Running Up Bills/Hills

On my way to a valet parking job today in Pac Heights. It’s times like this where I wonder if I’m scrounging up work the best possible way. Even with tips I’m still working for less than $20/hour, and surely my time is more valuable than that. Or is it? It’s just such a bizarre scenario, certainly the supervisors at the valet company think it’s strange that a chemical engineer should be working for such little pay as a car runner. I suppose when I shut down my massage business, I was just not in the mood for taking chances with bigger projects, and probably rightly so. I am still learning how to properly manage money. I discovered that a bad decision made during my first couple years of college set the tone for what would eventually be my first big business failure: buying a new Rockford Fosgate sound system and 18″ subwoofer for my car, maxing out my first credit card, for $850. They agreed to sell it to me for my credit limit, so I thought it was meant to be. It was my first-ever time using a credit card to pay for something I wanted NOW, but hadn’t yet earned. I remember we were assigned an engineering homework assignment where we were to calculate our payments and interest for a purchase of our choosing. I was already taking out small loans to finance my education, *knowing* I would have a good job and be able to pay back that investment quickly upon graduation. Well, somehow an expensive stereo system became part of that “investment”. It is likely that I did not actually ever fully pay-off that debt for the next 10-12 years, until my recent bankruptcy wiped the slate clean.

But I think the problem was the energy shift that happened in me where it became “ok” to have something before I earned it. Looking back this habit followed me into my first well-paying job, where there were a few months I can recall having to do payday advances to cover my expenses. Pretty pathetic when you’re pulling in enough money for 2 people but you still can’t keep your head above water. I imagine this is at least partially what is meant by those people recently pouting online that they make $300,000/year and are still broke. A bit of entitlement complex. I’ve always felt entitled, which is to say envious, which I realize now is certainly a deadly sin. Ok to want the best, but also necessary to know where the universe placed you upon birth and what path you will need to tread to earn what you want.

On the positive side, my envy has taught me to be ultra-resourceful, I have a talent for finding and spending every possible cent easily available to me, it’s the money that has to be earned which I must now focus my resourceful energies toward.

So, as usual, I’m feeling too old to be learning these lessons, and too old to be running cars valet while I figure out how to be financially effective again. Fuck it, at least I’m learning something.

Going Somewhere

It all came together, finally, tonight. Another crisis hit me this weekend, the “What the f— am I doing with my life?” feeling I get every so often, which seems to coincide suspiciously with occurrences of my bank accounts bottoming out.

What occurred to me was that I wasn’t really advancing any causes that are important to me. Since the day I sold my soul to the devil, sometime in June 1999, I hadn’t given a second thought to what might be important to me in life. Even when I quit my engineering job, I made it no further than “What slightly interests me?”

Shazaam! I had been asking myself the wrong question the past five years!

What I *should* have asked myself was: “What is wrong with my world now and how will I affect change/influence it so it matches my vision?”

That question begs a list. And a list gives direction. I would then have to ask myself: What education will I need? What resources and connections will I need to bring such changes about? What skills should I acquire? Who else shares my vision(s)?

This is going to be fun. My guess is this list is going to be somewhat fluid and things could flip-flop, but here’s where I stand as of today.

First Stab at List:
Healthcare
-Educate people about preventative health
-Reduce reliance on pharmaceuticals
-Make sure every working person and student is properly insured for health emergencies and automatically covered for preventative care
-End farm subsidies which promote junk food products and unhealthy fillers/sweetners
-Distinguish between “food” and food products in FDA guidelines/policy

Politics
-Make sure shitheads don’t get elected to represent me
-Reduce power of corporations to influence government
-Increase minimum wage to a living wage
-Promote single-earner family/community structures with social policy, increase (good) parent-to-child ratio
-Promote community-building and children-friendly spaces
-Increase quality of cooperation and understanding among other cultures

Education
-Practice democracy in school systems in function and design
-Focus on personal development, communication, relationship management as critical development skills for youth
-Assess “grades” such that students better understand what skills they have and what they lack
-Make education affordable/accessible for everyone
-Increase extracurricular involvement opportunities for youth

Environment
-eliminate use of pesticides and herbicides
-eliminate use of hormones in animals and humans for food production and birth control
-eliminate large-scale ecosytem disruptions caused by mega-farms (acres of similar farmland, orchards, trucking 75% of country’s bees into one state for 2 weeks); make communities more self-sufficient/local-emphasis, diversify locally
-Advance clean energy
-Minimize wasteful chemical emissions to air/water (power, transportation)

Poverty
-Make dignified housing accessible for anyone of any income

Prisons
-Rehabilitate criminals instead of caging them
-Legalize and monitor drugs

Fun Stuff
-Permanent, easy hair removal
-healthy cigarettes
-eliminate overhead power/phone lines
-design a community and/or pleasing home environment
-design own clothing/jewelry
-eliminate boring, standard, ticky-tacky houses, cars, buildings

Well, that’s a start. Off to bed now and maybe I’ll revise, prioritize and beef up the list so I can get some more direction in my life’s actions.

Changes (poem):
Stomach turning
Turning to face reality once again
How a paycheck can make you feel so far from your dreams
So here I am again
Spinning in the mud
Unimpressed with myself
At the end of the day, what was there to show for your efforts?
I’m so used to rewards
Am I just addicted?