Character is destiny

This year is coming to an end as we're writing these lines. 

We've achieved some and missed some when it comes to the New Year's Resolutions from last year. 

The training is where it should be, above 9000 minutes during last year. A secret has been to try to train before lunch, either in the morning or during the lunch hour. That seems to help us to use the higher energy part of the day for training. 

Another thing we've achieved is our savings. We've saved around 44 k€ per person that goes into our pathfinder portfolio. 

Other things where not quite there. My Mandarin is not that much better. Antinous German though is a lot better. I would not aim for Carnegie hall neither with my piano skills.

On the other hand, we've spent more time with family.

Why did some things succeed?

Perhaps because we've made these habits easy to fall into, so the fist step to get them going is easy. 

It's a simple idea that seems to work for us.

Resolutions take habits that constitute character and creates destiny.

Here are some character forming micro habits that we've used this year. 

• Training. If we change to training clothes at 10am or 11am. Then it feels strange not to go training at 11:30 and instead sit and eat lunch in training clothes. 
  
  
• Savings. We've automated everything. We have a side account with what we should spend in a month on food and basics transferred to it. Then the card is refused when we go above that limit. There's a side account with a little more, where all invoices are payed and the salary ends up that we then can refill some with, but it's cumbersome.tp withdraw from it. And there's no other account easily accessible with money beyond our monthly expenses. 

So what to do next year? We should probably think more about the micro habits, because they are the triggers to the habits, and when we've put them in place we seem to be able to live up to what we promise. 

We should probably also give more thought to the social, friend and love department. We're not always overly interested in this area, because we know that the social mirror is dangerous to our financial journey.

Changing the status game is what allows our freedom.

But yet, we're also social animals. And there are interesting things to work with in the social game. What are our emotional responses around other people, and especially people we might dislike? And friends we like and love? How do we react, what of our own shortcomings do we project on others, what do we want of our social surroundings, and why? 

So there are three areas to focus on for 2022 perhaps, summarized as: wealth, health and love.

And all will take habits that create character, which steers us in these three domains,.

And what is wealth, health and love, if not destiny. 

Farewell,

//antinous&lucilius

Who has got the initiative over our life-energy?

Here's a thought.

We're dependent on the paycheck for our livelihood for a considerable time.

We earn that paycheck by giving our life-energy away; our concentration, enthusiasm, wit, skill or labor. 

What guides where we focus our life-energy is the force that gives us the paycheck.

That directing force is ultimately dictated by the needs of society and the market.

What does freedom do?

It brings the control of that force, to decide where we spend our life-energy (concentration, enthusiasm, wit, skill and labor) over to us.

Art wants out

Suddenly, the initiative is in our hands. 

We become true grown-ups, adults, and sovereign in deciding where to spend our energy, without a guiding force to nudge us.

The beauty of early financial indepet is that much of that life-energy still remains in our hands; in our relative youth; it has not yet been spent in the hands of the market and society.

We still have energy to spend.

It's, though, an error to think that freedom means that the life-energy shouldn't be spent on creative, interesting endeavors.

The energy we're granted is far too interesting to squander away, in our opinion, on too simple pleasures.

Hedonism requires complexity.

And mastery of complexity is art, and art wants out.

And with freedom, the initiative to set that art free is ours. 

Farewell,

//antinous&lucilius