Sight Unseen – Investing Time Or Money With Less Info

Intuition is a tool that most people have, but few people use wisely. I’ve made major life decisions on intuition more than once, fallen flat on my face a few times too, yet I never have regretted any of those decisions. Why?

Why do risk takers continue to take risks repeatedly after they’ve taken a 12 round ass kicking from life? I think it comes down to two major factors:

• Starting from rock-bottom. Whether you were born lower class or were raised with a silver spoon in your mouth and messed up severely, knowing where the relative bottom lies for yourself in relation to the rest of the world keeps risk and loss in perspective.
• A person must always have an idea of what they want. Yes, desire, drive, aspiration…. the people who take what they are given from authority figures are usually smart enough to realize that a lot of the “average” in life is a pre-determined, bullshit number that is profitable to some dark figure, but because they’re living off of what’s given, they’ll be content to exist and complain. The moment you stop saying “this sucks” and start saying “I want _____” you’re laying a path for yourself. Even if the path towards what you wants changes, there’s more momentum in pushing forward in the direction that you choose rather than hopping on the bandwagon with everyone else.

I keep these factors in mind when I’m faced with new challenges and options in life. I went to college and got in too much debt for my undergraduate degree because I believed it was worth it. It wasn’t worth it, but does that mean I’ll never further my education? No.

I moved to Madison, Wisconsin in good faith to work for a startup that could have been the next big thing in social networks for young people. That scenario didn’t happen and I got laid off after six months. Does that mean I’d turn down job offers from innovative startups in the future? Hell no, I’m still a sucker for a good idea and passionate people. Always will be.

Being able to stare in the face of uncertainly with nothing but a feeling of “this could be cool” to propel you forward takes a certain level of confidence or trust in yourself. It takes a willingness to plant a stake in the ground and declare, “this is what I want, I deserve this.” Then, you may not get what you want, but that’s cool if you’ve got a mental notepad and pen along with you to carefully track the occurrences along your uncharted paths.

Missteps in finance, careers or even love are all just blips in the time line of life if you live consciously. If you’re semi-detached from the relative drama of a situation you find yourself in, you can identify patterns and meaning in the actions of others and yourselves. Even the perspective of seeing how close you were or could of been is enough to keep people moving forward after getting knocked down time after time. You just need to keep your eye on the prize.