Facebook was the ultimate in popular web applications among college students. Almost everyone I knew in college was on it. When they made the decision to open Facebook to the public, I was initially concerned that Facebook would lose its appeal by inviting the whole world in. It continued to be appealing until the advent of the creepiest feature I’ve ever seen: newsfeed.

For those of you unfamiliar with Facebook, newsfeed publishes stories about you and your friends on a custom home page. There are privacy settings available, of course, but Facebook moved from a system with creepy potential to a creepy system. Unless you go out of your way to protect what updates are given to the world, it’s out there. College students and 20-somethings all around the world are starting to lose touch of reality.

Gone are the days where you need to ask your friends what they’ve been up to, how their relationship is going (or even if it still exists), or what they’re doing this weekend. Knowing what is going on with all of your friends all of the time is the de facto standard for most people these days and it creeped me out. I locked down my Facebook profile, stopped posting about my personal life, and realized that if you aren’t stalking or being stalked, Facebook is pretty lame.

Enter Twitter.

Twitter
Twitter, for those unfamiliar with the website, is based on a concept they call microblogging. You get 140 characters to answer one simple question: what are you doing? The response to this simple concept has been incredible. Some use it to communicate with a small circle of friends, keeping it completely private. Others amass thousands of followers and become minor celebrities in their own right. Celebrities sometimes embrace it as a way to express themselves and keep their fans involved. Companies use it to attempt to expand their brand or market their products.

Using Twitter can be as private or public as you desire and it’s a completely individual experience. I use Twitter to follow friends and celebrities. For people whose microblogs, or “tweets,” inspire or inform me, I have their tweets sent to my phone. Everyone I follow defaults a text message to my phone unless their tweets are downright silly (“Dinnertime!” “It’s raining.” “Twitter sucks…”). If their tweets are more disruptive than entertaining/inspiring/useful, I simply catch up on them at the end of the day. That’s helpful for people who tweet OFTEN. I don’t want my phone constantly going off.

Even people such as Timothy Ferriss, author of “The Four-Hour Workweek,” embrace Twitter for its varying potential. Ferriss is famous for his concept of a “low-information diet,” the cure for the common Web, but Twitter is robust enough to allow him to get information when he wants it and ignore it otherwise. At this point, he’s even created a contest: for every person who follows him on Twitter, he will donate $3 to funding schools for underprivileged third-world children. You can find him under the username @tferriss.

And here I thought I was utilizing Twitter’s potential with my occasional Tweets.

Why I Love It
Twitter has become more and more of an obsession for me as I realize what can be done with it. Some people abuse it (see the aforementioned sentence on silly tweets). Some people are downright funny. Some people are informative, and I can select whose information is actually useful to me.

The reason I prefer it to Facebook is the fact that it isn’t such an information overload. You can spend mere minutes on Facebook and become gorged on information about everyone you know. People are extremely oblivious as to how public their information really is and recent changes to the Facebook Terms of Service have highlighted concerns about privacy. With Twitter, it’s small and silly enough to not have the same level of far-reaching implications. I can keep the fun, interesting part of Facebook alive.

My Tweets range from simple updates on what’s going on to inspirational quotes, humorous observations, links to fun parts of the internet, and information gathering. Unfortunately, the latter type of tweet isn’t useful with my 18 followers, but that’s okay. I’m happy with my small-time tweeting.

—
Are you on Twitter? If so, let me know your username and I’ll come find you. I don’t want to post it to the whole internet.

What happened?
Going into the project, I knew that my body required more sleep than many non-conformist experts claim to be able to get. I function best on an odd combination of 9-hour and 6-hour nights. 7-hour nights don’t work, 6-hour nights are taxing on me over time, and 8-hour nights leave me groggy at best. I know that I personally function best when I sleep a number of hours with some multiple of 3.

There were a variety of factors that possibly led to my downfall. This wasn’t a formal experiment by any means:

I encountered difficulty going to bed early due to the vast majority of my social circle being evening people. If I wanted to spend time with my friends or see my girlfriend more than half an hour a day, evenings were my only real option. Consequently, I wasn’t getting adequate sleep and it took a serious toll on my health.
I was still regularly consuming caffeine, which is well-known to have a serious effect on sleep patterns. If anything, my caffeine consumption increased during my experiment.
I seemed to have some sort of mental block towards going to sleep early. I’ve encountered this before but gotten over it. I was somewhat surprised to see it return.

A revelation
During the course of these last two weeks I have certainly been more productive than I had been, which was one of my goals for the 30-day trial. However, I discovered that my lack of productivity stemmed largely from some sort of mental block rather than a lack of hours in the day. I also found that I experienced a boost in energy after 9 p.m. and was most productive during those hours. If I were an early riser, that would be right around the time I went to bed.

Conventional wisdom regarding productivity says to pay attention to what your body tells you. I found I was at my most creative and productive later in the evening as long as I wasn’t distracted by external influences. I created feelings of guilt by ignoring that and rather than harnessing the boost, I tried to force myself to go to bed.

Lesson learned: pay close attention to what your body is telling you.

I don’t consider this experiment a total failure. I got some good results out of it, even though I didn’t finish. Once I recover from my exhaustion and get my health back, I will be updating this blog more regularly.

Leading into day one, I thought I would just continue with my normal sleeping pattern and go cold turkey to my 6 a.m. wakeup time. Unfortunately, my body had different ideas. While I’m not yet achieving my goal, I am seeing a marked difference in my productivity, even despite my extra sleepiness.

For anyone wondering, I’m still drinking caffeine and my bedtime is around midnight each night. I’m going to push for an earlier bedtime in the hopes that more rest will help me get up as necessary.

This has been a great week for catching up on back work that needed to be done, however, and I’m expecting huge gains in my time and productivity oer the next 26 days.

Also, it’ll allow me to train to my alarm better.

Getting Yourself Checked Out May Not Be In Your Best Interest
After college ended, I realized just how unhealthy I had been. I was eating fast food on a regular basis, hardly exercised, drank too much and too often, and did not sleep normal amounts by a long shot. I decided to start taking better care of myself, which included seeing the doctor. When I visited the doctor for something fairly routine and embarrassing (excessive gas), it led to a series of tests that uncovered something a little less common.

According to an ultrasound and an MRI, there is a lesion on my liver. It was cause for concern at first, but after getting it checked by a liver specialist he told me that it was likely benign. He said occasionally people just develop these lesions and they don’t turn into anything bad. It’s called focal nodular hyperplasia and, while not common, it is not cause for alarm. He said it would be prudent to have it checked in six months to make sure it wasn’t growing but otherwise I was in good health.

This wouldn’t have been an issue if I had not moved to California.

If You’ve Graduated College, You Probably Already Know This
My health insurance in Arizona covered the costs of getting myself checked out, but it only lasts as long as my residency in Arizona does. In order to maintain eligibility, I have to live at least six months out of the year there. I’m approaching that mark and that means I need new insurance.

When applying for new insurance, I could try for a conversion plan, but it would require getting underwritten again and the plans available for conversion weren’t good enough to justify it. I applied for Blue Cross and Kaiser Permanente, both of which turned me down due to my lesion.

The problem I have here is that if I hadn’t decided to try to take care of myself, this wouldn’t be an issue. I’m in great health and this benign problem is preventing me from obtaining good health insurance. It illustrates one important fact: health insurance companies exist for their benefit, not yours.

The Future
What this means for me is that I need to seek alternative health care plans. I clearly can’t get good insurance if there is an underwriting process, so my other options are less comprehensive coverage or a company’s group insurance policy. If you’ve read my blog, you understand why this is not a good thing for my goals and plans.

Part of me understands that you have to do what you have to do and if I need to get a full time job with benefits in order to get insurance coverage, I will. That’s not a simple feat in today’s economy, of course, so that complicates the matter. Another part of me, however, feels like this is admitting defeat.

I’ve been fortunate thus far to be able to devote most of my time and energy to creating alternatives to a traditional revenue stream (i.e. a job). This is working out slowly but surely, but if I have to get a full time job I’m concerned it will seriously prolong the positive effects of my work so far. I could be wrong and having limited time may inspire me to become more efficient, but I’m not really certain of that.

So, the current plan is to continue pushing forward with the different avenues I have open right now and explore some good revenue streams. This has helped me realize the flaws in some of my plans so far, which is good. If I can manage to meet my financial goal early enough then I don’t have to worry as much about potential health issues. I can pad out a good HSA, which provides tax benefits, and find alternative options that are viable enough for the time being.

If it appears as though nothing is going to pan out in the immediate future, I will throw my energy temporarily into finding a job with benefits. I know the President is planning to push universal health care, but I’m not entirely sure I’d like to take the risk of being uninsured. I’m healthy now, but what happens if I get hit by a car? What happens if I’m learning to sail and there’s some sort of accident? I’d feel safer knowing I have an insurance option.

I believe that I can still achieve my goal, but I may have to shift my attention temporarily. I’m not totally enamoured of being a full-time employee but if that’s what it takes, I’ll do it.

The Early Riser Project
Wake up at 6 a.m. every day (including weekends) for 30 days, from 2/17/09 to 3/19/09.

Background
This past summer, I embarked upon an extremely ambitious set of 30-day trials, most of which I did not follow to completion. One of those was an early riser goal that had me awake at 6 a.m. every weekday (not weekends). During that time, I felt more alert during the day, accomplished more in general even if my time was not always productive, and I was able to focus more on my goals.

At the time, I had a varied and scattered set of goals, which led to getting discouraged and letting some of them go. I believe I will have more success now because my two main goals are much more focused and are naturally creating more work. This work is requiring more time than I’ve been able to devote to it, so I have a strong incentive to apply more discipline to my life.

Preparation
Before Tuesday, I plan on reconditioning myself to my alarm clock. For many years now I’ve considered the “snooze” button to be the most useful tool on the entire clock and now it no longer serves its function. I sleep through my blaring alarm on a regular basis.

If I hope to make this adjustment quickly, I will need to recondition my response to the alarm. I’ll be using Steve Pavlina’s popular method for learning how to wake up refreshed and awake to your alarm the first time. I don’t really care how silly it might seem to practice waking up with an alarm. It’s a useful tool.

I’ve also checked over my calendar and I don’t have any extremely pressing events that will tempt me to stay up late and sleep late. This will help me boost my willpower over these 30 days and increase my chances of keeping this habit after 30 days end.

Expectations
The last time I was waking up consistently early, I felt amazing amounts of energy. I expect the same gain. I also had difficulty by the time the weekends arrived because I wasn’t sleeping enough. This coming week will probably mean many early bedtimes, but that’s okay. I’m ready for it.

I’ll be setting a morning routine for the moment my alarm clock goes off to get me in a good mindset for productivity, then hit the ground running around the same time most people are normally hitting their first snooze button.

Chronicling
I don’t expect to be writing about my progress daily unless I happen to have some sort of unexpected gains or problems. I’ll strive for a weekly update, if nothing else.

—

Wish me luck! And no, “you’re crazy” is not luck.

Imagine this for a moment, though: every single person on Earth is greeted, loved, and feels validated by every person they meet. We are all accepting of the interests and ingenuities of everyone we meet. When we are hurt, we still love the person who hurt us because he or she is a part of us. We understand that pain is part of growth and forgive them for the pain they cause us, then thank them. When we are sad, we love the person who made us sad because they helped us to appreciate the happiness in life. When our possessions are stolen, we love the thief because we know they need the item or money received from the item for a cause imagined or real.

Think about this:

1) Have you ever made a mistake?
2) Have you ever lied?
3) Have you ever hurt someone?
4) Have you made someone sad?
5) Have you ignored someone in need?
6) Have you taken something that was not yours because you believed you needed it?

Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone reading this can answer yes to the majority of the questions above. Does that make you any less deserving of love?

I believe that one of the first steps to loving everyone is to realize that you must love them unconditionally. At some point, everyone you meet may hurt you, make you sad, or lie to you, even if it’s a little white lie. They do it out of someone’s best interest, either yours or their own. Chances are your closest friends have done one of those things already and it has deepened your relationship. Do you love them less? Maybe at first, but not over time.

Let me be clear: I am NOT suggesting that you sit and roll over and accept that someone consistently hurts you. I heard it said once that you can love everyone, but that doesn’t mean you can’t take out a restraining order against them. Some people are not at the same point in their life as you are and will do things that you do not consider acceptable. That’s okay. Love that person anyway, pray or hope that they will learn quickly and painlessly, and let them go.

It’s okay to be hurt by someone’s actions, but it doesn’t mean you have to hold on to it forever. Love that person and let them go. Someday, if they’re lucky, they will learn what they did and how to make it better. When that day comes, be ready for them to approach you and greet them with love.

To some of you, this may sound idealistic and touchy-feely. I’ll admit it that it is a little bit. Imagine the possibilities of that day, though. Wouldn’t it be worthwhile to be a little idealistic?

I don’t think I’m at the point in my life where I can do this all the time, but I’m certainly trying to be more loving of people in general.

Unless you’ve been living under a very large rock for a very long time, you’ve heard that quote before. It’s got a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? There are certainly cases where it has proven to be true. Many people have been corrupted by the desire of and quest for money. They become consumed by this desire and ultimately push the people they love out of their lives.

Scary stuff, huh? I don’t want that to be me. My thinking is that it could end up being me as long as I believe that little quote: “Money is the root of all evil.” It’s often misinterpreted and, consequently, most people believe that money is evil in massive quantities.

I’ve already shared that I want to be earning $10,000 per month by the end of the year. That’s not a huge sum, probably not enough to be truly evil, but my ultimate aspirations are, well, positively sinful if the old adage is true. I don’t consider it to be evil, however, because I want to earn that amount for good reasons, including the following:

1. I want to earn enough to live comfortably in Southern California and be able to support a family.
2. I want to learn more about business and managing money.
3. I want to stretch myself far beyond any financial level I’ve ever been to.
4. I want to have the freedom to do anything I would like to do without being concerned about the cost.

Family
Family is extremely important to me. I was raised in a very loving and supportive family environment. My parents and grandmother have taken care of me without question and supported me without fail. I am deeply grateful for this and I fully intend to return the favor someday. In addition to the family I was born into, I intend on getting married and raising children of my own.

I know that I can achieve my goal of helping support my birth family and my future family, but I don’t want to have to worry about the cost of these goals. A $10,000 per month income will be a great start to finding that financial stability.

Education
The best way to earn a large sum of money is by running a business, whether your own or an enterprise belonging to someone else. I’ve already discovered I much prefer my own management to someone else’s, so knowing about business will enable me to follow my dreams much more easily.

Money doesn’t often stay in the hands of those who don’t know anything about managing it. I intend to have large sums of it and use it as a resource for enjoying life, which means knowing how to keep it and make it grow.

Personal Growth
There’s something inspiring to me about the challenge of tripling my highest earned income to date. What would it take for me to literally grow three times beyond the highest level I’ve ever know? What would I need to change in order to reach that level and still maintain my moral and ethical standards? What new knowledge will be necessary that I can’t know about until I get there? How far can I push myself? Is this dream even possible? (My answer to that is yes, by the way.)

Freedom
I’ve done enough reading and research to understand that money does not bring happiness. There have been many cases where someone is earning more than enough money for several lifetimes, yet they wake up miserable each day. The key to happiness is something far beyond simple money.

That being said, money can help provide freedom to fill my life with experiences that make me happy if I manage it correctly. It is not the key to happiness, but it can free me to pursue happiness.

—

I also don’t want to just receive money for nothing or sucker people out of it. I want to earn it. I want to create enough value in the world that $10,000 entering my life each month is only a fraction of what I contributed. I want to help people, I want to provide them with entertainment, I want to move them emotionally, I want to help them do something to change their lives.

So, you tell me: Is that evil?

I feel very good about the progress I’ve been making.  Many of the contacts I’ve made lately as a result of getting out and networking have been helpful to me and extremely supportive.  Lately I’ve been attending a few networking opportunities that are not filled with the kind of people I’m looking to surround myself with.  They’re wonderful people, to be sure, but I want to fill my life with people who have either achieved their dreams of financial independence or are actively seeking to achieve them.

I’m passionate about achieving my goals this year because I have strong reasons for them.  I don’t want to make $10,000 each month by cheating people.  I don’t want to throw money around wantonly and buy status symbols that ultimately mean nothing to me.  Money has a very negative connotation for most people, so perhaps I should clarify why I want to earn so much of it.  I want to achieve financial abundance for the following reasons:

1. I believe we all deserve it. There is nothing inherently evil about having money.  Money is just something to trade for experiences or items.  I can be happy without it, but why not be happy with it?
2. I want to have a solid base for a family someday soon. I’m not saying that I want to be married and have kids in the next year or two.  I would like to achieve some degree of financial independence so that when I do reach that point, I don’t have to worry about money.  I can concern myself with the well-being of my family without outside stress.
3. Money is the natural result of doing great service to others, if you believe that it isn’t evil. I want to help others and I believe that being compensated for this is a good thing.  I want to make $10,000 per month by contributing more than $10,000 of worth to others.

I want to learn to be a more loving person because I want to connect with people around me in a more meaningful way.  It would be easy to misinterpret me by thinking that I have to spend all my time with everyone I meet in order to connect with them.  I believe you can actively love a person, and people in general, but not spend all your time with them.

I would prefer to surround myself with people who are actively committed to similar goals to my own.  I believe that you are who you spend most of your time with in addition to what you spend most of your time thinking about.  I don’t think that many people I know personally will read this any time soon.  In case someone does stumble across it, I want you to know that I am not avoiding people because I dislike them.  In fact, I wish them the best.  At this point in my life, however, I am pushing towards my goals and I want to surround myself with people who have achieved similar goals or are striving to achieve similar goals.

-Michael

If you don’t particularly like the references to “God” in this parable, then feel free to change “God” to whatever deity or lack thereof that you believe in. I believe that we are all part of the same whole and that whole can be considered God, but regardless of what your spiritual or religious beliefs are you can take something away from this.

And, of course, if you don’t like this, you can always comment and maybe we can start a discussion.

The Little Soul and The Sun
A Children’s Parable
by Neale Donald Walsch, Conversations With God

Once upon no time, there was a little Soul who said to God, “I know who I am.”

And God said, “That’s wonderful! Who are you?”

And the Little Soul shouted, “I’m the Light!”

God smiled a big smile. “That’s right!” God exclaimed. “You are the Light.”

The Little Soul was so happy, for it had figured out what all the souls in the Kingdom were there to figure out.

“Wow,” said the Little Soul, “this is really cool!”

But soon, knowing who it was was not enough. The Little Soul felt stirrings inside, and now wanted to be who it was. And so the Little Soul went back to God (which is not a bad idea for all souls who want to be Who They Really Are) and said,

“Hi, God! Now that I know Who I am, is it okay for me to be it?”

And God said, “You mean you want to be Who You Already Are?”

“Well,” replied the Little Soul,” it’s one thing to know Who I Am, and another thing altogether to actually be it. I want to feel what it’s like to be the Light!”

“But you already are the Light,” God repeated, smiling again.

“Yes, but I want to see what that feels like!” cried the Little Soul.

“Well,” said God with a chuckle, “I suppose I should have known. You always were the adventuresome one.”

Then God’s expression changed. “There’s only one thing…”

“What?” asked the Little Soul.

“Well, there is nothing else but the Light. You see, I created nothing but what you are; and so, there is no easy way for you to experience yourself as Who You Are, since there is nothing that you are not.”

“Huh?” said the Little Soul, who was now a little confused.

“Think of it this way,” said God. “You are like a candle in the Sun. Oh, you’re there all right. Along with a million, gazillion other candles who make up the Sun. And the sun would not be the Sun without you. Nay, it would be a sun without one of its candles…and that would not be the Sun at all; for it would not shine as brightly. Yet, how to know yourself as the Light when you are amidst the Light -that is the question.”

“Well,” the Little Soul perked up, “you’re God. Think of something!”

Once more God smiled. “I already have,” God said. “Since you cannot see yourself as the Light when you are in the Light, we’ll surround you with darkness.”

“What’s darkness?” the Little Soul asked.

God replied, “It is that which you are not.”

“Will I be afraid of the dark?” cried the Little Soul.

“Only if you choose to be,” God answered. “There is nothing, really, to be afraid of, unless you decide that there is. You see, we are making it all up. We are pretending.”

“Oh,” said the Little Soul, and felt better already.

Then God explained that, in order to experience anything at all, the exact opposite of it will appear. “It is a great gift,” God said, “because without it, you could not know what anything is like. You could not know Warm without Cold, Up without Down, Fast without Slow. You could not know Left without Right, Here without There, Now without Then.”

“And so,” God concluded, “when you are surrounded with darkness, do not shake your fist and raise your voice and curse the darkness. Rather be a Light unto the darkness, and don’t be mad about it. Then you will know Who You Really Are, and all others will know, too. Let your Light shine so that everyone will know how special you are!”

“You mean it’s okay to let others see how special I am?” asked the Little Soul.

“Of course!” God chuckled. “It’s very okay! But remember,’special’ does not mean ‘better.’ Everybody is special, each in their own way! Yet many others have forgotten that. They will see that it is okay for them to be special only when you see that it is okay for you to be special.”

“Wow,” said the Little Soul, dancing and skipping and laughing and jumping with joy. “I can be as special as I want to be!”

“Yes, and you can start right now,” said God, who was dancing and skipping and laughing right along with the Little Soul.

“What part of special do you want to be?”

“What part of special?” the Little Soul repeated. “I don’t understand.”

“Well,” God explained, “being the Light is being special, and being special has a lot of parts to it. It is special to be kind. It is special to be gentle. It is special to be creative. It is special to be patient. Can you think of any other ways it is special to be?”

The Little Soul sat quietly for a moment. “I can think of lots of ways to be special!” the Little Soul then exclaimed. “It is special to be helpful. It is special to be sharing. It is special to be friendly. It is special to be considerate of others!”

“Yes!” God agreed, “and you can be all of those things, or any part of special you wish to be, at any moment. That’s what it means to be the Light.”

“I know what I want to be, I know what I want to be!” the Little Soul announced with great excitement. “I want to be the part of special called ‘forgiving’. Isn’t it special to be forgiving?”

“Oh, yes,” God assured the Little Soul. “That is very special.”

“Okay,” said the Little Soul. “That’s what I want to be. I want to be forgiving. I want to experience myself as that.”

“Good,” said God, “but there’s one thing you should know.”

The Little Soul was becoming a bit impatient now. It always seemed as though there were some complication.

“What is it?” the Little Soul sighed.

“There is no one to forgive.”

“No one?” The Little Soul could hardly believe what had been said.

“No one!” God repeated. “Everything I have made is perfect. There is not a single soul in all creation less perfect than you. Look around you.”

It was then that the Little Soul realized a large crowd had gathered. Souls had come from far and wide ~ from all over the Kingdom ~ for the word had gone forth that the Little Soul was having this extraordinary conversation with God, and everyone wanted to hear what they were saying. Looking at the countless other souls gathered there, the Little Soul had to agree. None appeared less wonderful, less magnificent, or less perfect than the Little Soul itself. Such was the wonder of the souls gathered around, and so bright was their Light, that the Little Soul could scarcely gaze upon them.

“Who, then, to forgive?” asked God.

“Boy, this is going to be no fun at all!” grumbled the Little Soul. “I wanted to experience myself as One Who Forgives. I wanted to know what that part of special felt like.”

And the Little Soul learned what it must feel like to be sad. But just then a Friendly Soul stepped forward from the crowd.

“Not to worry, Little Soul,” the Friendly Soul said, “I will help you.”

“You will?” the Little Soul brightened. “But what can you do?”

“Why, I can give you someone to forgive!”

“You can?”

“Certainly!” chirped the Friendly Soul. “I can come into your next lifetime and do something for you to forgive.”

“But why? Why would you do that?” the Little Soul asked. “You, who are a Being of such utter perfection! You, who vibrate with such a speed that it creates a Light so bright that I can hardly gaze upon you! What could cause you to want to slow down your vibration to such a speed that your bright Light would become dark and dense? What could cause you ~ who are so light that you dance upon the stars and move through the Kingdom with the speed of your thought–to come into my life and make yourself so heavy that you could do this bad thing?”

“Simple,” the Friendly Soul said. “I would do it because I love you.”

The Little Soul seemed surprised at the answer.

“Don’t be so amazed,” said the Friendly Soul, “you have done the same thing for me. Don’t you remember? Oh, we have danced together, you and I, many times. Through the eons and across all the ages have we danced. Across all time and in many places have we played together. You just don’t remember.”

“We have both been All Of It. We have been the Up and the Down of it, the Left and the Right of it. We have been the Here and the There of it, the Now and the Then of it. We have been the male and the female, the good and the bad; we have both been the victim and the villain of it.”

“Thus have we come together, you and I, many times before; each bringing to the other the exact and perfect opportunity to Express and to Experience Who We Really Are. And so,” the Friendly Soul explained further, “I will come into your next lifetime and be the ‘bad one’ this time. I will do something really terrible, and then you can experience yourself as the One Who Forgives.

“But what will you do?” the Little Soul asked, just a little nervously, “that will be so terrible?”

“Oh,” replied the Friendly Soul with a twinkle, “we’ll think of something.”

Then the Friendly Soul seemed to turn serious, and said in a quiet voice, “You are right about one thing, you know.”

“What is that?” the Little Soul wanted to know.

“I will have to slow down my vibration and become very heavy to do this not-so-nice thing. I will have to pretend to be something very unlike myself. And so, I have but one favour to ask of you in return.”

“Oh, anything, anything!” cried the Little Soul, and began to dance and sing, “I get to be forgiving, I get to be forgiving!”

Then the Little Soul saw that the Friendly Soul was remaining very quiet.

“What is it?” the Little Soul asked. “What can I do for you? You are such an angel to be willing to do this for me!”

“Of course this Friendly Soul is an angel!” God interrupted. “Everyone is! Always remember: I have sent you nothing but angels.”

And so the Little Soul wanted more than ever to grant the Friendly Soul’s request. “What can I do for you?” the Little Soul asked again.

“In the moment that I strike you and smite you,” the Friendly Soul replied, “in the moment that I do the worst to you that you could possible imagine ~ in that very moment…”

“Yes?” the Little Soul interrupted, “yes…?”

“Remember Who I Really Am.”

“Oh, I will!” cried the Little Soul, “I promise! I will always remember you as I see you right here, right now!”

“Good,” said the Friendly Soul, “because, you see, I will have been pretending so hard, I will have forgotten myself. And if you do not remember me as I really am, I may not be able to remember for a very long time. And if I forget Who I Am, you may even forget Who You Are, and we will both be lost. Then we will need another soul to come along and remind us both of Who We Are.”

“No, we won’t!” the Little Soul promised again. “I will remember you! And I will thank you for bringing me this gift ~ the chance to experience myself as Who I Am.”

And so, the agreement was made. And the Little Soul went forth into a new lifetime, excited to be the Light, which was very special, and excited to be that part of special called Forgiveness.

And the Little Soul waited anxiously to be able to experience itself as Forgiveness, and to thank whatever other soul made it possible. And at all the moments in that new lifetime, whenever a new soul appeared on the scene, whether that new soul brought joy or sadness–and especially if it brought sadness–the Little Soul thought of what God had said.

“Always remember,” God had smiled, “I have sent you nothing but angels.”

by Neale Donald Walsch, Conversations With God

I have another confession to make: I don’t always take the advice on personal finances that works the best.

I believe these steps can make you rich, regardless of your income:

1. Spending less than you earn
2. Saving as much as you can, at least 10% of everything you make
3. Being 100% debt-free

I’m just now starting to spend less than I earn again, I just started saving two weeks ago, and I am a few thousand dollars in debt. What went wrong?

A Good Start and How I Strayed
Coming out of college, I had a good, steady job and I was living with my parents so my expenses were low. I was able to aggressively pay down the debt I had (I graduated with no student loans). Unfortunately, instead of saving from there, I was so excited over making more money than I ever had that I spent every cent that wasn’t paying down debt. I didn’t save money anymore and once I was debt-free I began to tackle more of my financial responsibilities, i.e. bills.

I become mired in the belief that I couldn’t save because I had too many bills. The ironic thing is that I had already been saving 10% of my income when I was in college, when I had even less money. I already knew that when you save at least 10% of your income, you still have a surprising amount of money left over.

At this point, I was in a long-distance relationship with my current girlfriend. We wanted to see each other as frequently as possible and since I seemed to have such endless amounts of cash, I was the one who made most of the trips and spent most of the money. It was summertime and she was out of school so I assumed this would end once she got busy with classes again. I used this to justify spend more than I earned instead of saving.

By the time school started for lovely lady, I was a few hundred dollars in debt from traveling and I had loaned additional money to my parents. I also made the decision to quit my job, pursue my dream of making a living teaching saxophone privately, and moving to San Diego, CA from Phoenix, AZ.

The move was enough to put me even further in debt and, after moving, my income was drastically cut. I wasn’t saving anything and I was spending far more than I was earning. I was no longer taking my own advice and this is where I am today. That said, I don’t regret any of those decisions. I was happy to help my parents. I consider the trips to visit my girlfriend well worth the cost. I’m far happier living in California than I ever was in Arizona. I know my career here will happen and I’m excited to pursue my dreams.

From a personal finance standpoint, however, I’d strayed from the path.

The Road From Here
What am I doing to get out of this rut and back on the road to long-term wealth and ultimate financial independence?

1. I’ve drastically cut my spending, finding ways to be more frugal at home and eating well without going out to eat.
2. I’m saving 10% of everything I earn again, which I can afford to do because of my frugality. Once I’ve got $1,000 squirreled away for an emergency fund I’ll start focusing on some of my more fun goals.
3. I’m searching for ways to increase my income so that I can reap more benefits of frugality.
4. I’m paying down my debt again with the goal of putting 10% of my income towards that as well.

I have a lot of dreams and plans to go along with my goals, but I allowed myself to be led away by the temptations surrounding me and, occasionally, by the promise of riches. There is no quick and easy path to wealth, however, only hard work and obeying the rules I mentioned above.

—

Do you have any stories of losing your way on the pathway to wealth? How did you recover, if you have recovered? Leave a comment!

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Now, I’m not a student, and that should have been my first clue. My second clue should have been the base pay. After that, the lack of details…Nothing added up, but I was desperate, and after a brief search on Google I called them around noon.

I reached a pleasant-sounding woman on the other end who was clearly reading from a script. That’s not unusual, but what was unusual was the lack of information she was able to provide. I asked her what the nature of the position was and she told me that it was a sales position. I asked if it was sales for Cutco Cutlery, as I had found on their website, and she seemed confused and said no. She then told me that they had a huge response to their ads and that they only had two or three spots available, so how would that afternoon at 2 pm or that evening at 6 pm work?

Up until she told me the times available, it seemed legitimate. I had my doubts after she told me that my only options were going to be that day, especially for a 6 pm interview. Who wants to stay around after work to interview people that late? I told them no thank you and she said to try again a few days later since they may be doing interviews again. I thanked her and hung up the phone, figuring that I was done with them.

After several more days of failed job hunting and an interview attempt that proved to be my first failed interview, I was even more desperate than before and I decided to call the company back. A different woman answered the phone this time, but she said the exact same things, only this time the times were different. I set up an interview and thanked her for her time.

The Interview
Normally when I go for an interview, I’m sure to be dressed as impressively as possible and I come with my planner, several copies of my resume, and a book to read while I wait. This time I was feeling a little hostile about the whole situation and only brought my planner and a book.

When I arrived in the office, which was a rental and sparsely furnished except for the two main offices, I was greeted by who I presumed to be the woman I spoke to on the phone. She smiled and asked me to sign in and take an application. I was led to the main room, which already had about a dozen people, and there was music playing on the radio that was not typical of a business environment.

I began filling out the application, which was very vague when it came to details of my employment history. I found that strange, but since I was desperate I continued filling it out. After I finished, I waited while the others finished and a tall man (we’ll call him Perry) walked around introducing himself. He said he was the district manager and when we were finished he would be meeting with us one by one. When I met with him, he said I was selected for a second interview and asked me to return that evening.

I continued to be wary, but figured I had nothing to lose by attending the second interview, so I showed up that evening. We were again greeted, asked to sign in, and told to sit around a small table at the front of the room. Perry was there, and when everyone arrived he began speaking.

Perry proceeded to give us a glorified sales pitch, demonstrating the Cutco products. For those of you who aren’t familiar with their pitch, they use gimmicks such as cutting a penny in spirals with their shears and slicing rope and leather with their knives. It was an impressive demonstration and when it was over, he told us that he would call us within a half hour after we left to let us know if we had the job or not.

I was again wary, but I needed the job and I remembered a friend of mine from college who said she had made money from the Cutco job. I left, hopeful I would get it. I suspect now that everyone in that room got the job, but they split us up to make it appear as though we didn’t. Perry called me to say that I received it based on my high GPA in high school and college and arranged a date for the three-day training to begin.

Training
Several weeks later I attended my first training session. I wasn’t expecting much, but most of my skepticism had disappeared by this point. The first day was largely a pep session. Perry told us that they were all about positive attitudes and we applauded each other for ridiculous things. I didn’t mind that so much, but over time, this positivity disappeared. Perry became more and more sarcastic and arrogant as the days passed and soon the clapping stopped.

When we were initially told about the job, we were told that we had to sell only to people over 25 who were employed. I thought this was rational, considering the product was fairly expensive and we wanted to shoot for a market that would actually purchase the product. After the second day, however, we were told we had to set up appointments for the weekend. In order to “have a successful first weekend,” we were now told that our clients had to be married, over 30 and homeowners. Since I had just moved to San Diego and didn’t know anybody that fit that profile, I was expected to ask my friends’ parents to come and do product demonstrations.

The End of the Line
The evening after the second day of training, I began contacting everyone I could think of in order to try to schedule clients. Perry told us that after three appointments, two failures or 8:00 pm we needed to call him to check in. I called with no appointments scheduled and told him that I was having little luck. He told me to stop saying that it was a sales presentation and that I just need to practice my presentation a certain number of times for my new job. Essentially, he told me to lie to my friends and their parents. The idea was that the product would “sell itself.”

I managed to convince two of my friends to make appointments with my parents before I finally gave in. I felt dirty for being dishonest with my friends in order to make sales and I didn’t want to risk friendships over selling cutlery. That’s when I did some research on Cutco and Vector Marketing, the company that sells it.

It turns out that while Cutco is good quality cutlery, it is quite possibly not as good as it claims to be. It competes against Wustoff and Henckel, two cutlery companies that are the top-selling brands in stores. The quality was the least of the problems I discovered by far. It also turns out that Vector Marketing has been in trouble with the law in several different states for misleading their employees. There is quite a following of people who felt cheated by Vector and their operation is largely classified as multi-level marketing disguised as direct sales.

I also did a search for Perry’s name associated with Vector Marketing and found a listing on the Better Business Bureau. While this alone is unremarkable, I did find it unusual that the district manager for such a large and prestigious company was listed as sole proprietor of the business. Nothing added up, so I didn’t show up for my last day of training and I returned my sample set of knives to them.

What I Learned
I ignored my instincts and everything I knew about legitimate work and businesses in search of quick profits. I got greedy and was hoping to make enough money to be able to find financial freedom. I did not write about many of the other things that tipped me off about Vector because it would take too long to describe. Most of them were in the way that the training was conducted despite being billed as award-winning and cited in college textbooks. I wondered why, if this was such a great opportunity, it only run by people under 30 years of age. I couldn’t have even tried to sell to any employee there my first weekend.

Vector has plenty of arguments as to why their training and their methods are valid and they seem great at first, but my intuition told me to get out. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them comment on this post arguing, and that’s fine. There were some valid points made about sales and hard work, but overall it wasn’t much more than slick salesmanship.

I spent a few hours kicking myself, but ultimately profited from the experience. I know better now than to be seduced by the promise of riches in a short period of time and to trust my gut. I believe that there are people who make money with Vector and if one is persistent they can do well. I also believe that those people are few and far between and the only people really getting rich are the ones at the top.

-Michael

        ✓        Do legal documents on the side for my parents’ business
        ❑        Find a steady part-time day job (with benefits, if possible)
        ❑        Build my private saxophone studio WHILE I…
        ✓        Launch a blog
        ❑        Develop a following on the blog
        ❑        Launch a small side business
        ❑        Earn enough from the blog, side business and studio to quit my day job
        ❑        “The Great Unknown“ – Further milestones on this journey are unclear to me from where I am

When I first moved to San Diego, I was trying to start my own private studio and I was using my savings and money from my parents to survive. That well has since run dry and I’ve been trying to get that steady day job for the last couple of months. Recently I’ve been making a lot more progress and I’m hopeful that I will be employed by the end of the month.

Personal
This is goal is much more difficult to assess quantitatively, so this path is going to involve more wandering and see where it takes me. I do have a few items that I would consider to mean I’m successful:

        ✓        Participate in a group social gathering twice a week as often as possible (thanks meetup.com!)
        ✓        Open up about my life and don’t be afraid to volunteer information about myself
        ❑        Forgive the people who have hurt me in the past
        ❑        Accept that people may hurt me and love them anyway
        ❑        Make more friends around my age
        ❑        Become close friends with at least one person in San Diego
        ❑        Don’t avoid personal situations, confront them with love
        ❑        Learn to be more friendly with strangers in passing encounters
        ❑        Seek counseling to learn how to manage my emotions and get over some of my past fears

These might seem pretty basic for many people, but they’re large steps forward for me. I expect this to be a difficult but rewarding journey. I also expect that as I move forward I’ll have to change my plans, but that’s half the fun.

-Michael

The bearded, slightly paunchy teacher had a simple cross on a long cord around his neck and a smile on his face as we all entered. He greeted us all at the door, making sure to get all of our names. He then informed us that this was a bilingual class, taught in both English and Spanish, and explained that after this speech there would be no further translation. Half of what he said would be in English and half in Spanish. He said it again in Spanish for the benefit of the other children in the room and then made good on his promise. We never heard him translate a word after that; it was up to us.

While I learned many things from this teacher in the four years I was his student (he did his classes as combinations of two grade levels and followed my class up through the fifth grade), one of the most important things I learned was a love for languages. His unusual method of teaching another language benefitted the Anglo kids and the Mexican kids equally. We all were more well-educated in both languages than any other student. I don’t speak Spanish anymore, but as a result of hearing half of my studies in Spanish for four years, I can understand most of what is being said. I also picked up a rather uncanny knack for languages.

La langue d’amore
After I entered high school, I was told I needed to take several years of a foreign language. Feeling fairly confident in my abilities with Spanish and wanting to find a new challenge, I decided to try French. I knew nothing of the language other than the it was supposedly the “language of love” and it was notoriously difficult for most people to understand. I studied French for three of my four years in high school and was able to communicate quite adequately in Paris as well as test out of three semesters of college French, which was not terribly common. While I do credit several excellent teachers for my heightened learning, there were two main reasons I learned so quickly: my early exposure to Spanish and the pretty French girl in two of the three classes who would compliment my French with an accent like melting chocolate.

The universal language
In college, I studied instrumental music education for two and a half years before settling on music performance. Both degrees required that I take two semesters of music history. A large portion of music’s history is devoted to vocal music, most of which is not in English. To my amazement I was able to pick up parts of languages I knew nothing about very quickly simply by studying the words next to their English translations. I reveled in the glorious praises to God in Latin, bawdy and down-to-earth Italian operas, and even highly dramatic German arias on a myriad of subjects. A semester of Latin American music history helped me fall in love with bossa nova and the poetic, beautiful translation of the Portuguese “Girl From Ipanema.” It is definitely not the same translation you hear in the original recording.

For whatever reason, it seemed like I could pick up languages with little to no difficulty, at least Romance languages. Since then I’ve even started to pick up Japanese just from watching the television show, “Heroes.”

The reasons
I don’t list all these accomplishments to brag. I love languages deeply, and here’s why: learning another language gives you a glimpse into another culture, another brain, and another soul. I’m sure that there has been research done on language development that demonstrates why certain cultures form certain linguistic characteristics, but my theory is that the language arises out of the needs and wants of a particular group of people. In today’s global society, we tend to forget that our not-so-recent past kept us all quite distant.

In French, “seafood” translates to “les fruits de mer.” Literally, this means, “the fruit of the sea.” “Potato” is “pomme de terre,” or “apple of the earth.” The French language is riddled with these poetic turns of phrase for simple words we take for granted in English. The poetry and the subtlety of French makes understanding the actions and culture of its people a much simpler task. In English, using these colloquialisms would be strange and slightly arrogant. In French, it’s just the way you say it.

To me, it is difficult to find such parallels for the Spanish language, but I do find it very intriguing to see how different regions have different takes on the language. Mexican Spanish differs greatly from Spanish in Spain, which is different from South American Spanish. The words may largely be the same, but sentence formation and accent play a huge role in understanding the people of the area.

While I know little of German, the most amusing part of that language is that it seems like the Germans gave up on creating new words after a while. If you look at any new German words of the last hundred years or so, they are incredibly long. That’s mainly because they are several words that already exist jammed together. I would imagine that this would give great insight into the German people, but that’s just a guess without having studied the language.

It is difficult to explain this understanding of cultures to someone who only speaks one language and does not comprehend the subtle differences from language to language. If someone were to speak only English for his whole life, he may assume that translation is a matter of finding the words in English and then finding the same words in the other language. This is not necessarily so, as customs, colloquialisms and subtleties in culture sometimes require substantial changes to help one’s words to be understood. If you stop and think of learning a new language as a glimpse into a new culture, suddenly it becomes for more interesting and involved.

-Michael

When I was a kid, I was a pretty picky eater. No vegetables for me, thank you – I’d eat raw hot dogs, macaroni and cheese, and french fries. Chicken nuggets were another big favorite of mine. As I grew up I came to enjoy more different kinds of food, but I largely stayed away from veggies and rarely ate fruit.

I suppose at that time I was the “meat and potatoes” type. A good baked potato with cheese and bacon plus a nice, slightly bloody, juicy steak was a perfect meal and I tended to gravitate towards that throughout high school. I became pretty skilled on a grill as my friends and I had plenty of barbeques where we’d bring our own cut of meat and spend afternoons eating and watching movies.

Going through college, fast food became my meal of choice. I was aware of what a toll this was taking on my health but because I kept myself so busy with school and extracurriculars, I ignored it. This regular consumption (2-3 meals a day) of fast food led me to gradually phase out the greasy burger in favor of a comparatively more healthy chicken sandwich. I still felt like garbage for eating so much fast food, but it was easier on my system than red meat. In an indirect way, this eventually helped me along the path to becoming a vegetarian.

After college I was forced to confront a lot of personal issues I had been ignoring. It quickly became clear that, without a more stable physical health, my mental health, personal life and career were going to continue to suffer. I started reading everything I could get my hands on relating to diet, mostly on the internet. Had I really been thinking of the best way to improve my diet, I would have consulted a dietician and probably a personal trainer. However, due to some difficulties with my mental state, I was stubbornly focused on doing everything myself and without spending money.

While researching, I came to the conclusion that most diets recommend reducing the amount of meat one eats. Regardless of diet, fruits and vegetables and sometimes a small portion of meat were essential to every meal I read about. Around this time I also discovered the blog of Steve Pavlina, who was experimenting with the raw vegan food diet. Many of his articles expounded upon the virtues of a vegetarian diet (Steve has been vegetarian since 1993 and vegan since 1997), and I was amazed at some of his claims. Protein could be found in fruits and vegetables in sufficient quantities, even if you exercise regularly? You can experience increased mental clarity by not eating meat? Preposterous!

I did a little bit of supporting research and discovered that there were many people besides Steve making these claims. My sister had recently become a vegetarian, my girlfriend was a vegetarian, and there seemed to be a large amount of people defying the “normal” diet that most people in the country are accustomed to eating. Everything I read seemed to support the idea that, properly implemented, a vegetarian diet was completely sustainable and healthy.

After reading all this information, doing my homework, and determining to drastically change my life, I began a 30-Day Trial where I would not eat any meat for 30 days. This included fish, chicken and beef broth and stock (you’d be amazed at how much of that stuff is in your food, even vegetable dishes), and of course all other types of meat. The first two days were difficult, partly because the day before I began I ate more meat than usual to compensate. After those first two days of feeling sluggish and hazy, though, I began to feel incredible.

My mind started to clear up and I found my focus and concentration improved drastically. My skin felt cleaner, as if I had been sweating out all that meat byproduct. I found I would occasionally have cravings for meat, but later discovered that it wasn’t the meat I was craving. I was craving the familiarity of having meat in a meal. Meat substitutes, such as those offered by Morningstar Farms, would satisfy me and I was shocked at how much of the taste I remember in meat was present. I believe that most of what we associate with a meat flavor is seasonings or some sort of processed food or chemicals. If you don’t believe me, try Morningstar’s corn dogs and tell me they don’t taste shockingly like a real corn dog.

The initial learning curve was difficult. I discovered I would accidentally eat meat occasionally, usually in the form of rice that had been cooked in chicken broth or something similar. Shortly before the 30 days ended, I ordered a chile relleno dish at a restaurant that had chicken stuffed inside and ate half of it before I realized what happened. I was criticized by several of my friends. They said I was faking being a vegetarian to explain my accidental consumption of meat. They also said it was just a phase and pretty soon I’d need protein and go back to a good old-fashioned American diet.

I’ve been a lacto-ovo pescatarian since June 2008 and I have no real intention to go back to eating meat. The desire for the flavor and texture I remember is now overwhelmed by the thought that I am eating something’s flesh. I feel healthier, I think more clearly, and I enjoy many foods and spices that I never would have tried while I ate meat. In addition, I feel good about making a small contribution towards a cleaner, more sustainable food industry.

Someday I may go back to eating meat as a trial, although I think I would stick to two weeks instead of thirty days. A part of me wants to confirm the results I’ve had and see if perhaps a largely vegetarian diet with limited meat will be optimal for me. One reason I’m hesitant to do this, though, is that I now look at meat and think of it as dead, cooked flesh. I always knew it was flesh before, but for some reason it hits me harder now and I equate it much more with eating human flesh or pet flesh.

I understand that many people take exception to vegetarians (or pescatarians, in my case), and I accept that. If someone chooses to eat meat, that’s completely fine. I only ask that a person who continues to eat meat explore other options and realize that it is possible to survive without killing animals. If you don’t want to stop eating meat, then don’t. Just make sure it’s a choice you make.

None of the information in this article is intended to be medical advice; consult your doctor and/or a nutritionist before making any drastic dietary changes. Do your homework!

—

Interested in trying a vegetarian diet? Here are some helpful links:

www.goveg.com – I don’t agree with all of PETA’s tactics, claims or ideals, but they do offer great information for aspiring vegetarians.
www.living-foods.com/faq.html – If you find vegetarians extreme, check out raw foodism. There’s good information here and it helps put being lacto-ovo vegetarian in perspective.
zenhabits.net/2007/08/how-to-become-a-vegetarian-the-easy-way/ – One of the first articles I read as I was researching.

-Michael