Welcome to Friday, Apexians. Before you head off to enjoy the first weekend of autumn (or spring, if you live in the southern hemisphere), I’ve gathered some interesting stuff for you to read.
Participating in your own rescue. [Money and Meaning] — “Financial independence is available to most anyone in this audience. It takes your participation too: caring about your personal finances, your life energy, your future self. You have to be willing to learn to be liberated. I recently heard a great phrase from the rafting community. They tell it to everyone: from world class athletes to the physically disabled: when you get tossed over (and if you raft long enough, inevitably you will), you have to participate in your own rescue. No matter how strong or weak you are, you have to actively help in your own salvation.”
How social media has supercharged our online-shopping addiction. [Bravely Go] — “with two clicks, you can be spending money on any social media platform. Much of our identity has become wrapped up in what we’re buying. And it’s exhausting. It’s bad for us. It’s bad for the planet and it’s bad for the world that we are bringing future people into.”
The return-on-hassle spectrum. [Of Dollars and Data] — “This is where so much online discourse goes awry. One party is focusing on one set of tradeoffs while ignoring others and vice versa. As a result, everyone ends up talking past each other rather than realizing that all of this comes down to personal preference. For this reason I’ve created the Return on Hassle Spectrum to help you decide which kind of investments might be right for you. Let’s look at that now.”
And lastly this week, here’s a nice article that encapsulates one of the core ideas I’ve taken from my recent exploration of Taoism.
The illusion of control. [More To That] — “I used to think of freedom as the ability to do what you want at whatever pace you choose. While I think that’s a solid start, I’m beginning to realize that freedom is less about doing what you want, and just allowing life to be.”
A younger me — hell, the me of two years ago — would dismiss this idea as ludicrous. But the J.D. of 2023 finds the concept liberating. Just allow life to be. Beautiful.
And that’s all I have for you this week. Jim will be back on Monday to share more stories about money…and everything else.