Life is not a race to the finish line
Channel your vibrations to what you hold most dear
The thing that brings you the deepest joy is victory.
The beginning of each year is always the best time for people to review themselves, and one of the questions that many people can't avoid is how to coordinate money, work and life goals to make their lives without regrets?
If you're confused thinking about these questions, take a look at the book "The Wisdom of Life That Begins with the End in Mind".
The author of this book, Jordan Grummet, is a hospice doctor who has accompanied hundreds of dying patients through the end of their lives, and found that most people look back on their lives full of regret and remorse before dying, and have witnessed too many awakenings before the countdown to life, and life reviews with regrets. In this case, why not review your life in advance, find what your heart really wants, start with the end in mind, and live a happy life without regrets as soon as possible?
In the book "The Wisdom of Life Beginning with the End in Mind", Jordan Grummet will lead everyone to rediscover the essence of money, work and life purpose, and find the secret key to "financial freedom, early retirement" (fire).
Rediscover money. Jordan Grummet believes that money is not everything. Money is just an intermediary, a support for goods and services, and the potential energy we collect when we work for others. When some people make life decisions based on money, such as deciding to retire after earning a certain amount of money, these people use money as a goal rather than a tool to achieve their goals in life. As they desperately strive for financial freedom, they push everything else aside — dreams, ambitions, and bucket lists — as they keep their eyes on their net worth numbers. When you no longer have financial troubles, financial freedom becomes a mirror. It not only reflects but amplifies all the remaining deficiencies and fears that are strangely consistent with the patients Jordan Grummet has come into contact with: fears of purpose, identity, and social connection. They are worried that they will not have a good life and that they will leave this world with regret.
Jim Dahler, founder of The White Coat Investor, believes that money is oxygen. i.e. when you have enough money, it won't have much impact on your life, but if you don't have enough money, anything is a luxury. Jordan Grummet agrees with Jim Daller's description, but he also believes that there is a metaphor behind oxygen - without a minimum level of "oxygen", life is difficult to maintain. And what about the excess of "oxygen"? Can the extra "oxygen" take you anywhere? Will it give you superhuman strength, live longer, and live a happier life? Many people are used to running as hard as they can on the road, but they can never make enough money. They don't even know exactly what "enough money" is. Desires are never satisfied, and people become more and more unhappy.
In the book, Jordan Grummet mentions an act called the "hedonic treadmill". Every now and then, people crave to add luxurious items: cars, jewelry, houses, you name it. Indeed, new items tend to briefly push our happiness to the top. We marvel at the exquisite sedan in the driveway, sparkling diamonds on the fingers. However, as time goes by, we are back to square one, and the happiness does not increase, but only breaks a lot. The reason behind this is that humans are a species that can adapt to change so quickly that they tend to maintain a basic level of well-being, no matter what positive or negative changes humans experience in their lives. That's why people's buying behavior brings with it a short-lived sense of well-being that disappears almost instantly: we adapt. Before we know it, we're going to start looking for the next thing we want to buy, hoping to regain that fleeting sense of well-being. It's like a treadmill, our legs are moving faster and faster, but in reality, we're just standing still.
Thus, Jordan Grummet came to the conclusion that the moment when people feel most fulfilled and closest to self-fulfillment is not when we buy a new toy, or when we get a significant return on investment, but when we do something purposeful and aspire to have significant fulfillment in life. Maslow refers to this stage of development as "self-actualization," and Jordan Grummet prefers to call it "climbing," and more specifically, striving to gain our own unique purpose, identity, and social connection.
Ask yourself, are you using your wealth to make a positive difference in the world? Have you used your knowledge, your resources, that is, your capital to do something meaningful? A lot of people get confused and a little overwhelmed. Jordan Grummet believes that the goals that a person sets for themselves in life do not have to be external, they do not have to be generous giving. There is no right or wrong goal. When you still don't have your own answers after thinking through these questions, it may be time for you to delve into your identity.
For most people, identity usually refers to occupation, followed by the word "I am." Identities change over time, gradually forming, and there is no perfect answer. Ask yourself this question: What makes me feel most energized and able to live my life? Repeat the phrase "I AM" over and over again this one and see what happens next. When you know "who I am", your goals become clearer, which naturally leads to more social connections.
When a person begins to adjust his goals and identities, he is naturally attracted to those whose values align with him and has a certain social connection with them. Social ties are inseparable from goals and identities, goals and identities bring about social ties, and social ties give rise to circles, in which there will be family and friends whose sense of identity and purpose are basically the same.
Rethink the meaning of work. Jordan Grummet believes that a lot of people don't understand what work really means and how important it is in emotional health. The social connections we maintain at work give meaning to our lives. The essence of the job is simple, but it can be easily misunderstood. Work is something we do all our lives, and it never stops, even after retirement. Fundamentally, work is our activity of creating money. This is true whether we do this work for ourselves or for others.
Jordan Grummet argues that people's goal should not be to save enough money and stop working, but to accumulate enough "money" and distribute it, and then maximize our precious time to do the things we really want to do, to do the things that make our lives meaningful.
What a gift it is to follow your heart from the beginning of life rather than the end of life – to grasp the meaning of life before it's too late. The pursuit of wealth and money should not come at the expense of what is important in life, on the contrary, it should play an auxiliary role in this most important journey of life. Our goal is to make money "autonomous", but our lives should not be at the mercy of others.
By Jordan GrummetTranslated by Wan LingzhiPublished by CITIC Publishing Group
I'll ...... when I've made enough money"It's the biggest misconception about life.
Life is not a transition, and we can't wait until the future to be happy. Happiness is to do what you really want to do in a limited life. However, figuring out what you really want to do is a much more difficult problem than trying to make money. Therefore, when making money becomes the goal, we have a shield to avoid thinking, but every moment of life has also become a temporary transition, and life has always been "on the road", which is also the reason why many people are unhappy.
The book's author, Jordan Grummet, will take us on a journey to rediscover the nature of money, work and happiness, find what you really want, and make positive changes in your life today. In this book, he not only reflects on traditional perceptions of money, work, financial freedom, investing, time management, etc., but also provides concrete and practical ways to make changes. The life review questionnaire at the end of each chapter is clear and practical, taking you step by step to clarify your inner goals; Three financial freedom concepts and specific practical methods to help you build a path to financial freedom that suits your actual situation.
Jordan Grummet
A graduate of the University of Michigan, he received his medical degree from Northwestern University, and is qualified as an internist in Northbrook, Illinois, where he is currently the Associate Medical Director of JourneyCare Hospice.
In 2018, the podcast "Earn & Invest" was launched. In 2019, it won the "Best New Personal Finance Podcast" at the Plutus Award in the United States, and was nominated for "Best Personal Finance Podcast" of the year in 2020 and 2021.
*This article** is from the Weekend Pictorial, edit the side.