Category: Money

Rocking Votes, Shaking Souls

Rocking Votes, Shaking Souls

As I make my way to the polling place to cast my vote in what has got to be the most fucked up election… possibly ever.

I feel like I am a bona fide grown-up. In all the ways that I don’t want to be.

Like many utopian millennial’s, I rooted for Bernie. And my little idealistic heart was broken when Hillary took the ticket. I thought there was no way we would end up with Trump as a real, viable, presidential candidate. But here we are. And for the last several months I have been struggling with coming to terms with “voting for the best OPTION” instead of “voting for who I want to be president” (full use of air quotes intended).

BUT I HAVE HAD AN EPIPHANY.

Like many of the utopian millennial’s I like to think that the world could be amazing and fair and balanced, that many of our society’s pitfalls could be changed and our country could be rad, I’m not the only one, a lot of my friends feel the same way. But what I have been missing up until this point- here. today. is the fact that it’s unrealistic.

I know that sounds harsh and I know that some of my homie’s are going to dispute that claim and that’s fair. But the truth is that as much as a utopian world would be better and would solve all the problems and in my mind would be the ideal situation, that is not the country nor the world that I live in. I do not have the luxury of voting for who I really “want” to be president. I have to vote for who I truly feel is the best option, out of the two options I have. 

As I go to the polls to cast my vote for a woman that I have believed in since I was a little girl. But whom in the meantime has become a political power-house. Hillary has changed in the last 20 years as much as I have changed in the last 20 years. And mind you 20 years ago I was just beginning puberty. Yeah. 

I respect Hillary. I know she will do a good job, and I like to think that she will be a great President. I love that my son is going with me to cast my vote in this ridiculous and historic election, and that he could see our first female President. But I still wish it was Bernie I was voting for.

You say “Failure” as if it’s a bad thing.

You say “Failure” as if it’s a bad thing.

Every time I tell someone I am renaming my blog to “Financial Failure to Money Maven” they make a sour face and say… (and they scrunch up the word)

“Failure?”

“Were you really a financial failure?”

Uh, well… yeah, I have had a house foreclosed on, I have had a car repossessed, if I didn’t hit the lottery with the most patient landlady ever I would have been homeless too.

But failure isn’t exclusively bad, in my opinion it’s somewhat essential. You need to fail, to lose, if you never fail you’ve never tried… expect failure, don’t accept failure, overcome it. I feel like I’m just naming off quotes…. from posters…

with a kitten…

hanging from a telephone line.

give up kitten
Also, sometimes true. If your ship is sinking, you need to jump ship.

I’m not telling you to be reckless or a defeatist,  small failures are good, large failures can be catastrophic, and avoiding the failures that happen due to poor planning is prefered. Failures are feedback. Failures show you how not to do …it.. whatever “it” is. BUT… even if you have bombed in life, in whatever way you bombed- it’s not the end of the world, either.

About two years years ago… if I was to speak on failure, it would have been a completely different narrative. I had reached a point where everything in my life was soggy, I was soggy, my marriage was soggy, my relationship with my kids was soggy, and I just felt stagnant and lame.

Sedentary.

I was afraid of failing (like most of us) until I was fortunate enough to be given an opportunity to explore crossfit. I was given a free membership (sponsored “athlete”), and with that gift I felt an obligation not to squander it.

So I went to the gym. a lot.

When I first started, I thought I was going to die, and I couldn’t do any of the things. In the workouts, they would say to do pull ups, and I couldn’t do a pull up. Do a handstand, I couldn’t do that, couldn’t do the box jumps, or the olympic lifts. So I had to change my mentality on failure, I had to adjust my paradigm. I had to embrace my failures as attempts at success.

I realized that in order to succeed at something, you HAVE TO TRY, like, that is the only real absolute requirement. And the first time you try, you’re going to fail, and if you don’t fail, you’re not pushing yourself enough or your goal is too low.

“In order to succeed at something, you HAVE TO TRY,

like, that is the only real absolute requirement”

This completely changed the way I perceive EVERYTHING. All the things.

This one little gym, this one crazy fitness trend, changed my life completely because I learned that failure is good.

That is where growth happens.

Growth happens within failure, you try something and it fails, so you re-assess the situation and you try it again…. and if it still fails you make any lingering, necessary changes and you see what worked and what didn’t work, and you learn and you grow, and you try really fucking hard. And this is the definition of self improvement! How do you improve without failing?

You don’t.

I mean, not really.

You won’t change and improve, if you only do things you know you can win. Well, actually, you will change- we are ever changing, whether we like it or not, but I doubt it will be the changes you are looking for. So, if you are afraid of failure… Afraid of trying, essentially, your progress will be limited. I’m not going to say you will or won’t make some progress, it could go either way. And if that’s good enough for you, right on.

But it is not enough for me.

I want progress, I want to learn and grow. I want to be the best version of me I can become, and I’m gonna fucking fail. probably a lot. I already have on an epic scale a couple times, (if you include marriages)… but fuck man, I’m learning. I am growing. I am improving.