Priority – noun – a thing that is regarded as more important than another.
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Priorities are interesting things. They all depend upon the current moment.
Some priorities can span decades, filling in the years of our lives with a comfort and certainty that makes us feel like we’re traveling down the right road in life. They’re like a warm promising hand patting us on the back with the solace of answering a difficult test question correctly.
Confident. Assured. Destined.
Like a loving spouse or devoted pet, they match our steps through this murky existence stride for stride – supporting us, complimenting us, affirming us.
However, some priorities aren’t as lucky as the ones above. They don’t get to experience the luxury of longevity. These are the hard choices that must be made with real living, in real time. One breath to the next, doesn’t guarantee another. These priorities can shift with the turning seasons, the month, the week, the day, the hour, the minute… or even seconds.
Find yourself facing a life and death situation in which a split-second choice must be made – do I save my life, or that of another?
How will you react in the moment? What will be your priority?
Hopefully none of us are ever faced with such a harsh and cruel decision, yet that’s a reality we can easily stumble upon – just one ripple in a sea of many.
I’ve always found priorities to be like the weather. They will constantly change based on the challenges facing us. Although we might be trudging through a rainy day, the blue sky still exists above the surface elements, much like life, the goal is to keep on living, survive to breathe another day, no matter how difficult or despondent our journeys become, there will always be blue sky waiting for us on the horizon if we can see it through. Each dawn brings its own unique challenges, but the goal remains the same.
Persevere. Balance. And golden sunshine will greet us once again my friends.
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I had an interesting week that’s thrown me for a loop. It’s been a bumpy ride to say the least. Some substantial highs that brushed the ceiling of contentment along with some contrasting lows that scraped the bottom of the barrel.
Yet, that’s how these loose ends of jumbled emotions and feelings tangle themselves out.
One day I need an umbrella, and the next merely sandals to cross paths with the sun.
The weather’s always changing.
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Friday (October 8, 2021) – Monday (October 11, 2021)
Two weekends ago I attended CampFI Southwest in Julian, CA.
This was (technically) my second in-person financial independence event since beginning this blog in late 2019. My first was a local screening of “Playing with Fire” in LA, but that was more show up and watch the film, not so much hang out and talk, so I don’t necessarily count that one.
I’m not going to get into the details because I’ll have a full write up post coming out whenever I get to it over the next several weeks.
But what I will say is this – if you have been wanting to discuss your FI journey with like-minded people in person, this is the event for you.
My priority in attending was 100% curiosity, and overall, I was glad I went. After writing for over two years, and never getting to interact face to face with someone that understood what I was talking about, it was fun to meet a wide range of people (at least for my weekend) pursuing the same goals and alternative lifestyles, as well as hear their own journeys and challenges facing them.
It was an inspiring, motivating, but also exhausting weekend. I even talked the wife into going. Hahahaha. She was pretty fucking nervous at first and questioning if there would be some really weird people. But she survived! I’ll try to include a little of her perspective as well from a reluctant spouse attendee.
More to come in the future…
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Tuesday (October 12, 2021)
This was my first day back at work after CampFI, and it was one of those brutal corporate beatdown days in which it takes every ounce of your being not to scream fuck off to your employer and quit on the spot.
Yeah, it was that bad. Pummeled by the fists of “the man” until I was lying flat as a pancake.
After enjoying a nice weekend with like-minded individuals, sharing our life stories and plans to claim back our time, I couldn’t have stepped into a more opposite situation. My priorities had shifted from an inquisitive life curiosity to trying to dull my senses as to how much stupidity and incompetence I could endure before gouging out my eyes and cutting off my ears.
Some fun highlights were after killing myself to save two large projects prior to my four-day weekend, my boss told me upon my return he was disappointed I hadn’t finished a small tracking spreadsheet before I left on my mini vacation. Yeah, a tracking spreadsheet, a few rows and columns in excel that an 8-year-old child could make, yet this was some corporate life and death shit.
I reminded him how he had said prior to my departure, it wasn’t a top priority, yet he decided to practice convenient corporate executive amnesia and take it out on me. Whatever. Bite my tongue and live to fight another day.
Then our division president had a meltdown on a call with his entire team (entirely due to his own lack of leadership and managing ability – it continually blows my mind what utter incapable imbeciles fill the ranks of corporate America, it’s almost an insult to anyone who breaths and blinks their eyes), screams at everyone in a fit of rage and then hangs up. I have to date, in my over 17 years of corporate experience, never seen something so childish and unprofessional.
A full-fledged embarrassing adult temper tantrum.
Yet, so goes the business world – the hurts and insecurities of men are brittle, volatile things.
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Thursday (October 14, 2021)
After 1.5 years of waiting, twiddling our thumbs like a sleeping Rip Van Winkle and patiently complying with a broken system, we were finally approved as foster parents in Los Angeles County.
It felt surreal, shocking, and that almost anti-climactic denial that comes with something you have waited so long for that you begin to believe will never happen. You’ve faced it with a resigned acceptance for so many continuous defeated months that it’s hard to process the sudden turn of events.
However, less than four hours after receiving our approval, the first call came.
Her voice was gurgled, crawling through the phone’s speaker as if from a great distance. Each syllable one hand stroke after another pulling itself along the telephone wires like a dangling climbing rope.
But there was no mistaking her words, urgent, grave. Binding and final like a hammer on the refrain.
“We have a four-day old baby boy in the hospital going through withdrawals… addicted to meth… will you take him?”
The weather changed.
My priorities shifting like the sun hiding behind clouds.
The pointless spreadsheets, maniacal boss and day job trivialities contrasting with my own obsession with freedom, financial independence and personal fulfilment, all fell away like unstable ground crumbling beneath my feet.
It was one of those moments that slapped you in the face and made you question if you had been entirely wrong from the start.
I always knew corporate American wasn’t in line with my values, but it was a necessary means to an end. But maybe that had never been true. Maybe I had simply chosen to bury my head in the sand and let superficialities claim my time instead of truly making a difference.
Were my priorities all wrong?
How lost was I? And will I ever be found?
I don’t know.
Yet it was an awakening.
Just another compartment in the cupboard of life.
Priorities. Priorities. Priorities.
Shifting with the seasons. Shifting with the daily weather.
And the decisions never get any easier.
-Q-FI
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We were not able to foster the baby mentioned above, which is why I am sharing this (these situations are fluid, difficult, emotionally draining and beyond complex – courts, laws, medical difficulties, trauma, parental rights, visitation rights, extended family). Due to privacy laws, I am unable to discuss in detail what our current fostering situation is. This is in order to protect the biological parents as well as the children. However, the effect the process has had on my priorities remains the same and I’ll most likely be writing about the challenges in a more general sense in the future (when I find the need or energy). The magnitude of trying to assist an innocent child from drugs or domestic violence, puts my past addiction struggles to shame. I never imagined how eye-opening and life changing this process would be for myself.
So I ask you, what are your real priorities in life, and how did they come to be?
Good luck riding the rollercoaster of life, Q-FI.
When the bosses behave like children, and the children have the problems of adults, life can seem pretty messed up. Just remember that their problems don’t have to be your own, choose your own perspective, and focus your own scarce precious energies on the things that are important to you. The rest you can just fake, phone in, or allow to blow over.
Opening your home to children in need is super generous, I can only commend you and your wife for helping those kids when they need it most. Well done.
Thanks Indeedably. Some days I’m better at leaving work behind than others. Just when I think I’m doing a good job at disconnecting is usually when I’ll fall back into caring too much and allow it to ruin my day. Perspective has never been an easy thing for me to master. But like you say, put the energy where it can do the most good for you.
At least it’s a nice notion in theory… haha.
I’m treating fostering much like my addiction, one day at a time. We are two adults with means and privilege, so we’ll try to do what we can. I struggle with discussing it, because on one hand it feels too much like virtue signaling, but on the other hand it has become such a large part of my life, that to ignore it wouldn’t be honest.
Thanks for the comment bud, much appreciated.
Congrats on opening your home and welcome to the first placement experience. It does have an effect of shifting your priorities.
Thanks man. I’ll hit you up and we’ll talk about it once I get my bearings. It reminds me of one of those things in life that there is no preparation for. You just jump in the deep end and try to figure out how to swim. I had no idea how difficult it would be. A good support structure is definitely imperative.
Wow great piece. Such an honorable choice to take in a child on a moments notice. Talk about a jarring shake up and instant paradigm shift. I’m sure you’ve mentally prepared for the moment but having the real thing happen, and so suddenly, must have been such a mix of emotions. I can imagine there’s no preparing for it. Not the mental part of it anyway.
Yeah the ups and downs of work and life are pretty incredible. Work is especially tough because it’s such an artificial environment, yet provokes such strong emotion because we’re so invested. I know you’ve talked about this in previous posts. Work has the ability to make us feel so good and so low…it’s almost like a relationship with a person. There’s a thin line between the love and hate of employment. Can’t live with the idiots at work and can’t live without ‘em sort of thing. I think knowing that it’s a temporary and ever shifting environment helps in getting over the bad days at work and taking the good with a grain of salt.
Keep grinding.
Thanks Noel. It was a bumpy week… haha.
Yeah, both the wife and I are processing as we go. Honestly, it’s hard to even put into words. There’s excitement, but I’ve more been scared out of my mind than anything. But that’s what happens with uncomfortable situations I have no experience with. Also, the system itself is so fucked up that it’s half the battle. But we’re grinding.
Work is definitely like being in an abusive relationship… haha. Things are great when they’re good, but when they’re bad, shit still fucks you up when you know you shouldn’t care. Great line describing it, “it’s such an artificial environment, yet provokes such strong emotion because we’re so invested.”
I try to keep a level head, but there’s just something ingrained in me that when I see double standards and people being taken advantage of, it still gets under my skin.
Thanks for the comment man.
I remember at my first real corporate job I was in a meeting where the discussion was about ‘priorities vs values’ and we were asked if we thought safety was a priority or a value. Ugh I get a little nauseous just thinking about that… Anyway the difference between priorities and values is that your priorities can change, but your values never change, so safety is a value. In all fairness this was working for a mining company so safety was necessarily a big deal. Still though I distinctly remember this was my first sip of the corporate kool-aid… a flavor that was cloyingly sweet, with a noxious aftertaste, like sugar covering up a slow working poison, not strong enough to kill outright, but toxic enough to slowly weaken the mind and soul if you kept coming back to it.
I really hope you can find a child to adopt, congratulations and good luck. That is a path my partner and I are considering too.
Hey Dominic. Corporate America is definitely not for everyone. It’s always been a conundrum for myself. It has enabled a life of means and prosperity on one hand, but at what personal price or cost? I’ve bitten my tongue over many things I’ve disagreed with over the years in order to keep my job. Whether right or wrong, this is the path I’ve followed and will finish up barring any unforeseen catastrophe. There’s just too much sunk cost for me to make a major change at this point (at least in my eyes).
Great perspective in this comment. I would respectfully disagree a little that priorities change while values do not. At least in my personal experience, I have very different values now at the end of my thirties than I did in my twenties. Time and experience have a way of shifting our perspective and taking us down new roads we never thought we’d be traveling.
I appreciate the kind words on adoption. I’d whole heartedly recommend you look into fostering or the foster to adopt path with your partner. We stumbled upon it while researching private adoption and after attending a random orientation realized this was something we could at least attempt and try to help a child in need. It’s not for everyone (the system, parents, trauma, etc. is complicated), but I’d at least recommend sitting in on an orientation/training just to learn more.
Best of luck in your own family journey.
have you ever heard of the old saying that regards your workplace? Illegitimi non carborundum. don’t let the bastards grind you down! it’s just work. try as we may i think we all fall victim to having it affect us and i suspect it only gets worse the higher up the food chain you go.
congratulations on getting approved, q! that’s outstanding news. you’ll figure it out as you go i’m sure. i’m not sure i could talk mrs. smidlap into attending one of those FI events with me. not even sure if i could talk myself into attending but i’m glad you kept an open mind and went.
for a long time my priorities were extracting as much fun out of this life as it would offer. with no family left on my side they now include seeing us happy in our present situation. so far, so good.
Yeah. I know Freddy. For all my fucking perspective raving on this blog, you’d think I’d have a thicker skin by now. Hahaha. I don’t think I’ll ever get down pat not caring until I finally leave corporate America behind for good. The other thing I’ve found, which is probably similar to your case, the closer you are to not needing a job, the harder it is to stay engaged. The F-it’s just take on a life of their own… haha.
Thanks for the congrats. We’re excited to be progressing in our family journey.
I’ll say CampFI’s are definitely not for everyone, and my wife was a trooper… haha. But you’ll see in my write-up how things played out. I had originally signed up pre-COVID, but then it was canceled and rolled over to the next year. Which, after not writing about FI all the time I wasn’t too hot on going, but it turned out to be a good time. Plus, it was something I normally wouldn’t do, so it was good to get out of my comfort zone.
Keeping happy should be all the priorities we ever need… =)
Congrats at getting approved to be foster parents. That’s pretty f’ing amazing. I’m certain it was an arduous journey into the CA state bureaucracy and glad you’ve made it to the other side. Now, like you shared, things get real (real fast as well it seems). I’ll be interested to see updates on how things progress.
“Corporate amnesia.” Man, I forgot (hehe) how much I despised that shit. Even when I had saved emails or whatnot. I do not miss that at all!
Looking forward to the FI conference post. Never been to one, but hoping my keynote speaker application for next years’ “SmidlapCon” gets approved.
Hahahaha… that’s one of the best lines I’ve ever seen, “but hoping my keynote speaker application for next years’ “SmidlapCon” gets approved.” That had me ballin’. And yes, that is on my list to attend one of these years.
It’s good to be through the system. But now we’re in the system. It was it is. But I appreciate the congrats.
Oh man MF, it’s as I’ve mentioned in almost every comment, I’m trying to be better at not letting work shit get to me, but I continually struggle with it. When so much of your day is tied up in these pointless and insignificant battles, it still bleeds over and affects my mood. Oh well, just keep trying the clock keeps ticking in my favor for freedom.
Thanks for the comment my man!
Congrats on the adoption approval…I despise work so much these days and being in AA all these years I’m wondering if my Higher Power, the Universe, God is trying to tell me something. Pain has always been a motivator for me; I wouldn’t have sought out sobriety if I was not in pain. I identify with all the comments on work… it’s so artificial, phony but it’s a means to taking care of my family, living a better life??? ps- you know work is pretty shitty when you hope La Palma island volcano collapses and causes a tsunami on the east coast of the US. Just jokin I think.
Thanks Glincoln.
Hopefully your FI departure from work is creeping up sooner than later… haha.
Yeah, my jobs been getting considerably worse every year. The pain is high, the pain is real, but as you point out, it has been a means to a “better’ life.
So, when you start daydreaming about the savior of calamity, might be time to hash out that plan B… haha. Although some good indulgence now and then, is entirely normal in my opinion. We’ve all done it!
Here’s to hoping your work situation improves along with mine. Thanks for sharing Glincoln.
I did a foster to adopt through LA County of my ex-stepdaughter’s child (not that a stepchild ever becomes an ex, just as a way of explaining the relationship). The County bureaucracy is difficult, as are some of the social workers. But some are great, just doing the best they can within the rules of the system. Anyway, I LOVE that kid and it was worth every minute of bureaucratic frustration. Good luck with the process!
Thanks AP and glad your foster to adopt journey has worked out! I can imagine with my own placement, even if it doesn’t work out long term, it’s still been worth every minute.
And like you say, it all depends with the system – which social worker you get, what the individual case circumstances are, etc. Ours has been kind of a nightmare but I’ve talked to other couples who didn’t have such a hard time.
I’ve been patient and rolling with the punches, but it’s definitely challenging and exhausting. Learning. Learning and more learning is the catch phrase… haha.
Thanks again for the comment and well wishes. I never thought I’d get a comment on here from another foster parent in LA! Small world… such, such a small world.