I have been thinking a lot about cost benefit analysis and how it applies to real life.
My brother showed up for Memorial Day weekend driving a new car, which really startled me. He only buys new vehicles once every 10 years or so, and then only reluctantly. As I explained to my son, Brother only bought the new SUV because his trusty Toyota truck was having major engine problems and it was going to cost more to fix the car than it was worth. So he started researching new vehicles, and bought a 2008 Toyota Highlander. (I drive a 2003 Highlander. We like Highlanders.) He had to get a loan to buy the new car, which he hated doing, but he isn't spending as much on gas so he can pay the loan back pretty quickly.
I was trying to explain to Michael the other day that most people don't like working in an office 40 hours a week, but they like being able to pay their bills. Most folks live with delayed gratification -- working 5 days a week and doing what they want to do 2 days a week. So it costs time, but the reward is money.
This ties in to a quote I heard years ago which is also a truism: you can either have lots of time or lots of money, but not both. Of course, being the child of a trust department banker I amended that mentally: unless you have inherited wealth or you win the lottery. Then you can do what you want all or most of the time and still pay your bills, if you don't squander the money. Of course, very few of us fall into that "free money" category economically..
No one tells you that the hardest part of motherhood is when your kids grow up.
My son is not a conformist. He never has been. This has served him well, for the most part. He has had to learn to get along with one hand since he was 5 years old, after his right hand was amputated due to frostbite, in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan is a very traditional culture, and the assumption was a person with no hand would never be able to work and support himself. When I was in the process of adopting Michael I was told "He can do anything. He can dress himself, play sports, do chores -- whatever." The caretakers were right. The first day I met him I watched him expertly ice skate around a frozen soccer field at the orphanage.
I adopted Michael ten years ago, in 2007. He constantly amazes me in some way.
I never thought he would be able to play baseball. He played for two seasons and was among the top players on the team.
I never thought he'd be able to tie his own shoes. Piece of cake.
I never thought he'd be able to clip his own fingernails. He figured out a way, shortly after his sister left home and she couldn't do it for him any more.
Of course, employers are always skeptical, at first. Michael has been working for several years now, and the hand barely slows him down. He always figures out a way to do whatever is needed and is usually the hardest worker in the business.
The hardest part of being his mother - and I'm sure there are a lot of mothers out there who have had to deal with this -- is that he is SO smart. When you are the smartest person in the room 95% of the time, it's hard accepting that the rules apply to you, too. We've been dealing with that a lot for over a year now but I don't want to violate his privacy so I'll just leave it at that.
Smart people also battle boredom all the time.
I guess what this blog is really about is my angst about trying to teach him this critical life lesson: how do you decide what is worth it?
When you're 20 or 21 years old you have little frame of reference so deciding what is worth it is usually a trial and error type of thing. Watching that -- watching your grown child make mistakes and knowing that's a necessary thing -- is so hard.
A few years ago I realized that my mother was requiring more and more care from me, with her arthritis, asthma, and mobility issues. For an 83 year old she is remarkable -- mentally sharp as a tack. Physically, though, not so much. She rarely walks more than 10 feet because it's painful for her. So I realized it was incumbent upon me to take care of her, since my kids are grown and don't live here any more. So I work from home, for the time being.
Now, working from home is something I enjoy doing. I would much rather sit here at my desk and look to my right at the peaceful tranquility of my back yard, wearing my pajamas, than drive 30-40 minutes back and forth to an office and sit in a cubicle all day where my time is not my own. However, I have very little extra money. Paying bills is a challenge every month because I don't have steady employment. I haven't been on a vacation in 7 years.
However, I have written several books and I am hopeful one of them soon might land me a publishing contract. I wouldn't have been able to find as much time to write if I had been working a regular job.
What do I tell Michael about how to figure the cost/reward of choosing his work, though?
A part of me wants to tell my son "just go be a tattoo artist and don't worry about having a lot of money." However, if he is going to one day have a wife and children he needs a reasonably lucrative career.
My father grew up in a family where there wasn't much money, and he watched his parents struggle through the Depression and World War II and then my grandfather's emphysema, and he had to scramble around to pay for his own college. I think he decided while he was still pretty young that he wanted to work hard and make a lot of money. He never made a LOT of money but we got to a place where our family was upper middle class. However, I remember many nights when my father came home after working 12 hours and he was just wiped out tired. He would make himself a drink and stare at the back yard for an hour before he was ready to eat dinner.
When I was a kid we would visit the home of a relative who had far less money than we did but their home always seemed to be a happy place and there was lots of laughter. Very little money, but a mostly happy place.
We laughed in my family too -- don't get me wrong, I didn't have a terrible childhood -- but watching the toll stress took on my dad had a big influence on me. Work stress can really cast a pall over one's entire life. The older I get the more I want to pare down my possessions and just live as simply as possible.
I think in the big analysis all I can really tell my son is this: figure out what you want, and then figure out what it will cost you to get it. ALL adults have to do that, all the time. It's perhaps the most important thing about growing up and managing your life successfully.
Please feel free to drop me a comment and tell me what you think of this.
I gave Mom my book manuscript to read and Lola decided to use it as a pillow..
