Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Eat an apple a day.

FBeyer wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 03, 2018 12:14 pm

Just because you put that boat in water a long time ago doesn't mean you can't put a hole in the bottom of it today. In other words: quitting is often the fastest and most stressfree way to finish a project.

Sinking one's own boat used as an example to avoid sunken cost fallacy. I could spend the rest of my day trying to research the best literary term to describe that sentence. But I think its best just to savor the mind blowing moment because once I start looking I'll just keep going until I feel I have to find it.

(1) Less time on electronic devices including but not limited to less time reading things for mere information/entertainment, stock watching;
(2) I have given up on being positive but I think I can work on not having every conversation I find myself in ending up as a reflection on death;
(3) Continue Swedish Death cleaning (my euphemism for tidying);
(4) Curb spending (thank you Mr. Money Mustache!!!!!);
(5) Start an anti-stoic society. "You and everyone you love are going to die, stop pretending you're happy about it. You're not fooling anyone and not only that, rationalizing fooling yourself by saying a bunch of dead Greek guys did it only makes yourself look even more foolish. Calling an idea a philosophy back then was like calling an idea a tech company in 1998."

ThisDinosaur wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 03, 2018 12:15 pm

I highly recommend Carl Paoli's youtube channel, Gymnastics WOD.
He breaks bodyweight skills down to the biomechanics level. I learned pistol squats in a single day from his tutorial.

I have seen that series before, but have forgotten about it again - so thank you!

I learned pistol squats with Mark Lauren's "You are your own gym".

Totally giving up on a project that is neither urgent nor important is the same as finishing it. It's also a LOT let stressful.

I agree, and I actually combined a couple of items for here. The real list says “finish all pending craft projects” and “evaluate unfinished short stories and complete if possible.”

I can be a little OCD about some things—threads hanging in life generally—so it’s a good reminder sometimes that it’s ok to “let it go.”

I’ve just started reading the book “Messy: How to be Creative and Resiliant in a Tidy World.” Not too far into it, but so far I recommend.

I like this. I think I'm going to adopt these as my resolutions. It's as good a place to start as any.

@jp I dunno, be careful of that fourth one. Seems like a rabbit hole to an existential crisis to me...

I couldn’t get passed the first one

My number one goal is improved mental health. I almost always make overly ambitious goals for my physical health, and I want to give that a rest this year. My only goals on the physical health side are to maintain leanness and make sure I stay pain-free.

@C40, what meditation book are you reading? I just started The Mind Illuminated and I'm really enjoying it. It has clear instructions, it gets right to the meat of things, and it steers clear of Buddhist dogma.

I also read "Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha" and liked that as well.

Number 4 seems analog to the "happiness" issue. Apparently, one can achieve happiness simply by "deciding" that one is happy. Not sure whether this is some kind of circular exercise in psychotherapy or whether it actually works in practice (just like squaring the circle).

Meaning can be "found" in a similar way simply by "deciding" that the issue is null and void.

This reads more like a to-do list.

1. Buy used or build a kegerator. Stop bottling beer.
2. Learn to ski tour. If I like it, advance gear quality.
3. Go hiking to those huts near -redacted- for 3+ days. Figure out a trail.
4. Move to Denver.
5. Only pick dividend all-star or dog value play stocks. Lower my risk.
6. Apologize to the people I have wronged. Be a better friend to those that I have.
7. Drink less. In general, never blackout again.

Otherwise I'm just going to keep on keeping on.

INTJ attitude towards philosophy reminds me of the following clip (the first part obviously..ha ha) from Dead Poets Society:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LjHORRHXtyI

- reading 12 new books
- review 12 books
- less than 5 days heating in my appartement
- using maximum 2 electronical devices at the same time in my apartment
- visiting the dentist two times
- reading 12 psychology magazines
- >85% SR
- >90% Investment Rate
- quarterly simulation of "Prime Harvesting Retirement Withdrawal strategy"
- 1x per month creating an investment report
- 52x HomeOffice working from home
- journal writing daily
- journal reviewing daily
- reducing 50 items of my household
- meditating at least 5 times a week
- no potato chips
- no candies
- reading something inspirational daily
- eating "The Daily Dozen" daily
- eating only between 10am and 6pm
- stand at the office desk when using my laptop privately
- 4x per week fitness
- >110 days of bycycle commuting to work
- 1x per month financial controlling
- avoiding tv news, breaking news ticker, newspaper

It's inspiring to read all your goals!

My goals are tiny habit-improvements e.g.

1. Get out of the house at least 30 minutes every single day after work (having visitors or full household workload also qualifies)
2. Be out of bed at 07.30 latest, Monday-Friday
3. Get up at 10.30 latest on Sundays
4. If going out, spend maximum $20
+ a few more

I'm trying to put a system in place. If failing at something, I mark that goal with an X that day. If 20% or more failure days in a month, I revise the goal to make it easier. If 80% or more success rate, I revise it to be more difficult.

Thinking about the meaning/purpose of life is something I have simmering on the back burner all the time. At least for me it has never been dangerous or problematic, but I am okay with not finding a concrete answer.

Atypically I don't have a list for 2018 and nothing that would be of much interest here. I've grown adept at accepting what I can't change, and have all the important things I can change arranged in a suitable way. If I were to make one, a list might be:

1. remain single
2. avoid reproducing
3. maintain a relatively strong financial position

which could be rolled into one item: get through the year without doing anything too stupid.

Hit the gym every single day. No exceptions, unless it's truly impossible (e.g. gym closed or emergency).

So far, on track.

jennypenny wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 03, 2018 11:36 am

(Sorry for the OT)

@7W5 -- DS has CF so we've tried just about every method for keeping school germs at bay. My suggestions are ...
* wear a mask (most effective)
* wear glasses to remind yourself not to touch your eyes and avoid catching 'spray' from a sneeze
* related ... use nasal gel to stop penetration through the nose
* wear rubber gloves (change after bathroom, before eating), they help with prevention as well as reminding you not to touch yourself
* shower at night ... lots of germs can live on other parts including your hair, so washing off at night helps to prevent infecting yourself in bed
* get your students to sneeze into their elbows like vampires ... if they don't want to gunk up their sleeve they can wear a face mask on the elbow (backwards) to catch the gunk

While effective, not always so useful when engaging in general contact.

As someone who would always get whatever bug is going around, I found for me, a solution that has seen less than one cold a year for more than five years now. It may be worth a try if nothing else has worked for you.

What ever is in leafy greens, seems to work wonders for me. However there is a caveat, just eating them as a salad etc has no effect.

My theory is, 1, the amount consumed is too small and 2, we generally don't chew them up enough.

The solution is to use a blender and do a batch of ~6 400ml (10oz?) jars with some other vegetables and fruit and have that each day. Note that more than 50% of the ingredients is leafy greens. My go to is spinach but kale also works well for me.

Even when using public transport, where sharing everybody's germs is mandatory. Along with a reasonably crowded office environment, it provides whatever the body seems to need to fight everything off.

Try it out for a couple of months, even if it doesn't provide the immune boost you are looking for, it will be giving you plenty of other benefits.

Sorry to add to the derailing of this thread, but I had to laugh at the nurse in this video on WaPo ... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to- ... 0f5ebcd71f

She posted a video complaining that people should 'wash their stinking hands' to avoid the flu, but she's still got her scrubs on while she's driving home in her car. I agree that people should wash their hands, but she should also avoid potentially carrying germs home on her scrubs after a 12hr shift in the ER. Sorry if this sounds cranky. I just thought it was funny that she's being hailed as a champion of flu prevention even though she didn't bother to change and bag up her stuff before leaving the hospital.

My goal is to have no goals.

But because it is such a hard goal...

Scuba dive among tropical reefs

Get my expenses down to 500-1000/month by year end

Keep my income, minimalism, and health in tact.

2021 bump?

Any grand plans for the coming year? For those who wrote before, how did it turn out?

Thanks for bumping this ertyu. I just reviewed my goals from 2018. They were all accomplished by August 2020. So 2.5 years to get them done. We've also added another member to our family in that time, which wasn't really a goal, more a "continuing on the chosen life path".

For 2021:

1) Continue to worry even less about finances, while building various types of capital (getting on this path took a while and it'd be a shame to go backwards, which I did during the March-June Covid really scary times.)
2) "fix" lingering chronic muscle/joint issues (spent ages 15-28 breaking my body (many, many sports, drunken escapades, general dare devilness), 28-31 figuring out how to build behaviours to fix them, >31 = implementing with consistency). Long term goal is to be able to rigorously play with 4 year-old children when I am aged 70+
3) Maintain mindfulness practice (spent ages 15-28 breaking my mind too)
4) Finish painting our house (with 2 small children, the opportunities to paint certain spaces are limited, particularly since sleep is a priority).
5) Grow relationships within new immediate neighborhood
6) Get through life with covid situation social constraints the best we can
7) And of course, hug/kiss my wife and kids and tell them I love them at regular intervals.