friends Archives | Empathic Finance

Why can’t we talk about money with our friends?

Do you have someone you can talk about money with?

Notice that before you can answer that question, we actually need to specify what kind of conversation we’re having.

“Talking about money” can mean not only the nuts and bolts (how to budget, invest, save, etc) but also the more relational, emotional topics. The feelings behind the topics.

In a professional context, you may have a person who is your advisor on the nuts and bolts. (Hopefully this person is a fiduciary, and if you don’t know, you should ask.) But while this person provides a valuable service, you probably wouldn’t feel comfortable talking about your concerns and fears. I mean, you wouldn’t schedule a meeting just to talk about financial anxieties, would you?

In the personal space, it can be worse. Unless you know someone who’s really good with money, you may not have anyone to talk about the mechanics of financial health, plus, you don’t have anyone to talk to about our struggles either.

Why not?

The grief of getting what you want

Awareness

It’s always nice to hear from people who are achieving their goals. Whether it’s getting through school, taking a trip across the world, or even finding a partner, it is always inspiring to hear these success stories.

(Or at least it can be. At low points in my life it has made me feel worse, assuming that there is something “special” about other people. Pro tip: there’s not.)

My mom recently fulfilled a dream of long-standing: she added a deck to the back of her house.

I was there to share in her celebration. And yet, as we were watching the boards put in, she confided that there was a certain sadness there. I think I understood why.

It’s about the people

Connection

I climbed Mt. St. Helens a few days ago. I’m not bragging, though; it’s not actually a technical climb like you might expect. Despite the snow-covered peak you see north of Portland, peeking (peaking?) out in the distance, you don’t need crampons, ice-picks, or any professional training. About all you need are hiking poles, gloves, and, of course, the desire to scramble up thousands of feet of rock.

What is the difference between a friend and a love?

Awareness, Connection

The standard social model is as follows: You have a large number of acquaintances, followed by a smaller number of close friends, and then at the top: the single solitary love.

Putting aside the acquaintances for now, it’s the differences between a close friend and a love that interest me.

On losing a friend

Abundance, Connection

I’ve talked before about being grateful: for your health, for your security/safety, for your freedom, but most of all for your friends and family. You may think that your most important work is your job, career, hobbies, or art, but I’d wager instead that your most important work is your relationship with others. Without meaningful connections, even the greatest achievements can seem hollow and unsatisfying.

I wrote the above linked post on being grateful around Thanksgiving, which is a natural time to talk about that sort of thing. It was a time when I was spending a great deal of time around people that I cared about. As someone who has spent a larger share of time by myself than I’m comfortable admitting, being around such good friends brought out the effusive, inelegant blubberer inside me. I value my friends deeply, and will pretty much go to the ends of the earth for them.

Which is why losing a friend is so painful.

[Read more…] about On losing a friend

Lift only one leg at a time, or how to move forward successfully

Awareness, Movement

One <blank> at a time. You can fill in the blank with many possible answers. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. How do you recover from alcoholism or other diseases? One day at a time. There’s even a travel hacking site that I read often called One Mile At A Time.

And while it’s not a phrase that you hear very commonly, I’ll add my own: How do you move? One leg at a time.

How to use induced demand to your advantage

Abundance, Decisions

In my last post I talked about induced demand, the counter-intuitive idea that when there is a greater supply of a resource, more of it is used. I see this most often in discussion of transportation issues, where people assume that the solution to traffic-clogged roads is to widen the roads (or to build more of them). And yet, looking out the window in your most-recent traffic jam, you can see that this hasn’t worked.

I made the connection between this and your personal life too. People often assume that more money or more time will make it easier to achieve your goals. But, like the traffic-choked highway, when you’ve got more of some resource, there’s a good chance that it too will become allocated, leaving you in the same place. So what can we do? [Read more…] about How to use induced demand to your advantage

What highway congestion can teach you about your goals

Abundance, Movement

Many of you spend a large chunk of your life stuck in traffic. And I feel for you; I lived in New York City with a car for seven years, and while I never commuted to work using my car, whenever I had to drive anywhere I felt like was living in my own personal Black Friday Mall Parking Lot. [Read more…] about What highway congestion can teach you about your goals

Which lasts longer, a Thing or an Experience?

Abundance, Radical Finances

I used to try to avoid going out to eat. It’s not that I didn’t like restaurants, it’s just that I found it hard to rationalize them on a tight budget.

More than that, though, the idea of its transience bothered me. I would go out, enjoy a nice meal, and then what? That would be it. It was a single event, and then it would pass. I felt like it made a lot more sense to spend my money on things that would last instead of one-time experiences like restaurants.

This cost-benefit analysis is a good thing to think about when you have limited funds. You can’t do everything, so you need to choose. And my decision was to choose the option that provided the greatest benefit over the longest period of time. My mantra effectively was: favor things over experiences.