The follies of our lives - part I

Folly: lack of good sense; foolishness


I had decided to share some of the mistakes in my life and how and whether I can address them. However, once I started writing, the post turned into a dissection of unresolved issues, and reflections on how I can face and overcome these. The time of reckoning has come…

Mr. Money Mustache had a post on making our goals public; once they are public, we are more likely to stick to our plans and feel accountable. Since mistakes, unresolved issues, and goals are interconnected, I decided to proceed with the post, and make it public :).


Folly #1
Not having a life plan 
                                                                          LIFE EXPECTANCY

  >80  77.5-80  75-77.5  72.5-75  70-72.5  67.5-70    65-67.5     60-65  55-60  50-55  45-50  40-45  <40

Currently in the U.S. the life expectancy for females is 81.2 years and for males is 76.4 years. How many years do you have left, assuming that your lifespan fits the statistics? What if you have much less left? What if it is just a day?

If I fit the statistics, I have lived though more than half of my life, and yet, I have never had a life plan.

Looking back at my strange past, I could never had planned what happened to me. Years ago, if I had delineated my future the way it unfolded in real life, everyone would had qualified me as crazy, and in serious need of mental rehabilitation. One day, I will tell my story. It is suffice to say that my life has surprised me, and I admit, it has not been boring.

However, it is nice to have some structure and control over future life, especially when old age approaches and one compulsively starts accounting for what has been accomplished and hopefully, savoring what the lifetime effort has produced.

In Mr. Money Mustache’s post that discusses the book Your Money or Your Life there are three questions that everyone should ask. Here are the re-phrased questions:

1. Is your fulfillment proportional to the amount of time/life years spent?

2. Is this expenditure aligned with my life goals?

3. Would you change your work life routine, if you did not have to work for a living?
 
It is disheartening that simple questions like these stopped me in my tracks. I am a PhD - level educator and researcher, probably I should be able to breeze through these questions?

Question #1

Is there any fulfillment in my everyday work? The past years and even present days are a blurry of hours spent in the labs and on desks. I have published scientific papers, I have received a bit of research grant money; however, I doubt that anything I have accomplished would impact the field I work in.

Recently, I realized that the only usefulness in my work might be measured by how successful I am in instilling intellectual curiosity in my students. Asking the right questions is the most powerful driving force in human progress. Reading an encyclopedia composed of questions is far more beneficial than reading an encyclopedia filled with facts. However, our students are not given the time and chance to stop, assimilate the basic facts, and ask questions. They are constantly bombarded by a torrent of information and facts, and all of these need to be regurgitated at tests. The students do not need to be inquisitive and ask questions, as we do not measure their progress by how well they identify problems and formulate questions.

The first question brings the concern of whether I can make a difference at my job. Since at present I have not seen any evidence for my impact on anything or anyone, the answer to the first question is, no, I have not found my fulfillment to be proportional to my effort (measured in life years/life energy).

Question #2
The second question of whether the expenditure is aligned with the life goals is impossible to answer, as I have no goals. Embarrassingly, I have none. Yes, I have to meet certain expectations at work in order to have my contract renewed, but these petty and rather meaningless “metrics” evaluating my effort are not equivalent to life goals. Life goals should be broad, comprehensive, and true to my identity. I have no such because I do not dare to plan. And I do not dare, because (a) my previous attempts to plan have miserably failed, and (b) sometimes my plans are dependent upon other people and circumstances that I have no control over. 

Here I have to re-phrase Kurt Vonnegut, “Higher power/God grant me serenity to accept the time spent working to bring bread on the table, courage to purge the meaningless activities that clutter my daily life, and wisdom to always tell the difference (between the two types of activities).”

The best scenario is when our life goals coincide with our work life goals; this requires the alignment of my moral and philosophical values with the mission of my institution. Not all of us a lucky to work for a great institution with lofty ideas and a well-defined (or any) mission. 

The alternative is to create a job that aligns with my values. But before that, to define my goals I need to establish my own mission in life. This idea came from a Radical Personal Finance podcast by Joshua Sheats (unfortunately, I am not sure which episode). Joshua pours his heart and soul in these podcasts and talks not only about finances, but also about life in general. At first, it was surprising to think that a  person, rather than a company/institution/corporation should have a mission. The more I thought about it however, the more convinced I became that having a mission would help me define my goals and put everything in a logical perspective.

The brief answer to question two is that I am in a process of awakening, and I hope to re-align expenditure and life goals somehow. It is also possible that this blog is a manifestation of this effort: I have been accumulating knowledge that could improve other people’s quality of life, and I would like to share it.

Question #3
The third question is easy compared to the first two. Would I change my work life routine, if I did not have to work for a living? Yes, I would, as some of my current required work activities are such a waste of time! If I were financially independent, I would distill the most meaningful job activities and probably work only 20 hours or less a week. The rest of my hours would be dedicated to exploring new impactful venues of development: a novel business, a volunteer stint, a few creative projects.

Apart of all these considerations, I need to be fair: my current job is the best one I have ever had, and probably the best I will ever have. The job includes a dose of creativity, and this is rare. Could my job be more fulfilling? Yes, but I am still searching for ways to impart more meaning to my everyday tasks. 



What about you? Can you answer these questions:

1. Is your fulfillment proportional to the amount of time/life years spent?

2. Is this expenditure aligned with my life goals?

3. Would you change your work life routine, if you did not have to work for a living? 
 

Folly #2
Adopting a lifestyle that kills
        to be continued…

Weekend cooking - meatball soup

Remember my advice on whether to give up meat?
 

Today I am offering you a soup recipe that allows you to have a small portion of meat combined with a generous amount of veggies. The recipe below will feed an army at no cost. Combine the soup with some freshly baked bread and a bit of your favorite cheese, and you will have a great family dinner for the entire week. 


                                         Meatball soup 

With 1-2 pounds of ground meat, this soup yields more than 20 portions of soup (hint: use the biggest pot in the house).

For the meatballs you will need: approximately 2 lb. of your favorite ground meat (e.g., pork, beef, turkey, or chicken), 1 cup of uncooked rice (you can vary the ratio of meat to rice according to your taste), 1/2 onion (diced finely or chopped in a blender), salt and black pepper (to taste), 1 Tbsp. dry winter savory (optional).

For the soup you will need one large onion (chopped), 4-5 celery stalks (chopped), 20 whole baby carrots (or 5-8 large carrots cut in chunks), 4-5 medium size potatoes (peeled and cut into small cubes), 2 Tbsp. dry peppermint (optional), a bunch of parsley (chopped), 2 Tbsp. dry winter savory (optional), salt and hot pepper flakes to taste.

Preparation
First prepare the meatballs. Mix all meatball ingredients with your hands and form small balls (less than an inch in diameter). You can enlist volunteers for this job. Pile the meatballs on a plate and keep them in the refrigerator until ready to add to the soup.

Soften the onion, carrots and celery in ½ cup of water for five minutes. I do not use oil since the meat releases some fat into the soup. Add 14-16 cups of water, bring to boil and add the potatoes. Boil for 10 minutes, and add the meatballs by rolling each ball in flour, and then adding it to the pot. If there is need of more water, add it at this time. Bring to boil again, and cook for 30-40 minutes by boiling over low to medium heat. Add salt and hot pepper flakes. Turn off the heat and add the spices: parsley, peppermint, and winter savory (all spices are optional). Both peppermint and winter savory  reduce bloating, gas formation, and ease the food digestion.

More of my frugal soup recipes are available here.

Mike's Colonoscopy

Screening for colorectal cancer, a major cause of morbidity and mortality in developed counties is important. It was time for me to get my colonoscopy, and after some procrastination, I followed in the footsteps of Larry the Cable Guy and Mark Cuban and got it done.

The procedure itself was uneventful, and much of my anxiety and fear about the procedure was, in my case, unwarranted. I admit that the prep was not pleasant. I didn’t mind so much the day before, with the liquid diet. I also didn’t mind too much being up half the night going to the bathroom, all the endless toilet visits. I had a sigmoidoscopy done years before, so I expected that.

The worst part for me was the repulsive taste of the laxative solution (in my case, Moviprep). It was difficult getting down and difficult keeping down. Following the suggestions of the hospital gastroenterology unit, I added Crystal Light to the solution; in retrospect, that may have been a mistake. The sickeningly sweet taste may have been a combination of the prep itself (which tastes bad) and the concentrated added lemonade flavoring. It may be a good idea to make sure the additive is necessary before using it. If you think you can stomach the laxative alone (some people can and some cannot), then that might be the more prudent approach.

There are other prep solutions of course, and some people use the pill option. But I have read that, in some cases, the pill options and related prep types can cause kidney damage, so I went for the more standard prep options. Keep in mind that these preps, even with insurance, are somewhat expensive, but are necessary (in some cases, patients are told they can use a cheaper MiraLAX-Gatorade prep option).

So, based on my experience, I agree with Larry and Mark and advise to follow your physician’s recommendations about getting your screening done. There is a low risk of complications from the procedure, but in the hands of a capable and experienced endoscopist, these risks will be very low – certainly lower than the risk of cancer.

For those more interested in technical details and some recent advancements in technique, I would recommend to watch YouTube videos from a well-known MD Anderson gastroenterologist, Dr. Raju, who has helped to refine advanced endoscopic techniques that I hope will one day be the standard of care here in the USA (and elsewhere).

Actionable: Follow the advice of your physician, get screened for colorectal cancer when appropriate, utilizing whatever method you and your physician agree on.