Everyone has a different perspective, and it’s that unique perspective that allows us to share ideas that others might find useful. Instead of reading a bunch of self-help books and pulling the best ideas from them, I’m deliberately not doing that.
Most of this book, at least the initial draft, is based on my own personal experiences—the challenges I have encountered and the solutions I’ve discovered for those problems. Sure, I’ve read a number of books in the past and applied those principles as best I can to my life, and they have no doubt shaped my thinking about these topics. But I haven’t read them in a while, and I felt that the best way for me to share my thoughts is by avoiding those books until I had my initial ideas on paper.
I believe that each of us has valuable ideas to share with others because of our own unique life experiences. The ideas I’ll share with you are based on mine. So, a little about me…
At the time of this writing, I’m 50 years old. That’s probably why I’m so interested in the topic of time at this point in my life. 50 is a milestone. I most likely have fewer years remaining than I’ve already lived; I’m at least at the halfway point. For that reason, I want to make sure I make the most of the time I have left. Fortunately, I’ve learned a few things along the way.
I live in Arlington, Texas with my wife, Laura. We’ve been married for eight years, but we’ve been together for 23. I proposed on our 15-year anniversary and we got married one year later, on our 16th. I spent a lot of time—and wasted a lot of time—in our relationship not knowing for sure what I wanted. Looking back, I should have popped the question much earlier.
We don’t have any kids and don’t have any pets. Those two facts will make our experience different from a lot of readers, but it is our reality. For that reason, I won’t spend much time writing about kids and pets. Yes, both take a lot of time and money, but both are also very rewarding ways to spend your time and money.
For the parents and the pet owners reading this book, you probably have lots of thoughts about the time investment of raising children (and animals) and have probably figured a lot of things out along the way. Still, the ideas I’ll share in this book will likely be beneficial to you because we’ve had different experiences and therefore have tried different things than you have.
My wife and I love to travel. We’ve been a few places – more than many of our friends but less than a lot of people. Until this year, we’d mostly been to Mexico, central America, and the Caribbean. We’ve also been on several cruises and really like them. This year, we took our first trip to Italy. It was amazing, and we can’t wait to go back to Europe.
Like a lot of people, I have a couple weeks off a year, so I have to prioritize the things I’d like to do and the places I’d like to go. We have more places we’d like to see than we have time or money to go to, at least right now.
I do have a 9 to 5 job (actually 8:30 to 4:30) at a health insurance agency. I’ve worked full-time for the agency for the last four years and part-time for a couple years before that. I also have a small continuing education company for insurance agents that I started 12 years ago. And I do a couple other things on the side, like content (blog posts) and website development.
My wife works part-time for the same agency I do during the busy time of the year and occasionally during the year when someone is out or we need some extra help. She’s been doing that for the last three years, and this year she actually worked two days a week most of the year to fill in for someone who’s going to school. My goal is for her not to have to work full-time again unless she just wants to. The oldest of five children (plus another who passed away as a baby), she worked very hard from a young age, and she deserves a break.
Most of my wife’s family lives in the DFW area, including her parents, her brother, and all three sisters. We have three Godchildren who we are very close to plus five other young children in the family who we love to death and see as much as possible. They also live in the area, and they’re all good kids.
I’m originally from Houston, but my Mom and my sister moved to North Texas around the time that we got married, so most of the people who are important to me all live nearby. To me, that’s very important, and though I’d love to try living in another state or even another country, I don’t see that happening anytime soon. We’d rather live close to our loved ones.
That was a lot, I know, but all of these facts help shape my perspective and will influence the ideas I share with you. I don’t expect every idea to resonate, but they don’t all have to for this to be a valuable use of your time.