There's a chapter in my book called "Think ahead", and it has one of the most terrifying passages I've ever written.
"Now finally, imagine that you are one of the few who hits 100. If you are an esteemed family matriarch or patriarch, then maybe you are held with respect by multiple generations of your offspring and their offspring and their offspring’s offspring. Very few people make it past this point, but that moment of your death and the moments leading up to it are going to be defined completely by what you have built. If you have built relationships with your family over a lifetime, then you may be surrounded by loved ones in your final moments. Otherwise, you might be all alone. Starving. Freezing because you have forgotten how to pay the heating bill, or you just do not have the money for it. Living in squalor because you just do not have the energy to deal with the growing mess around you. You will reach out in those final moments for a reassuring hand that will never ever come, because you never built that."
"Now finally, imagine that you are one of the few who hits 100. If you are an esteemed family matriarch or patriarch, then maybe you are held with respect by multiple generations of your offspring and their offspring and their offspring’s offspring. Very few people make it past this point, but that moment of your death and the moments leading up to it are going to be defined completely by what you have built. If you have built relationships with your family over a lifetime, then you may be surrounded by loved ones in your final moments. Otherwise, you might be all alone. Starving. Freezing because you have forgotten how to pay the heating bill, or you just do not have the money for it. Living in squalor because you just do not have the energy to deal with the growing mess around you. You will reach out in those final moments for a reassuring hand that will never ever come, because you never built that."
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One thing that I've really come to realize is how important having a family is. In that chapter I'm not just talking about having a family, I'm talking about making sure that you are building a career, building relationships outside of family, building a home, building other reserves, because you need to be thinking ahead. Culturally, we are extremely shortsighted. We think that someone else is going to take care of it all for us, and that's just not true. Especially on a personal level, doing the right thing early pays off infinitely later.
I'm sure that everyone in this conversation knows somebody who is 30, 40, 50, and for the last however many years they've been talking about how they're going to go back to college and they're going to build a career and they're going to do this and they're going to do that. Fact is, you reach a certain point in your life and it doesn't matter anymore. It takes 40 years to build a 40-year career.
https://video.fbxl.net/w/11up92Vwb8asZqq3iAHY9g
I had a deep fake audiobook made, here is the chapter in question. Proceeding chapter was called "build something" and it talked a lot about the same ideas because I think it's the most important thing that we need to pass on right now. Pop culture values pretend to think ahead but don't. You're busy trying to save the world when they can't even save themselves.
I'm sure that everyone in this conversation knows somebody who is 30, 40, 50, and for the last however many years they've been talking about how they're going to go back to college and they're going to build a career and they're going to do this and they're going to do that. Fact is, you reach a certain point in your life and it doesn't matter anymore. It takes 40 years to build a 40-year career.
https://video.fbxl.net/w/11up92Vwb8asZqq3iAHY9g
I had a deep fake audiobook made, here is the chapter in question. Proceeding chapter was called "build something" and it talked a lot about the same ideas because I think it's the most important thing that we need to pass on right now. Pop culture values pretend to think ahead but don't. You're busy trying to save the world when they can't even save themselves.