Living Free – An Attitude? Part IV

I ended my last posting by saying that I was going to make some disclosures so you won’t consider me to be a hypocrite at some point in time. So, sit down, here comes the big disclosure . . . I’m just like everyone else.

Yep! I’m no different then the average person in the U.S. In my youthful years I was an empire builder. I had grand dreams of being a multi-millionaire, media, business tycoon. At the age of 24, I had a venture capital firm approve my business plan to build a state of the art, recording and multi-media production facility complete with a tape duplication plant – the first of its kind in central New York State. They actually offered me twice as much money as I had projected needing. Unfortunately, it was during the Vietnam War era and I was, what was affectionately known as “draft bait” back in those days. I had to make a choice to either accept a draft notice and potentially become a “ground pounder” for two years in the Army or enlist in the U.S. Air Force for four years. The Air Force offered me an excellent opportunity to serve my country doing what I loved and had just earned a masters degree in. So, I spent my military enlistment in Washington, DC working for the Secretary of the Air Force producing radio programs and doing the recording work I had begun doing professionally some six years earlier. The venture capital firm in New York State never wrote me that venture capital check.

I have been fortunate. I have been self-employed in one form or another since I was 12 years old. As a 12 year old independent newspaper delivery boy, I had a very large route, delivered excellent service and made several times more then the current minimum wage at that time – and always had more money then most of the kids in school. Other then some part-time jobs in high school and college and a graduate assistantship in grad school, I’ve been in some kind of small business since that paper route at age 12. I even had businesses running when I had the part-time jobs and was a full-time student. Over the years I have generated millions of dollars, provided jobs and income opportunities for more then 100 people and, for the most part, stayed in an industry that I loved and was passionate about. I left the Air Force on March 15, 1973 and walked into my own office and the full-time business I was building in Washington, DC on March 16, 1973.

I’ve owned lots of cars – probably in the range of 22 or 23 vehicles over my lifetime. I’ve lived in a few different parts of the country, but mostly in the Mid-Atlantic region – the DC suburbs, Annapolis, MD and Winchester, VA in the Shenandoah Valley of northwestern, VA. I’ve lived in view of a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay, on mountains overlooking valleys, on the shore of a lake and on a horse ranch to mention a few places. I’ve lived in homes from about 1,000 sq ft to 5,000 sq ft. I’ve seen most of the U.S. and been to most of its major cities. I’ve spent a little time in Europe, New Zealand, China, Mexico and Canada. I’ve owned lots of clothes, had lots of toys and had a live in nanny for my son during his early years to make both his mother’s and my life a bit freer to run our businesses. I’ve stayed at some of the finest hotels in the U.S. And, I’ve had so much credit that it amazed me that the greedy bankers kept giving me more. I actually didn’t use it for myself; I pay my personal monthly charges off every month, on time. But, it came in handy for business. It was easier and, actually, less expensive then normal bank business financing. However, when the business world started collapsing a few years back, leading up to the current major recession and economic collapse, that credit killed me.

When I said that I was a non-conformist, pragmatist and minimalist, I am. However, to realize that’s who I really am, I had to make a lot of mistakes, spend a lot of time and money finding out what I’m not. I certainly don’t regret any of the experiences of my past. What I do regret is that I didn’t discover my true self until so much later in life. Life has, of course, been a continual learning process and sometimes I flunked the course and had to repeat it a few times. It’s like the old line when someone says; I really enjoyed 9th grade. Those were the best five years of my life. That’s how I had to learn some of life’s lessons . . . the hard way. When I said I wanted to make some disclosures so you wouldn’t consider me a hypocrite, “now you know the rest of the story” as the late Paul Harvey would have said.

So, now you know that I’m not pontificating about stuff that I know nothing about. I’ve been there and I’ve done that. I am just as guilty of being a pack rat as most other people are. I have made many dumb purchases and many spontaneous purchases just because something was on an end-cap or on sale – whether I really needed it – or even wanted it – or not, just because it was there. A few years ago I finally realized that some aspects of buying “stuff” is another form of addiction. I began asking myself a simple question whenever I was in Costco, Wal-Mart, bookstores, my favorite clothing store, supermarkets or any other store. I do the same thing when the many online stores like Amazon, Buy.com and others send me their daily and weekly e-mail offers. I simply ask if I can live without the item, no matter what it is. My usual answer is – yes; I can live without whatever it is. I also evaluate the purchase of a new piece of equipment or accessory for my recording gear using a simple process. Do I need it for a specific project and/or will it be paid for, in full, by a specific project? I have accumulated a lot of very expensive equipment over the years that I wanted, but really never needed – and, of course, like most technology, it’s monetary value depreciates very rapidly, so if you don’t get the use out of it, it’s no different then throwing money down the toilet.

There it is. The truth! I’m no better then anyone else. I’ve paid the price of being a member of our consumer oriented, materialistic, buying frenzy society. I don’t have time to really regret it. But, I have learned from it and the lessons have been very expensive in monetary terms, in time, my priceless commodity and in other ways. Quite honestly, the less I have, the happier and freer I feel – and I still have too much.

In the next posting in this “Living Free” series, I’m going to explore some of the many facets of living free and some examples of living free lifestyles.

Enthusiastically,
Ed