Adulting thoughts

Hello to my lovely dear readers. Hope you guys are doing alright.

This might be the longest time I haven’t publish an article given that, I don’t really want to write something just to write something down similar to how we don’t really do things “just because”. There has to be a reason and personally my reason is value. I do want to write something that I can go back to in the future saying “hold up, past Ferny might have something nice to say that I can apply to my current situation and make life a wee bit better” or something that a dear reader can appreciate or pick up - like a point of view that can be of value or help build up or lead to another valuable point of view.

So for today’s video I will be talking about the valuable things / lessons / points of view / reflections I’ve had in mind the past few months.

A sustainable pace

I started watching f1 lately. Naively, one would think it’s just about who has the fastest car and who can maneuver a very fast car the best without crashing. Eventually however, I did realize they’re not going 100% the whole time; otherwise, not only will they expose themselves to a higher risk of crashing, but they’ll also burn their tires out (yes, at the speed they’re going they really have to change their tires given they lose grip as they use it) which, as previously mentioned in the side comment inside the parenthesis, will cause them to take a pit stop which then leads to them losing more race time ergo less chances of winning.

Apart from the discussion that life is not a race, I do actually think we can learn from how they operate. We have to operate at a sustainable pace. We have to get enough rest and enough nutrition while we grind and hustle and work to achieve our day to day tasks and long term goals; otherwise, similar to how some drivers get assigned a DNF (did not finish) status in races (as they crash or as their engines malfunction), our body will choose to rest at a time we don’t want it to. It’s great to be fast and in the zone - but let’s not do it all the time.

Funny story, I was actually in a car ride with my brother when he told me the meaning of sustainability that forever was engrained in me. “Let’s meet the needs of the present while not risking the needs of the future. That is what sustainability means.”

The number 3 mentality

As with everything else, this doesn’t apply to all people - but in a race (like most other competitions I guess), they have a podium where 3 people (or teams - depending on the sport) are awarded after the event. Obviously, that’s first place, second place, and (wow you’re so galing you guessed it right! 🤪) third place. Counterintuitively, they (unreliable sources) say that 3rd place winners are happier than 2nd place winners given that 3rd place winners appreciate their spot at the podium (presence) while the 2nd place winners look at what they could have gotten (absence).

It’s quite normal to be hungry and feel bad if we don’t get what we want, but I guess what I’m saying is (and I probably have said it before), it (disappointment) isn’t exactly mutually exclusive (mutually exclusive = either A or B, not both) with being grateful for what we have (example: the people you love and cherish are still alive) and how far we’ve come (example: problem A, a problem you had a year ago, isn’t a problem anymore). Side note #1: there’s probably problem B to worry about right now but another unreliable source told me that we’ll probably get bored with a life with no problems. Side note #2: problems never go away, it might just be best to accept it and move on to the part where we work on a solution so that we can move on to problems C, D, E and then X, Y, Z until we cease to exist (with which I hope we don’t do so soon because living is such a valuable state of existence - even if it’s arguably the only state of existence we know of).

It matters

Moving away from the f1 references, when I have my shit together like, maybe 15% of the time, I do get to fix my bed in the morning. It’s a nice easy first task that gives a bit of momentum in a sense of productivity given that a task was accomplished and the brain is like “it’s possible to achieve a task! We are empowered! We can do more!”.

But, 85% of the time (yay, my math was correct 🤪), I haven’t really gotten to it for some reason (maybe my mind’s been into other things and responsibilities in life). Before (a decade back) however, I used to think to myself - “Why do we have to fix the bed if we’re just gonna mess it up again upon sleeping tonight?”. It can translate to other things - like why do we have to live if we’re just gonna die. There’s value in the little things. There’s value in having a clean made up bed before sleeping (it feels clean and nice and orderly which can help your - or at least my - mind relax or focus on other things). There’s value in living now, even if it’s not forever. There’s value in today. We can celebrate, do something nice, do something that helps people, do something fun, become 1% better at something, process bottled up emotions in order to maybe free ourselves from the mental chatter where the body or mind is telling us that something is wrong, etc. The world is our oyster!

Looking at atoms and molecules or stars and asteroids, we wouldn’t really find meaning. I believe that it is to be found in the lives that we are living.

Thinking long term

I’m now going to start talking about the things I’ve only really thought about in this adulting phase of my life as I ask wiser people how to live better.

I’ve been tracking my expenses lately and I realized something, the small things add up! (Wow, what a new discovery! 1+1 = 2! 🤯). But seriously, for example, a person named John books a delivery for food (in order to sustain himself 🤯) 4 times a week. Per delivery, it costs 50 pesos. “I can afford that”, he thinks (he really can afford that but that’s not the point of this story). Upon seeing the end-of-the fiscal-year ledger (no idea what that means, just thought it might make things more believable… joke) however, he realized that per week, it’s 200 pesos. Per month, it’s 800 pesos (quick maths). And per year, it’s 9600 pesos. And that’s not even including the other 4 weeks that are shared between months! (Explanation: 4 weeks in a month * 12 months in a year = 48 weeks - but there are are 52 weeks in a year as per reliable sources). That 9.6k could’ve been used buying a pair of Jordans! AND THAT’S ONLY THE DELIVERY FEE! I don’t even want to talk about the actual cost of the food. AND I JUST WOULD LIKE TO POINT OUT THESE NUMBERS ARE FACTS AND NOT SOMETHING ONE CAN JUST DISAGREE WITH.

I’m getting ahead of myself, but point being: looking at things with a macro lens can help make better decisions (which can hopefully translate to a better state of being).

Insurance

I had a talk with one of my colleagues regarding personal financial management. Hungry as I am to get my finances in order, I asked her for tips and advice - things she wish she knew before or top things she learned. She mentioned insurance. It’s game changing (and I’m not selling you insurance right now - I’m not, at least not yet, a salesman - but it might be a good idea to consider having one given the perspective that I’m about to share). Specifically, I asked - “Isn’t it a waste of money if you’re not going to use it? It’s basically gone with the wind every year. It’s not even something you can actively use.”

She mentioned: “It’s just basically the lesser of evils. It’s something you wish you don’t use, but if you do end up using it, you’ll be glad that you have it. If we pay 200k a year, we can afford it. But in the event that, God forbid, something very unfortunate happens and we have to pay 2 million in a week - that we can’t afford.”

This would’ve been a great part to insert an insurance ad; nonetheless, that perspective is a game changer - especially for people who have loved ones that are getting older. Unless I can’t afford it, I don’t think I’ll live my life without insurance for me and my loved ones again.

Having enough

I asked another colleague of mine who is at a later phase in life: “How do you manage your finances?”. He said “It comes down to discipline and having a sense of what is enough. There’s a chance that as your salary grows, the expenses to maintain your lifestyle increases as well as your lifestyle changes given that you have more money to spend - thereby making it never enough. If your phone is still working and there’s no need to update, just stick with it and save; and it will add up through time.”

The lack of control

Lastly, I would like to talk about something that I haven’t thought about in a while, an innate urge to have a sense of control and the acceptance that’s required to have a peace of mind. I’ve already actually accepted it in the past but I guess I got to internalize it more when someone in reddit talked about it as well. Talking about DOTA, he said: “One thing that remains quite constant is that you never have full control over the outcome of a game, there are after all 9 other players affecting it.”

I’ve already known it before that no matter how good you are, you can still end up losing because it’s a team game - but I guess the different thing now is how he phrased it, how he used the word constant, and how it applies to other things, like life - but this time, it’s not just 9 players affecting the outcome but an unlimited amount of variables. No matter how good you are at not fucking up, someone can just pop in and fuck it up for you and it’s out of your control and it’s just the way it is. On the bright side however, someone can also just pop in and be beneficial to your growth and well-being such as the wise colleagues I’ve been talking to.

Even with the processes of our internal organs, they do operate autonomously. They’re a huge part of us but they’re not something we actively control - the pace at which our heart beats, the process of how we release various enzymes to break down food and acquire the nutrition we need, and the way we don’t even think about blinking (but we do) when we see an object rapidly approaching our face.

We can influence how the other variables in our lives behave. We can nicely tell our teammates to push forward and capture objectives when all the enemies are dead and we can eat a lot of fruits and vegetables for our microbiome to thrive but that’s about it. All we can do is our part - the rest we leave up to the Gods.

I’m not quite sure if this is the longest post I’ve written so far but if you’ve made it until here, thank you for reading the current memoirs of my mind and soul. The world is not at its best state lately and I wish you strength, love, peace, and happiness as you go through the next couple of months.

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