Posts Tagged ‘plan’
What am I doing?
I had a singing lesson today and I feel just as lost as I did two days ago. What am I doing? I feel like I am pinning all my hopes of a career as a singer on this one audition. Ben is telling me to be positive, focus on the audition and do the best I can. To an extent that is exactly what I am doing but where do I draw the line between believing in myself and my abilities and over committing to the one idea? This isn’t a sure thing. I might not get in. I’m not being negative, I’m being realistic. What is the back-up plan?
I feel as if I have no direction, no safety net, no plan, no idea of anything! I’m really confused about everything. The worst part is I can’t really talk to Ben about it. Every time I say that I am worried he just says “Don’t be! There is nothing to worry about.” If I say “But what if I don’t get in?” He immediately jumps to the conclusion that I have given up already and I have resorted to a mindset of negativity. I honestly haven’t but I am not going to sit naively thinking that everything in my future is laid out nicely because it’s not. There is a very real possibility that I won’t get in just as much as there is a real possibility that I will get in.
I’ve lost my stability is the problem. I don’t have a job, I don’t have a course I’m studying and I don’t have anything on the horizon except an audition that may or may not go ahead. This sucks. I feel happy one moment and very confused and lost the next.
I need patience….and a plan.
Today I met the smartest PE teacher I have ever met. I know that that statement in itself sounds redundant, as the old saying goes “Those who can’t do, teach. Those who can’t teach, teach PE” but he had a plan for his life, one which he was living with great vigour and was happy to share with those who would listen.
The plan went like this:
Every pay date he would put 20% of his pay into a separate account which could not be accessed. He would work at a school for five years teaching quite happily but then every five years he would take a year off, open that account and live off a full years salary for a year. In that year he could do whatever he wanted, even work if he wanted, but more often than not he would take the money and relax. Here was the smartest PE teacher I had ever met.
The plan is simple. Instead of living within your means, live just below it. Too many people even after receiving a pay rise still find themselves at the end of their pay week completely broke and looking back on what they spent their money on and finding they have regretted their purchases.
Another thing I noticed about him was that he was the youngest looking 57 year old I had ever met. He still had the passion to teach and had not allowed the years of putting up with teenagers, parents and other teachers crap wear him down.
This plan might not work for everyone but it was working for him. Here was a man who was taking control of his life and doing what he wanted to do instead of what everyone expected of him. He is still able to do all the things a man on a full wage is able to do, like looking after his family, paying the bills and going on holiday, but every five years he gets what can’t be bought…freedom.
Image by MigRodz (flickr)
