Weekend Reflections
Starting now, I intend to write a weekly post on this blog about my daily reflections throughout the week. I’m going to call it my Weekend Reflections series and I’ll try to put it out every Sunday.
Lily at The Frugal Gene inspired me with her daily gratitude journal for all 22,000 days until she’s dead. While my humor isn’t as morbidly dark as hers, she did inspire me to do something similar.
But mine will be somewhat different. It will probably be a collection of random thoughts that I found interesting. Some daily entries might look like a gratitude journal. On other days it may resemble a money diary. I will probably use this space to share something new that I learned from a recent blog post, podcast, or YouTube video. Kind of like a round up of sorts. Once in a while I may jot down different milestones that my baby daughter has achieved so that I can remember each event better.
I’m not planning to follow a specific structure. I’ll just go with the flow.
Why do it?
There are plenty of benefits to daily writing. Here are some of them:
- It may reduce stress
- Writing can help you organize your thoughts
- Gratitude journals can increase your level of happiness by allowing you to focus on the positive and the important things in life
- Journaling can help a person reflect on the present and live in the moment
- Writing things down can help improve memory
Weekend Reflections: 7/22/2018
Monday 7/16
A rare day in the clinic for me. 98% of the time I’m either working in the operating room or doing pain management procedures; therefore, I usually arrive to work in my usual causal attire (almost always basketball shorts and a t-shirt) then change into hospital-issued scrubs. Today, I actually had to dress up and look more presentable to patients.
While dressing up takes more time and effort, it’s fun to do once in awhile. I am grateful that I don’t have to dress up every day though. It saves me time and energy. And because I almost always wear the same thing (hospital scrubs) at work, I never suffer from wardrobe decision fatigue. It also helps that I have a minimalist wardrobe.
Tuesday 7/17
I read a great guest post by Budget Epicurean on Tread Lightly, Retire Early titled Pursuing a Zero Waste Lifestyle. Actually, the article was published the day before on the 16th. (Sometimes I’m late in the game of catching up on my favorite blogs.) That’s what happens when you’re busy at work and then you come home to a baby girl who wants all the love and attention you can give her. Anyway, the article was fantastic and I think it is wonderful that more and more people are aiming to live a more zero waste lifestyle.
It is sad that in our society, most people go through the motions of mindlessly consuming single-serving products only to throw them away without a second thought of where our trash goes. Many people do not realize that plastics are not biodegradable and not truly recyclable; they can only be recycled to inferior products. I know it’s unrealistic to expect everybody to reduce their yearly trash to the size of a small mason jar (like some hardcore zero waste advocates do). But if we all were a little bit more mindful of producing less waste, the world would be a better place.
Wednesday 7/18
About three times a week, my wife and I take the baby out and we take an evening stroll through our community parks. Today was one of those days. It’s a great opportunity to get some fresh air and vitamin D via the California sunshine. During these walks, we often talk about interesting things that come to mind. Today we talked about how grateful we are to have a healthy baby, but also how a part of us misses our old life. I hear that this is quite common. In our life prior to the baby, we had the ability to travel to so many exotic places. Unfortunately, this is no longer the case (and you know how much I love traveling). Imagine schlepping the baby in a carrier while trekking the Inca Trail. Yeah, not gonna happen.
Anyway, our discussion about traveling and mountain trekking in the Andes transitioned into me telling my wife about Accidental Fire’s article The Gift of Light on Kilimanjaro. It’s a beautifully written article with a cool video and an interesting ending. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone. You should just check it out and read it yourself. After hearing my retelling of the story, my wife agreed with Accidental Fire– gifts should be given freely and unconditionally, without expectations or strings attached.
Thursday 7/19
I feel blessed and grateful. I have a job that I enjoy. And when I come home, I have a smiling baby girl waiting for me to pick her up. Today, on the eve of being four months old, she reached a big milestone. She flipped from her back and on to her stomach! It was quite a struggle for her and she can’t consistently do it again, but she did it all by herself.
Prior to having a baby, I used to think time went by fast. Now, time seems to fly even faster! Our baby is growing so fast. Every day is different and I can barely remember what she was like during the first three months. Maybe I’m getting old and my memory is fading. Or maybe it’s the relative sleep deprivation. Whatever it is, I’m trying my best to live in the moment and appreciate her every single day. Tomorrow’s a new day and she’s bound to be different!
Friday 7/20
Another uneventful day at work. As an anesthesiologist, an uneventful day is a very good day! On my downtime, I had the chance to catch up on some blog reading. I consider myself a novice in the fine details of personal finance and investing, so I try to learn as much as I can. I try to learn something new every day. One article that I found interesting was Gasem’s guest post on XrayVsn titled A Modest Proposal for SORR Portfolio Insurance. I am not planning to retire (and therefore withdraw funds from my portfolio) any time soon. But when that time approaches, I’m keeping this article in mind.
Most people are familiar with the safe withdrawal rate (SWR). But is it that safe in a down market? The SORR (or sequence of returns risk) refers to the risk of withdrawing from your portfolio during a bear market and thus depleting your funds before the good returns show up during the market recovery. Gasem advocates for periodically rebalancing a diversified portfolio to reduce volatility and to save an extra 2x annual withdrawal rate in a risk free asset in order to be able to control the sequence as an insurance to SORR.
Gasem always puts out great comments that are funny and packed with helpful advice. If he doesn’t start a blog of his own, somebody should at least curate all of his guest posts and comments. Maybe XrayVsn or Crispy Doc will do this…
Saturday 7/21
Today, my parents just came back home from a two and half week long African safari trip. They visited South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Swaziland. All of these are places I would like to go to at some point in the future. My parents are retired and enjoying life. I am grateful (and privileged) to have parents who are financially responsible and who serve as great role models for me and my sisters.
Recalling Doc G’s article Are You A Good Financial Role Model?, we model a lot of our behaviors from our parents at an early age. This includes our financial behavior and habits.
My goal is to be a good role model (financial as well as all other aspects of life) for our kid(s).
Over to you…
How was your week? Learn something new? Do anything fun and exciting? Please share and comment. 🙂
Cool idea. I look forward to following along.
If you keep it up, your kids will love reading this some day.
P.s. Gasem easily has the most entertaining and pot-stirring comments of them all. Never a dull moment there!
TPP
Thanks! And yes, never a dull moment. Sometimes I LOL during downtime at work reading his comments!
Thanks for your reflections. When is Gasem going to write his own blog? Thanks for including my post.
That’s what I’m wondering too! But it seems as though he is content not starting a blog while continuing to post funny yet insightful comments on the blogs of others.
Great idea and I agree with TPP that one day your daughter is going to be able to read this and get a great perspective.
Appreciate the inclusion in your weekly reflection. Gasem definitely is a special mind and his comments and posts have always gives me a new perspective.
I actually have encouraged him to start his own blog but he prefers to leave it like this (and I am happy to always provide a platform for his thoughts). I have 2 more posts from him on the schedule so keep an eye out for them.
And yes time flies with a kid. You blink and they will be off to college before you know it.
Thanks, Xrayvsn! I look forward to reading more from Gasem. His perspective and knowledge is pure gold!
I love this idea for a new series! Looking forward to reading along. And looking forward to that guest post from you – I haven’t forgotten, just haven’t gotten around to emailing you yet 🙂
Thanks Angela! I know how busy we all can be, especially with the little ones! 😁
I’m so jelly of your life! Besides fortunate you guys are also very hardworking. Most of the seem to include your little girl. Perhaps you should have a splitzy journal of her, around her development!
I like the countdown! I think I’m the only one that likes the dead countdown though 😂😂
“But if we all were a little bit more mindful of producing less waste, the world would be a better place.”
Great message! I watched the new kurzgesagt video about plastic recently and felt pretty defeated. Its everywhere!
Aw thanks, Lily! Nothing to be jelly here 🙂
Funny how you mentioned having a journal around her development. Actually, my wife keeps a written journal to document her development every day. We even have a YouTube channel too, but it’s private and for family.
Yeah, it’s crazy how much plastic there is out there. It really is everywhere. We just don’t see it. As long as we are more mindful of this as a society, I think it’ll get better. That’s the optimist in me =)
This is a great idea. I like the idea of a personal daily journal. I agree that an uneventful day at work is a good day.
What about a weekly Gasem roundup post, entitled “Where in the blogosphere is Gasem?” Curate all the posts where he commented more than 1000 words. Haha.
“Where in the blogosphere is Gasem?” I love it!
Thanks for the inclusion and the thoughtful write-up Doc!
But of course, Accidental FIRE. And thank you for your inspiration!
I like the reflection format. Thank you all for the kudos. My advantage, if it is one, is I’m at the end of accumulation and near the beginning of portfolio deflation. I am dealing with things from a different perspective, but a perspective every one will come upon. Also I got to FI from a slightly different path. I’m sorry to barrage your blogs with my 1K word epic posts but I think they shed light and contrast and color, at least that is my goal. I wrote an engineering blog for a decade and found it to be too much of a task master. When I retired I bought back 100% of my time and now I’m jealous of giving any of it up. I like spending half an hour writing a reply, and zero time thinking about Google analytics. Fortunately some of my friends have kindly offered guest post status and space on their sites, so for me at least that is a win and hopefully generates a little traffic. I can spend a little time researching a topic, coming to a conclusion and writing the post and just publish it and have it accepted or criticized at face value. I think that’s how we all learn. I enjoy all of your blogs. I don’t go every day but at least every week. DMcF’s recent post on credit card hacking was fascinating. I just own a 2% cashback card but charge every dang thing I can. and pay it off monthly, a brain dead but cash generating approach. I do own the domain MDonFIRE so maybe I should curate my own replies. Wouldn’t that be a hoot, a blog dedicated to replies posted on other blogs!
Thanks Gasem! And btw, your 1K word epic posts are ALWAYS welcome. And you’re more than welcome to guest post on my site any time. In fact, I’d highly appreciate it! You have so much life experience (and an interesting one too) that I can imagine a post from you would be valuable to any reader from all walks of life.
In terms of credit card strategies, a 2% cash back card is all you need. If passive index funds represent the simple way to invest, cash back credit cards represent the simple way to earn a return on everyday spending. In fact, you’ll probably save A LOT more money on a 2% cash back card versus some other credit card where you have to spend a lot of money just to earn points/miles that often have very limited uses. Cash is fungible and cash is king!
It would be a total hot if you curated your own replies on MDonFIRE. A blog dedicated to replies posted on other blogs has never been done to my knowledge. It’s original and innovative!
Reflecting is one of my daily practices, i think it is so important to take a moment to journal, and get those pesky thoughts out down on paper. I had been doing it for a couple years before i started blogging, and i feel like it’s made blogging that much easier.
I bet you are a good role model… That’s all any of us can really aspire to be for our kids.
Ah, so that’s your secret to being an overall awesome guy! You’ve been journaling for a couple years… no wonder your blog posts are so well-written!
The funny thing is… throughout school (K-12 to college) I never really liked to write. Since it was usually homework, I found it to be an arduous task that I was obligated to complete. Now that I write for myself, I am finding it a lot more enjoyable. It’s still “not easy” for me… but I did find that once I started writing in a journal daily, the words flowed a bit more easily.
I can tell you’re a good role model for your daughter too. Nothing like having an awesome and financially responsible dad as a good role model!
I love this style of a weekly summary. It felt like I was following you around all week and actually reading the cool articles you came across.
As for your little girl, I feel the same way. She’s 2 now but everyday I am amazed by the little accomplishments even if they involve suckering me for some ice cream. Don’t give up your travel desires. We have gone to Paris, India and Hawaii with our little one and just booked a fall trip to Germany. They adapt to whatever you throw at them and you don’t have to feel like you are sacrificing.
I appreciate the compliment, Dr. Linus! I’m glad you like this style of a weekly summary.
You’re little one a smarty pants. Only 2 and already developing the negotiation skills to sucker her dad for some ice cream! And that’s really neat that you went to Paris, India, and Hawaii with your daughter. I’m particularly impressed by India. I would be so apprehensive in a place like India where the sanitary standards are lower and the healthcare seems less accessible.
At what age did you take your daughter on these trips? The funny thing is, we were also thinking about Paris and Hawaii too.
My wife was concern about the time change and throwing off baby’s regular routine. But you’re right, kids will adapt. Plus every day is different… so I’m sure throwing in a different place won’t be so bad, right? 🙂
What a wonderful post! Writing is wonderful for the spirit. Side hustles or not, this act of blogging has paid dividends already.
Thanks for sharing your week Dr. McF.
I can see why Gasem would not start a blog, But I think he should have a weekly link for us to find his musings.
Thanks again for stopping by, Dr. MB! Yes, blogging pays a lot of valuable, non-monetary dividends that are priceless.
And I whole-heartedly agree, Gasem should post his musings on his site!
What a fun idea for a series, and it will be extra fun for you to look back and read through them all in the future. Perhaps you can even share with the little lady when she’s old enough, a’la’My Sons Father MO. Thanks for including my article! Glad to spread the Earth-love.
Yes, that’s the plan. Once she’s a bit older she’ll be like “Oh that’s what my dad was like!” 🙂