. the office visit cost is forty dollars.. to be able to see a doctor but not have a choice in who you see is fifteen thousand a year and they don’t pay out until after you pay your 7500.00 deductible.
to have your choice of doctor.. the cost is.. just at twenty thousand a year this gives you the ability to see a personal physician and the deductible is five grand.. and a 40.00 co pay the other company is roughly two hundred more per policy.. roughly a seven dollar an hour expense.. this is something every single person faces.. so if you are making fifteen dollars an hour lets say in a labor position.. half of your gross wage is going to go out for health insurance or you won’t get it and let those with insurance pay the costs of your medical expenses and take the penalties instead..George just like you have always said.. everything is a business model.. and what could they be trying to accomplish with these actions. they are forcing more and more of the population to seek the federal programs.. right now it is one in three.. I wonder what it will be in ten years.. and will they move to incarcerate those at the top like many of the dictators have in the past..
Why not just see any doctor you want and pay cash without all the insurance premium rip-off? You can usually get a discount for saving the doctor the hassle of insurance forms. I had to go to emergency once when I accidentally cut an artery on the top of my head. Total price was just under $4 grand which I would have had to pay anyway if I had insurance. It’s hard for me to believe that people are so afraid of a medical expense that they will pay such exorbitant amounts of “protection money”. I’ve probably spent ten times more money in my lifetime keeping my motor vehicles running then I have spent going to the doctor. The Mafia doesn’t charge that much, do they?
The other thing that comes to mind. Is if this is a plan to enslave the working class and over throw the modestly wealthy..
Whose plan is it?
Who pulls the strings?
Who will gain?
Most of us rarely peek out of our personal box’s until a situation has gotten so far out of control that it affects our personal livelihood where it becomes mandatory that something has to be done..the fifteen grand heath insurance is only for one person I can’t wait till Medicare is available for the wife..but then there’s talk of doing away with Medicare. What then.
When I started working healthcare the position I had was volunteer today with the regulations and licensing its a different story..
Hi George,
This may be the wrong place to post, but I know you’ll see it at least. It’s exciting! Not like the Kavanoise one story wonder. It’s a relatively new non-invasive functional brain mapping technique that’s reasonably affordable and allows for mobility! Think fNIRS! I’ve barely begun to investigate it.
I know you have interest in optical effects and therapies. This one’s about near IR functional optical imaging techniques. It works by sensing the equivalent to the BOLD signal in fMRI. I can see this as a complement to fMRI, EEG and MEG techniques. fMRI and MEG are both incredibly expensive and use cryogenic elements(superconducting magnet or SQUID array). They require an immobile patient and heavy shielding. fNIRS doesn’t require this. It has good temporal resolution and reasonable spatial resolution. It’s not even on the syllabus for my imaging class(yet).
Further reading:
http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/10/eaat3807.full
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4428134/