Monthly Archives: November 2011

Stoic Insights on Materialism

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Stoics knew, in Irvine’s words, that luxurious living only whets one’s appetite for even more luxury. Exhibit A, the GalPal and I need hotel upgrades now. Consequently, they practiced poverty or voluntary discomfort—whether fasting, sleeping on the ground, or purposely not dressing warmly for cold weather—to harden themselves against misfortunes that might befall them in the future. They did this to extend their comfort zone, reduce their anxiety about future possible discomforts, and better appreciate what they already had. They also sometimes gave up pleasurable experiences because they knew pleasure seekers lose some self-control and end up serving multiple masters. Having written about this exact thing before reading Irvine means I’m well suited to modern-day Stoicism.

Even ancient Stoics knew that maintaining luxuries takes a lot of time. Musonius argued that luxurious living must be completely avoided, but Seneca said it was okay to acquire wealth as long as one doesn’t harm others to obtain it. He also argued it was acceptable to enjoy wealth as long as one was careful not to cling to it. Most Stoic teachers advocated simultaneously enjoying and being indifferent to the things wealth makes possible. Seneca and Marcus thought it was possible to live in a palace without being corrupted. Similarly, Buddha said, “He that cleaves to wealth had better cast it away than allow his heart to be poisoned by it, but he who does not cleave to wealth, and possessing riches, uses them rightly, will be a blessing unto his fellows.”

Seneca said “life’s necessities are cheap and easily accessible” and “the man who adapts himself to his slender means and makes himself wealthy on a little sum, is the truly rich man.” Socrates said “we should eat to live, not live to eat” and dress to protect our bodies and not impress others. We should favor simple housing and furnishings too.

Seneca, Marcus, and Buddha would have supported the non-consumerist, simple living, social justice orientation of the Occupy Wall Streeters. On the other hand, they would have rejected their knee-jerk antipathy towards the well-to-do.

I Am the 1%

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Not based on my five figure salary, my Kirkland Signature wardrobe, my penchant for water at restaurants, or my municipal golf courses of choice.

I am the “one percent” based upon health, meaningful work, beautiful surroundings, good friends, and a loving family.

Turning fiddy in a few months. My peers are showing varying degrees of wear and tear. Their setbacks help me appreciate how fortunate I am to be able to afford healthy food, to have time to exercise daily, to have access to quality medical care, and to feel younger than I am.

My work matters. How fortunate to get paid to help young people write, teach, and think through what they believe and how they want to live their adult lives. And remarkably, every seven years I get the ultimate gift, time to press pause and read, think, write, rest, renew.

Half the year I get to cycle in unbelievably beautiful mountain settings, swim in an idyllic next-door lake, and run on wooded trails and sleepy residential streets. In the summer it’s almost never hot or humid and there are no bugs that would prevent one from eating outside. There are no hurricanes and hardly any lightening, but I reserve the right to amend this post if I someday survive the overdue Shake.

I often climb the mountains, swim the lake, and run the trails with excellent friends. Fitness fellowship.

My extended family is a blessing. My wife and daughters especially so. Apart from one very bad leg, they’re healthy and happy. My Better Half and I just returned from visiting First Born at Leafy Midwest Liberal Arts College. Most nineteen year-old college students would be semi-embarrassed by visiting parents, but for some reasons ours was off-the-charts warm, inviting, and appreciative the whole time. Even invited her Spanish teaching mom to her Spanish class and took us to great student a cappella and modern dance concerts.

When we first arrived on campus, Spanish teaching mom went to meet her at the Language Building. I read in the “Libe”. At the appointed time I headed across campus to meet up with them. Turned a corner and there she was walking by herself to a piano lesson. Cue the killer off-the-ground hug.

We stayed in a room in this house which a woman left to the college with an unusual condition—that it always be available as a student hang out with the necessary ingredients to bake cookies.

Home Base

The suggested donation for staying there was $30/night. We had twin beds in a smallish room. The first hints of winter crept in through the window next to my bed. I could whizz while simultaneously brushing my teeth in the tiny bathroom.

But looks can be deceiving. No one would suspect that inside this humble house, in one of the modest rooms, a One Percenter slept contentedly.

Marriage Red Flag

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My nomination for a SLP personal finance journalism award—given to the author of a particularly succinct, lucid, and provocative personal finance article. From Rachel Emma Silverman in the Wall Street Journal (10/17/11):

If you care too much about money, your marriage may suffer.

A new study by scholars at Brigham Young University and Provo, Utah and William Paterson University, Wayne, N.J.. looked at more than 1,700 married couples across the U.S. to determine how their attitudes toward money affected their marriages.

Couples who said money wasn’t important to them scored about 10% to 15% better on measures of relationship quality, such as marriage stability, than couples where both or one spouse were materialistic.

Also, couples in which both partners said they valued lots of money—about 20% of the couples in the study—fared worse than couples who were mismatched and just had one materialist in the marriage.

“Couples where both spouses are materialistic were worse off on nearly every measure we looked at,” says Jason Carroll, a BYU professor of family life and lead author of the study. “There is a pervasive pattern in the data of eroding communication, poor conflict resolution and low responsiveness to each other.”

In the study, published recently in the Journal of Couple & Relationship Therapy, participants completed a questionnaire which evaluated their relationship and asked, among other things, how much they value “having money and lots of things.”

Dr. Carroll says the research team had expected that disparate couples, those with different ways of viewing money, would have worse relationships. They found, though, that it was “materialism itself that’s creating much of the difficulty,” even when couples have plenty of money, he says.

Materialism might cause spouses to make poor financial decisions, such as overspending and running up debt, which can strain relationships. What’s more, materialistic spouses may pay less attention to their relationships and give their marriage lower priority than other concerns.

In other words, marry someone who values “having money and lots of things” at your own risk.

Seigels—You Disgust Me

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Subtitle: Thank goodness for Bill Gates and Warren Buffet.

A friend, in his early 40’s, was dating a multimillionaire C.E.O. He bragged to me that her kids didn’t even have to put their dishes in the dishwasher because that’s what the live-in maid was for. The full-time maid, he explained, enabled the mom and school-aged children to spend more quality time together. I’m calling bullshit.

I used to show some of my students an excellent education documentary about three third grade classrooms—one in the US, one in Germany, and one in Japan. There were no janitors at the Japanese school because educators there believe that students benefit from cleaning the school themselves at the end of each day. “Cleaning,” one school director explained, “creates a kind and gentle spirit.”

Over the years, I’ve noticed that my young adult and adult students who grew up on farms in Montana and eastern Washington are especially hard workers.

Many college bound high school students, following their Type-A parents’ lead, are excused from household chores on account of homework, after school sports, and related college application padding activities.

Ron’s Rule: Any adolescent that’s too busy to put her own dishes in the dishwasher and help around the house in a few different ways every week is too busy. This is what I’m talkin’ about.

My advice. Let the help go, slow down, and give your kids a chance of creating not just a kind and gentle spirit, but genuine respect for maids, janitors, dishwashers, and other manual laborers. The cost of excusing our young people from cleaning their toilets, making their beds, and doing their dishes is a debilitating arrogance.

Which takes us to the Siegels of Orlando, FL. Remember: italics means I’m quoting, underlined text denotes sarcasm, and everything else is my normal, slightly less-sarcastic voice.

Excerpts from a 10/22/11 Wall Street Journal article by Robert Frank. Adapted from “The High-Beta Rich: How the Manic Wealthy Will Take Us to the Next Boom, Bubble, and Bust,” by Crown Business:

The Siegels’ dream home, called “Versailles,” after its French inspiration, is still a work in progress. Its steel-and-wood frame rises from the tropical suburbs of Orlando, Fla., like a skeleton from the Jurassic age of real estate. Ms. Siegel shows off the future bowling alley, indoor relaxing pools, five kitchens, 23 bathrooms, 13 bedrooms, two elevators, two movie theaters (one for kids and one for adults, each modeled after a French opera theater), 20-car garage and wine cellar built for 20,000 bottles. 

At 90,000 square feet, the Siegels’ Versailles is believed to be the largest private home in America. The Siegels’ home is so big that they bought 10 Segways to get around—one for each of their eight children. After touring the house, Ms. Siegel walks out to the deck, with its Olympic-size pool, future rock grotto, three hot tubs and 80-foot waterfall overlooking Lake Butler. Her eyes well up with tears.

I’m tearing up in sadness for you Jacqueline.

Versailles was supposed to be done by now. The Siegels were supposed to be living their dream life—throwing charity balls and getting spa treatments downstairs after a long flight on their Gulfstream.

I have a dream to one day throw charity balls, get spa treatments at home, and own a Gulfstream. That’s some inspiring shit.

The home was the culmination of David Siegel’s Horatio Alger story, from TV repairman to chief executive and owner of America’s largest time-share company, Westgate Resorts, with more than $1 billion in annual revenue and $200 million in profits.

Yet today, Versailles sits half-finished and up for sale. The privately owned Westgate Resorts was battered by the 2008 credit crunch and real-estate crash. It had about $1 billion in debt—much of it co-signed by the Siegels.

The banks that had loans on Versailles gave the Siegels an ultimatum: Either pay off the loans or sell the house. So it’s now on the market for $75 million, or $100 million if the buyer wants it finished.

Today the Siegels have to make do in their current 26,000-square-foot mansion.

Before 2008, Mr. Siegel’s company, Westgate, was earning hundreds of millions of dollars a year for the family. The Siegels poured $50 million into Versailles, which seemed reasonable at the time. When friends asked David why he wanted to build the largest home in America, he had a simple answer: “Because I can.”

“I was cocky and I didn’t care what the house would cost because I couldn’t spend all the money I was making,” Mr. Siegel says.

Plus two points for honesty, minus twenty for volunteering to share all these details in a national newspaper. No sense of embarrassment. Stupefying.

Ms. Siegel has started a nonprofit called ThriftMart, a mega thrift-store that sells donated clothes—many from her own closet—and other items for $1.

That would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.

She (Jacqueline) does miss the Gulfstream. After they defaulted on the $8 million jet loan, the banks seized the plane. The Siegels can use it only occasionally, with the banks’ permission.

Recently, the family boarded a commercial flight for a vacation, making for some confusion. One of the kids looked around the crowded cabin and asked, “Mom, what are all these strangers doing on our plane?”

What a legacy—eight f-ed up kids.

Wake Me October 1, 2012

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I follow national and international news closely, but I’ve run smack dab into a Presidential politics news wall. The coverage is way too extensive and speculative.

Constantly changing state and national polls, accusations back and forth, bizarre public appearances, both sides pandering for votes while our serious challenges intensify, soundbites left and right, an army of analysts dissecting every detail, even the debates lack substance.

I’m more cognizant than before of the opportunity cost of following the thirteen month long circus—hours of time down the drain. Life is short, I’m going to tune it out to the best of my abilities and focus instead on my “To Do” list:

1. Decide whether or not to refer to Ron Artest as Metta World Peace.

2. Clean the gutters.

3. Determine whether the Beibs fathered a baby or not.

4. Get the lawnmower serviced.

5. Clean the sink pipes in the Ron (master) bathroom.

6. Teach Marley to ride on the back of the new scoot.

7. Devise a plan to get on this list.

8. Run, swim, and cycle long distances.

9. Distract the offspring, then give away the bulk of their childhood possessions.

10. Take a nap.

On-line Learning At Its Best

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October 15, 2011. Seattle Craigslist ad.

I need help with online class.

I am taking online classes. I need somebody to help me do it. This is my first online class i feel a little bit overwhelmed. First class is American Government and second one US History. What you need to do? American Government: every week i get assignment from teacher you need to read chapter (book will be provided) answer the questions, write your thoughts, participate in chat discussions at least two times a week and do quiz. Quiz has about 30 questions time is limited 25 min. You have to be prepared. In the end of quarter you have to be abel to pass final exam. US History you just need to read whatever will be provided every week, participate in chat discussion about 2 to 4 times , four times a quarter lead particular discussion. There will be two final exam you will need to pass it in December.
All classes will be done by December 21i guess. And then new quarter will be started.
Please write me a little bit about yourself. I need to know if you are currently in collage or not. If you have or had taken similar classes online. You have to have computer, internet and be confident to pass those classes. Pay will be discussed in person.
Start right away !
Thanks
Here’s a draft of what I thought I might write the ad writer:
I am not currently in collage; however, I was once. It was in collage that I learn to use semi-colons. After collage i taught American Government and US History so i can be prepared to answer 30 questions in 25 min. Thank you for providing book. I promise to pass the two final exam in December. I am a little nervous about leading four particular discussion, but will work through it. I have computer and internet and I like labradoodles and long walks on the beach. Pay is not important, just helping someone feeling a little bit overwhelmed enough. Ready to start!
And there’s this too.