I know it’s morbid to think about, but have you ever considered who you want to care when you die? I love it when I’m listening to a podcast, and I hear a ‘mic-drop’ one-liner that immediately gives me earth-shattering perspective. I was listening to an episode of the Tim Ferriss show when he was interviewing Morgan Housel where at minute 1:08:00 he says this:
And for the huge majority of people, the biggest financial liability that they have, it’s not student loans, it’s not a mortgage, it’s their desire and their need to impress other people. And I think that the way that you can cultivate this is realizing that those people are, A, by and large, not paying attention to you. They’re worried about themselves. The people who you think are looking at your car are not. They’re thinking about their own car. That’s a big part of this, or the other part of it is there’s probably seven people in my life who I want to love me, my parents, my wife, my kids, one or two friends that I would say I really desperately want them to love me. It’s really important that they love me and that’s it.
The other 7.99999 billion people on the planet, maybe I would like you to like me, but that’s about it. Once you realize that, then it’s like I want seven people to really respect and admire me, and I’m going to put all my effort into that, and everyone else, I really don’t have much care about. I think, once you accept that, that’s a huge relief off your shoulders.
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What Morgan Housel said resonated with me because I feel the same. And it took me a long time to embrace that, i.e. only caring about the people who really matter to me. When you finally reach 100 years old (or more, hopefully!) and you’re on your death bed, are you going to care about the 800 likes you got on an Instagram reel 40 years earlier? Or are you going to care that your kids love and respect you? For me, it’s definitely the latter. So, if that’s the case, why don’t we live in that way in the present then? Why do so many people care about other people and their opinions and their things when at the end of the day, or life, it really doesn’t matter. I’ve heard this often, but I think the originator of this quote is Dave Ramsey: “we buy things we don’t need to impress people we don’t care about.”
The same is true with our addiction to attention through social media. For example, why is there always a phone between you and what your child is doing? Have you ever put the phone down, locked eyes with your kid and just watched their music recital without a phone between you two? I know you’ll say you want to record it so you can have it for later or watch it later, but will you? Or are you recording it and posting it to social media so you can show everyone what a great parent you are for attending your kid’s thing? If it’s the former, then go the extra mile, bring a tripod with you, set it up, get the right shot, then hit record, sit down, and watch the recital without a phone in your face. Locking eyes with your kid and making them feel that you are engaged and present means exponentially more to them than the 200 likes from people you don’t even know who really don’t care about your kid’s recital (as much as you do, anyway). But your kid will know that you care. Because you engaged and gave your undivided attention to them. And on your death bed, that’s what you and your kid will remember. Not the popularity contest of posts and likes.
One-liners like Morgan Housel’s remind me of what matters most and what I need to continue to put my energy into. When I die, I want my husband, my two kids, my family, and my closest friends to love and respect me. That’s it. I know not everyone likes me or will like me, and I realize I do have RBF a lot, ha! but that’s ok. I want to die knowing that at my core I was a good human, kind, loving, and loved by those I care about most. I feel like I’ve done a lot to take action on this front this past year.
For starters, I made a huge, conscious decision to no longer “live to work” or go for the next promotion or climb the corporate latter or collect more titles, but rather to free myself completely from being dependent on a paycheck as soon as humanly possible. Why? Because I want time with my family. I want more memories and quality time with my kids while we’re all still young and healthy. So, as long as everything goes according to plan, that date for financial freedom is February 28, 2031, just shortly before my 51st birthday. I recently told my boss at work about my decision. He was speechless. Especially since he knows how ambitious and driven I am. But once I realized what is truly important to me in my life, it was easy to prioritize financial freedom over corporate success. Don’t get me wrong. I still love my job and am still committed, engaged, and dedicated to my work. I just don’t care anymore about moving up. I care about doing something meaningful at work and doing it well while I’m at work…until I’m free.
“I wish I would have worked more.”
-said No One, Ever.
To keep this long-term goal front and center on the daily, I have broken it down into smaller goals and daily tasks to keep me active toward the bigger prize. I track those daily tasks in an app called ToDoist. While I don’t look at my bank accounts and net worth every day, I am doing something every day to work toward financial freedom, whether it is categorizing our expenses, choosing ways to save money versus spend, like prepping/cooking more meals versus eating out, or putting things I want to buy on my ’72-hour wait list’ before purchasing. Using the 72-hour wait list has helped me a ton to reduce impulse buying of stuff I really don’t need. I also prepare and run our family monthly finance meeting which summarizes our current net worth, shows how far we are from our financial independence number, and shows our expenses month over month including an analysis of where can improve. Our whole family discusses this monthly, so we all stay on top of our uber goal and work as a team to get there. Just by tracking and measuring our financial situation, we’ve increased our savings rate by 35% and increased our net worth by 16% in just 5 months!
Other small things I’ve done to focus on the people I care about most is include recurring tasks in ToDoist like: spend quality time with my kids every day, text or phone a friend every day, be nice to my husband every day, ha! I know it sounds silly to have to remind myself of these things but as we know, life is busy, one day turns into 3 and before you know it you haven’t called your best friend in 6 months or said anything nice to your husband in a week!
We already have a rule of no phones at the table and I’m adamant about eating dinner together as often as possible. But one thing I want to get better at is the conversation at the table. We use conversation starter cards, which is a great way to get to know better how your kids think, but I’d love to deepen those conversations more. Especially as my older son starts going through puberty and naturally starts pulling away from us. I’m terrified of losing the connection to him. I didn’t want to have anything to do with my parents at that age and didn’t “come back” to having a more normal relationship with them until I was probably 20, yikes! I don’t want that to happen between my kids and me.
And especially nowadays where there are numerous articles and research that show smartphone addiction in parents is hurting childhood development and relationships between parents and their children. Researchers at the University of Cambridge discovered that “making eye contact with an infant makes adults’ and babies’ brainwaves ‘get in sync’ with each other – which is likely to support communication and learning.” A deliberate gaze into your child’s eyes genuinely puts you on the same wavelength! It all goes back to what really matters. The brainless scrolling on social media to kill time or the need to immediately respond to a text or email—even at the dinner table—versus putting it away and truly connecting with your loved ones in the moment.
Technology, and our addiction to it, has damaged our society’s social capital and creates isolation and loneliness. How backwards is that? Social media has created a more isolated and lonely society. And years later when our kids are grown up and out of the house and we are the ones begging them for their time and attention, we’ll look back on these times and realize we missed our chance to connect with them on a deeper level. We’ll look back and realize we missed the opportunity to spend quality time with them without screens and likes and reels and stories. And we’ll be sad. At least I would be.
I don’t want to live in regret. Think about the ones you want love from the most. Are you doing all you can to strengthen those relationships in the now? Keen to hear your thoughts: [email protected].