What I learnt today #5

Friday 12 October 2012

I usually share an office with two other people.

It just so happened that they were both out of office all day today, so I was the monarch of the office for 8 hours. I had some peace and quiet, and I could enjoy my digital media to my heart’s content. Where I would normally have to be sensible with my volume levels, I was free to turn the office into a concert hall if I so desired. I didn’t of course, mostly due to the fact that my speakers are tiny, 9 years old and have the acoustic fidelity of a Styrofoam cup.

I was able to complete an audiobook I’d been listening to: “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” by Robert T, Kiyosaki. The book itself has many critics, and some of what was said I ignored mentally. But there were some points made that made me think. One of the true values of reading books is provoking thought. I’m using the term reading rather loosely here seeing as though the book was narrated. If a book makes bad points, or makes claims you don’t agree with, it forces you to examine and question the beliefs you held.

It seemed almost a poetic irony that I was listening to it my place of employment, since employment is exactly the opposite route one must take to become wealthy. The illusion of security and the delicate balance your employer plays in paying you just enough so you don’t leave, but enough so you keep on working are some of the positions the author adopts. There was an acronym he used as well: J.O.B or just over broke. The poor and middle class, as the author elaborates, has a much different philosophy to the rich.

In my solitude at the office today whereby I was able to complete my audiobook, and in writing today’s entry, I learnt the following:

·        It is becoming increasingly difficult to blog every day, hence the Friday blog on a Saturday. I am considering doing only a single entry on the weekend, aptly titled “What I learnt this weekend”.

·        Audiobooks are quite a viable way to extract information from books. Purists worldwide are cringing at the idea, but then again, they will become a dying breed as the world moves forward.

·        My financial behaviour is that of the middle class.

o    I have followed the prescribed path of education for the purpose of employment and employment for the purpose of career.

o   I depend on my employer to pay me a fair wage, and tend to blame my circumstances on any unfairness that I may encounter there.

o   I depend on my employer, in much the same way a teenager may depend on their parents.

o   I have a propensity for acquiring liabilities as defined in the book.

·        I am at somewhat at cross-roads as it were, where I can feel myself becoming more and more averse to risk while simultaneously desire for me to take control of my own career path via entrepreneurial aspirations burns brightly.

In some ways I have always understood the ludicrousness of putting you career and financial input in the hands of another when their objectives and yours are almost never congruent. Though my financial processes are independent of my employer, and I am free to do with my earnings as I please, I do display the tendencies of someone who wished to break the cycle of the ‘rat-race’. I intend to change this, because there is something inside me that knows this is not for me.

Have you ever felt as though your attempts for change have been directed at others, and not yourself?

What makes you afraid of change? What are your fears?

I don’t have the answers to many of my own question, but I am determined to look inward and come up with some answers.