I recently have had a reset of my schedule and motivation after back sliding for a number of months. Some may think it has to do with the fact that I took a vacation recently but I like to think it’s because I changed what I was consuming recently.
It’s very easy to fall back into bad habits that are comfortable for us. After over a year of getting up at 4am or 5am, working on my writing, taking care of my son, working and studying, I got tired. I started to slowly lurch back into bad habits: scrolling on social media, arguing on endless social topics, sending and consuming memes and coming up with excuses why I couldn’t study as much.
A few things have provided me with the motivation and given me a small push to get back on track. One was previous decisions I had made. The pandemic delayed my scheduled exam for the CFA level III until December and now with 3 months to go, it’s crunch time. The test is so long and comprehensive and based on thousands of pages of material, if I don’t hunker down and focus now, I know I won’t pass. Despite the fact that I have been given the option to delay again until next June I have decided to keep my date because I know it will challenge me in the short term. Knowing myself, I know that a deadline and a goal will push me to focus intently.
I have always been like this. My teachers noted when I was younger that I would achieve near perfect scores on some exams but the only questions I would miss were the easy ones. They noticed that I got lazy when there wasn’t a difficult question to tackle. I still notice this about myself to this day. While riding my bike through Central Park the other day, I noticed that after weeks of being at high altitudes I am able to keep up with some of the semi-pro bikers who regularly cycle in the park. However, going down hills and on straightaways, they tend to gain on me. I make up for that on the uphills. When it requires my focus and extreme effort, I always pedal harder and faster than everyone.
Current Reading
What has really helped me get back my focus and continue to push myself lately has been a book I have been listening to on audio by extreme athlete and Navy Seal David Goggins.
David is the only person to have completed Navy Seal, Army Ranger and Air Force Para-Rescue training. His story starts very humbly though. He shares his struggles of an abusive father in Buffalo New York and the racism and insecurity he felt when he moved to Brazil Indiana.
He also talks about his failures as an adult, enlisting in the Air Force but then getting out and drifting listless for a few years as an exterminator. He gets fat, depressed and divorced but starts to become obsessed with the idea of being a Navy Seal. So as not to spoil the book, his journey then takes him to extreme weight loss and overcoming immense mental challenges to qualify for the Seals. He later on discovers that there are even greater challenges than even the Seals when he gets in to ultra marathon running, one of the things he is now known for.
There are some things that I don’t relate to in the book, like when Goggins decides to power lift the night before a 100 mile race when he hadn’t ran for months. He readily embraces “knuckledragger” moments like these though and advises people not to follow in those type of footsteps.
There are other tendencies I relate to though. He mentions varying examples but Goggins seems to become obsessed with individuals who have overcome extreme odds. He mentions replaying particular scenes in Rocky hundreds of times, or clips of ultra-marathon or iron man athletes. In my own way, I understand this obsession. I think I have also become addicted to motivational stories and people like Goggins: normal people that have overcome extreme odds and pushed the limits of what we can expect from ourselves.
Much of his practical information I have heard before but it bears repeating. We waste a lot if time during the day. People come up with so many excuses as to why they can’t do something but similar to Gary Vaynerchuck, Goggins describes “auditing your time” to see how much time you actually waste on bullshit during the day. Both men come to the same conclusion: if you can accurately and honestly audit your time you may find that you have 4-5 hours a day to get other things done which enrich or better your life. Once you start to convert this time into something productive, you will find you don’t consume social media so much and don’t watch much TV. Being reminded of this has definitely helped me steer myself back on track in terms of my own habits.
Again, it comes back to what you consume. Dawdling half the day on click bait and social media will suck you into a spiral of negativity and subtle rage. This works for internet and media companies, keeping you insecure, scared and afraid keeps you checking on all these mediums to further validate why you should feel insecure, angry and afraid. There are people I know that I can tell just from their social media pages that they are experiencing psychological issues and need help but their preferred outlet seems to be sharing dark comedic memes with friends and people they don’t know. Those people laugh, subconsciously register this person’s personal pain and then move on. It’s an almost cruel form of personal yet impersonal connection.
Real Estate
To give one example of the contrasting narrative and how we can all end up in our own little bubbles or echo chambers, devoid of the wider reality around us, look at two headlines I came across recently.
Source: ZeroHedge
Source: New York Times
On the one hand, it seems that people are fleeing New Jersey because of what ZeroHedge says are terrible tax and anti business policies and on the other hand the Times is saying there aren’t even enough houses to keep up with demand in New Jersey, so who to believe?
In fact the ZeroHedge headline seems to come off as a repackaged headline from Bloomberg.
In this article, I had to laugh when they actually presented the data behind the headline.
I have no idea what the “moves into their household” category is supposed to represent but what I really saw was that 3.0% of people surveyed had actually moved. Within that 3.0% there is likely a margin of error for polling.
I know for a fact that Americans have become less mobile in recent decades and moves out of state are very uncommon. Of data available for the past 20 years, it has become increasingly uncommon to move in general, moving has fallen about 38% from 1998 to 2018.
Source: moving.com
In addition, of those who move, only about 15% on average move out of state.
Source: moving.com
Even this can be deceptive because it doesn’t give any context to how far “out of state” is. In NYC, out of state may mean you actually have a shorter commute whereas in California, moving out of state is a big deal. The Times noted this same lack of mobility themselves just last year.
In fact, New York in particular see’s a high level of people both moving in and out. In 2018 it ranked 3rd in terms of people moving out but 5th in terms of people moving in.
So if we were to assume that of the 3.0% who claimed to have moved during the pandemic the rate moving out of state was stable (which I admit is a big assumption) only 0.45% of people moved out of state during the pandemic, this is hardly a mass exodus.
Some people are moving yes and many for the pandemic. Couple this with the fact that there is an economic downturn and this changes the behavior of home sellers and you have a recipe for low inventory and potentially higher prices which seems to be what is driving the headlines.
So let me recap what seems to be actually going on. A small number of relatively wealthy people are choosing to either move out of state or to the suburbs because they can work remotely and want more space. This has come at a time when people’s jobs are less certain so current owners in these suburban markets are less likely to sell. This produces jumps in prices in some areas as well as a bump in moving stats. Some large cities may lose wealthy tax payers due to these moves but that assumes these trends stay stationary for the foreseeable future which is again, a big assumption. For now, just a small but larger than usual segment of people are moving away from large cities.
My Own Situation
There are always micro stories to any macro situation and I find it strange that I am in some ways positioned perfectly to benefit if this trend holds.
I own a large expensive home in a relatively cheap and warm weather suburban place while maintaining an extremely cheap and small home in a major metro area. Essentially, I have a physical hedge for the entire pandemic situation. If remote work becomes the norm, I have a large place increasing in value from which I can establish myself, as well as a pied a terre in a major economic center. If the trend doesn’t hold, I have a decent place I can rent and I stay in my small place while commuting.
It just goes to show that if you follow your own path, eventually events may work in your favor rather than against you. Who would have known my odd real estate footprint would actually start working to my advantage? Either way, I’m not holding my breath, I will continue to move forward pandemic or not knowing that there are new goals to tackle.
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