In your youth, did you ever do the splits or take on a physical task where nervousness or confidence or impressing someone got the best of you and you spent the next few weeks in bed with a pulled muscle? We’ve all done this. Was it worth it? Usually never.
We do this in daily life.
You may stretch your finances to buy a home that isn’t affordable or might stretch to fit into an old pair of pants instead of buying new ones or stretch to please your friends, work, family and roommate. Do we recognize when we’ve been stretched too thin?
While working in SF for a few years, I stretched myself very thin but I learned my limits. Stretching every day your body and mind will take you to new levels of flexibility. Anyone who has just become a parent or perhaps lost their live-in partner will feel the stretch when it comes to money and time. I learned what my body could take when working long hours in SF.
While talking to a colleague, he told me that he overworked himself in his 20s but learned the lesson of what his body could take before getting sick so it was valuable. I feel the same way about the schedule of studying, work, networking, travel and exploring SF while maintaining a full time relationship with Laura. It was difficult. I also laugh at the psychological smoke screen I gave myself in blog posts like this one.
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Since my move, I’ve been stretching more.
I’ve made commitments that I can’t keep. My goals and planning have gotten the best of me. I moved to New Hampshire with a few goals in mind that haven’t really been spoken out loud yet. These are 2010 goals and today is November 1st.
- Continue losing weight. My goal of 220 pounds (the weight I moved to SF at) is still 30 pounds away.
- Save $1,000 per month. Completely possible with lowered cost of living in NH.
- Learn to play guitar. Guitar bought. Lessons pre-paid. Must schedule.
- Buy a new iMac. Jeez, I really need a home computer. I can’t even begin.
- Buy a new car OR fix up current car (new snow tires, heating, tune-up, new stereo, engine work)
- Buy winter clothes, skiing gear, snow shoes
- Buy a dog. I’ve gone dog shopping but travel has kept me from buying one.
- Take care of some medical stuff. It’s personal / private but i’m in dire need to take care of these things
Out of everything listed above, only the guitar and lessons is something I’ve put some time into and, even then, I haven’t actually taken lessons yet.
The fact that it’s already snowing in New Hampshire means the car will naturally be the first thing on my list but, somehow I lost sight of nearly everything here since my move began and I still have another week in Amsterdam before I return. I’m not sure what came over me in this whole travel fit. Seriously, it’s rather insane when I look at Tripit.com for the past and future months. Let’s do a quick recap beginning in August:
Past Travel (starting in late-July)
- New Hampshire for new job interview (3 days)
- Florida for vacation w/ Family (5 days)
- New Hampshire to move there and start a new job
- Boston for work (3 days)
- Concord, MA for work (2 days)
- Columbus Ohio for work (4 days)
- Las Vegas for Blogworld (6 days)
- Concord, Ma for work (2 days)
- Amsterdam for work (14 days)
Future Travel:
- New York City for Thanksgiving (4 days)
- Boston for a concert / sightseeing (3 days)
- Florida for Christmas (5 days)
- SF or Vegas in January for CES or TechCrunch Crunchies (4 days)
- SF for macworld – pending (4 days)
- Austin for SXSW in mid-march (5 days)
There’s other travel that may pop up like a weekend in DC or or NYC and hopefully another trip to Miami in March for Ultra music Festival / WMC during spring break. I’ve traveled more in the past 2 months than I have in years and it’s taking a toll on my ability to complete the growing to-do list for 2010.
Business trips can be expensed but I think this goes without saying but just being in another country, museum visits, tourist things and drinking with locals are not things any honest employee would expense so the days/weeks I’d be sitting at home, saving money and focusing on my goals (new car, new winter clothes, saving money) are actually spent out in new cities where of course I want to explore so I’m spending money over budget which is a real bummer.
My guitar lessons goal was thrown off, money for a new iMac was thrown off and buying a dog was thwarted and I don’t see a time when I’ll be able to do that. I commissioned a redesign of my blog (what do you think?) but wasn’t able to really communicate well with the guy since I was traveling so much and can’t pay on time since I’m not in the country and Paypal fees are too high for large transfers. I’m phoning my landlord from oversees asking if I can wire the money since it’s the 1st and I can’t get it to him until the 8th.
If any of my colleagues are reading this, it’s not about the work travel that has me down. Don’t misread my post and to those readers who have kids or are tight on funds, please don’t mock me by saying, “boohoo, i get to travel all of the time and my life sucks.” That’s not the point of this post. I’m illustrating that some goals just aren’t possible when you live a life on the road. Why I promised my friend I’d do sightseeing in Boston or Thanksgiving in NYC is beyond me. I look forward to those trips but now that I’ve been on the road for a month, any future travel just makes me exhausted. I just want to be back in my office, sitting at my chair and working normal hours and cooking meals at home and going for bike rides.
Stretching.
I think things are pretty thin right now. I don’t think I can stretch much more. I had goals for this year (dog, car, skiing, relaxing time at home, weight loss) but being on the road cancels all of those out big-time. I could simply never leave my hotel on these travels and do as I would do at home which is read and watch TV and work out and save money but it’s hard being in europe staying indoors. I do have a confession. I only went out 3 nights so far while in Amsterdam. Mostly, I’d go home at 5 and be in my hotel. I’m finally saving money but at the expense of missing a lot and not seeing everything that I could in this town. A lot of friends back home laughed when they heard I spent Friday at 5PM – Saturday at 7PM in my hotel room only leaving to get a sandwich but that’s how I’m saving money while here. Going out does mean spending a bit of money.
I’m okay with not seeing it all because I’d rather have more resources do be great at my job and save up for a car than talk with locals at a bar or browse photos of Van Gogh.
It’s best to test yourself. How thin can you make it before you break? But don’t lose sight of the goals, focus, achievements and what’s valuable in life. Never stretch too much because things can get out of control pretty fast.