Money DOES Matter

I've been reading a lot of personal finance books recently since, now that I have a decent paying job, I figure some knowledge will help me better manage my assets. So yesterday, as I was sitting in Starbucks reading, I came to an epiphany (with the help of the book, Inside the Millionaire Mind).

Money Matters.

The author of the book, Harv Eker, brought up an interesting point which I will share from my own slant. People who say "money isn't important to me" are generally in a constant financial battle. Eker states that these people are broke which I disagree with. Ask any homeless person or begger on the street, and they will tell you how important money is to well being. These people are broke yet they understand the importance of money. Ask any tremendously wealthy person and they will also tell you how much influence money can buy in basically any affair. Go to the struggling middle class however and quite a few will say "I don't need money to be happy."

Au Contraire.

What they mean to say is "I don't need an obscene amount of money to be happy." Strip them of all their worth, left peniless, and I'm pretty sure each person would have a new appreciation for money. The problem is that we get stuck in this mundain "struggle" and become resentful of the one thing leaving us in this cycle, so we say that money isn't important. This perception is ironically what leaves us in the struggle. When things aren't important, we don't keep them around right? Subconciously, this devaluing of money is sabotaging our financial success.

Now I'm not saying that one cannot be happy without money. I'm just saying that money is one aspect among many, that contributes to general well being, and thus affects happiness.

"But Arun, I'm happy living the simple life!" Fine. I think I would be happy too. But I would be even happier living the simple life AND having a surplus of money that I could donate to building schools in Africa, or Cancer research or whatever. Money doesn't buy happiness, but happiness can sure be affected by its presence (or absence).

Warren Buffet is a great example of a great rich guy. He lives very modestly (I believe he lives in the same Nebraska home he purchased fifty years ago for $30,000), yet he recently donated some 31 BILLION dollars to Bill Gates Charity. Think about how many lives that 31 Billion is going to touch. I bet he feels great too!

That being said, I have decided to become obscenely wealthy. Sure, growing up I've always wanted to be rich but wanting to be something is much different than committing to be something. Rather than waiting for wealth to fall in my lap, I'm going to go get it. How you ask? Good Question. This is why I read books like "Rich Dad Poor Dad" and "Secrets of the Millionaire Mind." It's all about your "inner mind" (more on the power of the "inner mind" coming soon).

So this is the type of sfuff I think about while sitting at Starbucks. Last night it was realizing why money is actually important and thinking about the amount of things it brings us. No, it doesn't buy happiness, but it sure helps.

The Shout House

So for the first half of Thanksgiving weekend, I hung out here in San Diego while most of my friends left town. It was probably the laziest weekend I've had in a while full of eating and puttering around until Friday came along. My friend Heather was in town and invited me out to a bar in the Gaslamp District called the Shout House. As hard as it was to pull myself away from "Iron Chef" on Food Network, I got dressed and headed downtown.

It was ten bucks to get in, but it was well worth it! I had heard the Shout House was cool from a couple of friends but their descriptions didn't do it justice. It was seriously a LOT of fun! This isn't your average bar or restaurant. Basically, there are a couple of guys on stage playing dueling pianos, interacting with the audience and making raunchy yet hilarious jokes. The best way to describe it is a sort of fusion of Stand up Comedy, Music, and audience participation. Oh, and every song they play is an audience request which anyone can bring and place on one of their pianos at any time. (*Hint* the more cash you put with the request, the sooner it will get played.) The great thing is that they can play ANYTHING and get through every request before the night is over.

Well we nabbed a front row table soon after arriving and proceeded to booze and enjoy the show. The evening was pretty entertaining, but got even better when they requested two male volunteers. Me being the quiet and shy guy that I am immediately jumped up and voluteered myself to the applause of my table. After me and the other guy were on stage, it was announced that we were each representing our respective sides of the bar in a "Dance Off" to "I'm Too Sexy." YES! Anyone who knows me, knows that I have been known to bust a move or two, and relish the opportunity to Dance Off, especially with my side cheering me on. They started playing so I unbuttoned my shirt down (since I was too sexy for my shirt) did a little moonwalking across the stage. My side of the bar went wild and I clearly anhilated the competition! To my amusement, there was this like 55 year old lady front and center in the audience who was enjoying my show way too much!

Definitely a fun night. So if you're in San Diego, and want good, cheap, and very risque' entertainment, check out the Shout House.

Cone Olympics

As I fondly reminisce my undergrad days, many stories, some interesting, many not, pop into my head. This one in particular just happened to make its way into my head and I thought it would be interesting to share.

Well it was a typical "Hey lets go downtown to DTB (you guys in SLO know all about that bar) and party it up!" Since there is really not much else to do in SLO on a Saturday night, this part happened basically every week. Anyways the night continued in typical fashion except our crew of four eventually dwindled down to two as 2:00 am arrived. It was Aaron and I left to make the long (and I mean long) trek home. Now anybody who lives in SLO knows that walking from downtown to basically Johnson/Orcut is not exactly a short jaunt. The walk takes basically 45 minutes to an hour depending on how much you've had to drink.

About a mile from home Aaron and I encounter a construction zone with cones and gates everywhere…this was too good to pass up. We each picked our favorite cone and thus began the cone Olympics! Aaron claimed the first event by clearing more consecutive warning gates in the two handed throw. I followed up with a strong performance in the "long throw" and claimed victory in the "run-as-far-as-you-can-while-balancing-the-cone-on-your-finger-then-throw" event. Keep in mind this was all occurring in the middle of the street. Every time we saw a car coming we'd throw the cones into the nearest yard and dive out of sight behind some bushes. Yes, we had several close calls.

Finally, we had almost arrived home and it was time to compete in the last event. A vertical throw to clear the power lines. For anyone who's ever thrown a cone before (I'm guessing not many of you) you know they're actually pretty damn heavy. Well after about 30 minutes of failure we each consecutively cleared the lines AND without any power sparks! Alas, Aaron was the first to do so which meant the first ever cone Olympics ended in a tie…oh well…there's always next year :)

Myspace Commentary

This is the first blog I wrote over on myspace...

So I'm not much of a blogger (this is my first one) but as a somewhat frequent myspacer (as hard as this is for me to admit), there are a number of things which amuse/disturb me about the culture that has developed on myspace. To cover each one of these in but a single commentary would not only be boring for my readers (all two of you) but would be an injustice to each one of these idiosyncrasies I wish to address. So I begin…

Why is it that people feel the need to write "Thanks for the Add" when accepted onto someone else's friends list? This is seriously ridiculous. How many of you go up to your "real life" friends and say, "Gee, thanks for agreeing to be my friend, and further for letting me be on your list of friends!" If I request someone to be my friend, they had damn well better add me and are just as lucky to have me on their list as I am them. The word "thanks" is usually reserved for someone who does something beyond the norm or out of his/her way for you. Writing "thanks for the add," implies that the requestee has done something special by simply agreeing to have the requester on his friends list. Is it really that much effort to click on the "approve" button and have my face show up somewhere on your list? Adding me to your friends list is not beyond the call of duty…in fact, I EXPECT to be added when I make a request!

Will I get flamed for writing this? Probably. Will my friend count drop? Probably. Will I post another bulletin? I don't know (though I definitely have a lot of things I could rant about). Although as a side note, I have never had anyone write "thanks for the add" to me. Could it be that my myspace friends don't think I'm cool enough to warrant a simple "thanks" when it is so commonly passed around everywhere else? Nope, I just think my friends are confident enough not to write it. And if you have written it before, don't worry, we all make mistakes and it's not too late to change your ways. Lastly…I'm fairly confident that neither your luck nor your love life will be affected whether or not you repost this.

Your friend,

Arun

About this Blog

Your Daily Remedy is a collection of adventures, commentaries, rants, and advice by yours truly, Arun. I write a few times a week and try to share my most interesting experiences with all of you. Hopefully by reading this blog, you feel a little happier, a little entertained, learn something here and there, and most importantly, love ME!

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