Let’s leave the controversy for the addendum today. I’ve begun the new regimen and I’d like to add a few words. I’m cautious about mentioning medical matters, because I know what it sounds like when two old ladies start comparing their arthritis meds. Working against silence on my part is the undeniable fact that my ratings go up when I talk my own medical. I like to think that I describe rather than complain, but even if I was 100% on that, which I’m not, it still would not explain why people read it time after time. (If I repeat myself much, I hope I at least choose different words.) Why the interest, I dunno? Maybe there is the factor that I’m open to new procedures and you get to hear about them from a trusted source?
Like this new diet. This goes for 29 days under medical supervision. I won’t cheat because this time it has to work and it is kind of expensive; a motive in itself. There is a self-administered subcutaneous injection once per day. The label says 72 hours but it had an immediate effect on me. Instant higher metabolism, which deluges your system with calories from dissolving fatty deposits, giving a boost in energy that lasts all day without hunger. Careful here, the product label spells out this is NOT, repeat NOT the case MOST of the time. Take that to mean you will not get the same results.
The fun part was discovering the difference between hunger and appetite. The appetite remains, which tips us off that we have been conditioned to eat most of what we do, and to repeat that three times a day. The cravings remain. I took my list of allowed foods to the bakery this morning, it was a good laugh all round. I can eat all the cabbage I want. (I like cabbage but not the aroma of it cooking.) Skinless apples. And no exercise. This could be disastrous for the Tuesday Zumba class. Stay with me here, I’m a thinking man, and the rules say I cannot do anything aerobic, not that I can’t attend the class.
My camper trailer build has been halted. The existing wiring is too much for my alternator. I’m investigating alternatives, but I suspect an independent power supply may be called for. This, of course, would have to be kept charged up without drawing on the main vehicle circuits. I must switch to LEDs here, which requires time and planning. I’m having better luck finding waterproof boat lights, which look pretty nice to me. I just know I saw what I want at Harbor Freight but when was that?
[Author's note 2015-08-02: this diet worked like all the rest. There was weight loss. But without fundamental changes in lifestyle and diet, the weight comes back. In this case, it returned slowly. So in a sense, these unviable diets have one thing in common--they somehow curb or suppress appetite. And when the agent doing that duty is removed, the weight returns.]
ADDENDUM
It came to me what I was supposed to review 25 years ago y’day. This was the date in 1988 I decided I would leave the phone company at the first opportunity. I did not know that [move] was still eight years in the future. The review today is which route was, in hindsight, the best to go, what were the motives, what were the reasons? Should I have done things differently?
The major question is money. Without the money, the quality of life diminishes fantastically, no matter what anyone tries to tell you. You cannot get by without it, for no matter how non-material you make your corner, the rest of the world centers on good old cash—and sooner or later you will need something from them.
However, there are alternatives to the mindless pursuit of cash. I realized in 1988 that I had missed the chances to get rich while still young enough to enjoy the things of youth. I had guessed, correctly as it turned out, that getting rich is synonymous with getting lucky and I was not the lucky one.
Thus, it becomes illogical to bust one’s ass past the point of no return. If your goal was to hump all the young pretty babes you could and then marry the prettiest one, you’ve got to do it long before you wind up looking like Trump. This is off the record, but my problem is that until I was 33, every babe was prettier than the last one. I waited one babe too long. How was I to know that after that last one, it was all downhill?
I’ll get back to money in a moment, but for the record, until I was 46, with one exception that was a mistake I’ll never make again, I never dated a gal over 22 years old. I’m proud of that record, because at least I have something fond to look back one now that I find myself in the same boat as so many other “nice guys”. I never had to get a gal drunk, I never had to ask for sex, I never once used a pickup line or wasted money on courtship rituals. I won’t chronicle anything here, but I’ll match my reality to most any man’s fantasy. I don’t have to hang around the stripper bar because I’ve had the real deal.
The money. My decision on that day in 1988 was, I decided if one cannot get ahead by a combination of work and investment, then why work? The answer was that I without work, there was no money to invest. This created another barrier. Real investments require minimum amounts of cash that I didn’t have. So the best substitute is to decide how little one can live comfortably with, get that together, and quit working for a living. This took time, but not that much, I eventually “retired” at age 41. (Don't bother with doing the age math, these dates are scrambled.)
Even in my day, it took around $100,000 to get out of the bush league. Lesser investments and you were stuck in the stock market like the rest of the schmeebs. I can’t tell you how many times I was “up” $40,000 only to lose it in the next round. I was surrounded by braggarts who only remembered the wins. But I kept accurate records and it was a fool’s paradise.
The second item that gave me pause was the rumors of richness. By the time I was 30, I would not believe any stories unless I met the so-called rich person, and story-teller was related to them. Boy, did I find out the world was full of two-bit liars and posers. Not one of them stories held up. I know of two men who got rich, I’m not related to them, and both were put through medical school by their families, a scale of support I can scarcely imagine.
I trust you can follow the logic. The odds of getting rich have little to do with working for a living. A job is the illusion of steady income and that has inherent evils, such as the temptation to borrow instead of save. A job further entails the massive expense of going to work, something too many people overlook. I’ve met people who drive an hour each way to their job every workday. I’m dumb, but I ain’t THAT dumb. If I die without ever striking it big, there is no loss now because at least I never spent my life kissing somebody’s behind.
I say "retired" in quotations because I mean that is the age I quit working for a living. I worked, but only at what I wanted, and only to get ahead. Another unspoken barrier that occurs is that when you are working, you cannot divide your time between the job and the long hours needed to keep up with the way the system is designed. That is, you can’t really get rich part-time, you have to throw yourself into it, and you can’t do that when you have to work eight hours a day. It’s a circular flow, and it goes straight down a drainpipe.
I suspect the reason for this is conditioning. Poor people raise their children to become poor. My ass-clown parents were constantly harping about how many mouths they had to feed, yet they persisted in dispensing the same idiotic advice that got them into that jam. Crap about an honest day’s work, and hard work never killed anybody, and honesty is the best policy. But the rich are different, they have no compunction about teaching their issue how to make real money. They show their kids how to become stockbrokers, bankers, lawyers, and paving contractors. You don’t suppose any of that is coincidence, do you?
I’ve learned more about getting ahead proper since I quit working than I ever did on the job. Jobs are mindless things, I advise people to show a lot more respect to the self-employed, even if it is clear they may be making less money than they could. They may, like me, have decided that their chances of striking it rich are just as great on their own as when busting their balls for somebody else. In my individual case, my chances [of getting rich compared to when I worked a job] are actually far greater because I can devote the necessary time to follow events when they happen, not when they hit the six o’clock news.
So looking back on the 25 years is not overly-revealing to me. I’m at least as far ahead as I would have been as a wage slave. But I would have missed the fun and games, the happiness of pursuit, living and moving where I wanted, doing as I pleased. There are a few other harsh realities, such as a foregone marriage, but the divorce rate is so high I doubt I really missed out on much there.
Do I have any regrets? Just a couple. I also now see the horrific pressure put on people to live their lives the way somebody else thinks they should. That is one stinking poor way to waste time. My heart, but not my wallet, goes out to those men weak enough to have obeyed all the rules and who did what they were told when they were told. I feel empathy for you—I think you are total idiots—but I do feel empathy.
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