How to Balance Creating and Personal Goals without Ignoring the Chaos of War

Frustrated by slow moving traffic? Worried your flight will be delayed? Pissed about the rising gas problems? It can feel selfish not to think about these things when knowing that there are wars happening, there are people starving, and their are children living in fear. So what do you do? What should you do? How do we make sense of it all?  Maybe together we can find an answer, so let's talk about it.

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Music: One Fine Day by Keep Calm Podcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Your Honor I'm guilty. Guilty as charged. You probably guilty too. What's up? This is Ray with Get Real Ray, a place and space for life. And this is tips from this creative soul to hopefully inspire you on your journey. Or at the very least, provide you with some laughs. Yeah. You need to laugh more. Cause it'd be crazy out there in the real world in life. Life be crazy. Mmm. Yeah. And actually, at the time that I'm recording this, um, the United States has started a war. Um, and it doesn't feel good. And it feels really crazy. Um, and so at times it can just feel like how how are you worried about recording a YouTube video? Or how are you worried about how many downloads your podcasts received? Like, there are people who are losing their homes, who feel that their lives are threatened and that they're in danger. But I don't feel that not doing what we do. Um somehow makes the pain and suffering any better. And so let's get real. Let's get real about being the change you want to see. Okay, so with that being said, one change that I would like to see is more people willing to embrace the bad things, willing to embrace being educated and knowledgeable on bad things that happen in life, right? So when you were a kid out riding that bicycle, ding, ding, ding, ding, bing, bing. Oh no, there's a rock. Ah, I fell, I skipped my knee, right? And that hurt. And you in theory would have gotten back up and kept riding that bicycle if your parent was like, Well, no more bike riding for you, Timmy. Um, and you never learned to ride a bike. I feel sorry for you, Timmy. I'm I'm really sorry for you. But maybe you were that kid who fell down, got back up, kept riding your bike, and then you made it around the corner and saw that there was a gang of bullies, and then they beat you up and stole your bike. And it was a while before you were able to get another bike. You had to borrow your cousin's bike in order to ride. Um, and maybe you just always felt terrified going around that corner because someone was gonna beat you up and take your bike. And yo, I feel sorry for you too. But you kept going, and so you weren't afraid to acknowledge, yo, my neighborhood is messed up, and there'll be bullies over here. And I'm not saying that, you know, people who want to see change should go out there and put themselves in danger. Um I'm not saying that at all. What I am saying is that we all have to find ways to be aware and to um to not let others stop us from being able to live productive, useful lives. Okay. Um when I so when I think of um certain books like night uh by Eli Weisell and um Don't Tell the Nazis, uh Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, these are all young adult books. Well, night's not a young adult book, but uh there's just a whole lot of books out there where people have faced some sort of adversity and they have to figure out how to keep going. And so that's what I mean in terms of there are bad things out there, and yeah, here I am on YouTube. Um, and yes, there's still bad things out there, and you're on YouTube too, but hopefully you're here for a reason. My reason is to give some words of encouragement, some advice, and help you to figure out how you can keep going. And maybe maybe you came here to see the dogs. Maybe you came here to see some cute dogs. I don't know if I'm getting any cute dogs in this video, they chilling right now. Um, or maybe you did come here for some advice, or maybe you're listening to the podcast and you're like, I just wanted to stay awake on my drive. Which you know that I'm in that boat too. I I know how you feel. I I will probably be listening to this same episode on my next four-hour drive. But this episode ain't gonna be four hours. Mm-hmm. Okay, so one thing that I have been really thinking about in terms of being the change that I want to see is I have a birthday coming up, and I was just thinking last year um I remember was I really on that island? I thought I left that island earlier. No, I'm thinking about it, but I do remember making this video for my birthday, so okay. I did a short for my birthday where I was just studying my changing body. Um, and here I am. I'm not on an island, but I am in a location that I feel is pretty magical and beautiful, so I feel very fortunate for that. And I found myself thinking, who dreamt of this? Like, my brain never dreamed of I want a house like that, and I want dogs like that, and my brain just never did that. My brain was like, someday I would like to live in a house or apartment as an adult, and I would like to have a partner. I don't really know what they're gonna look like. It was always like this I don't know blur face, this man with a blur face, and uh, we would make each other happy, and there was definitely me smiling as nighttime, it was kind of like that like page six nightlife photo. Um that if you're like page six, what are you talking about? Okay, so think of insert celebrity name and then them walking to go out to dinner or something like that. In my mind, there was always that image. Now, mind you, this was happening well before tabloids were as crazy as they are now, or even as crazy as they were back in the uh like Paris Hip and Britney Spears outclubbing kind of days. I'm not gonna tell you my age, but I'm just saying my brain was thinking of these things and at an early time in life, and so here I am, an older woman. And I um I don't really go out much, to be fair. Like, I don't, I just don't. I am my goals right now, um, yes, the apartment or house someday will be nice, and actually, I don't want an apartment, I want a house, I want a nice house. Um, but I'm not really sure what that house looks like or where it is. Part of the great thing about this house sitting that I've been doing is that I've been able to um stay in other people's homes and get an idea of oh, do I want something like this? Would I want to be in this location? What do I want? And I really love having this opportunity to expand the way I dream. Now, I also would love to have that romantic partner, but it's not a priority right now. Right now, my priority is to be a person who does not have debt. More importantly, to be a person who continues to honor their oblig honor their commitments, I almost said obligations, honor their commitments. And if I say I'm going to pay that bill, I will pay that bill. If I say I'm going to call you on Saturday, I'm gonna call you on Saturday. No excuse of, oh man, I want to call you on Saturday, but I gotta work and you're only available at this time. So I guess I'm gonna have to figure out when I'm gonna call you because I have to juggle it around my work, like none of that. And to be fair, I personally have gotten better at not letting work interfere with commitments with friends. However, I do believe I live in a world now where I have fewer commitments with friends. Um, I already know which friends who will actually stick to that commitment of, yeah, we said we're gonna call each other this weekend and we'll set a time and we'll do it. Um, I have some friends who I feel like I'm pulling my teeth. So are you available this weekend? What time are you available? Do you really want to talk to me? Um, but for them, I it's just more fluid, like, yeah, whatever. And I'm thinking, not whatever, because chances are I'm gonna call you and you're gonna be out with so and so. And you're like, oh, can I call you back? I don't need to be on this phone tag. I want to connect with you, not phone tag with you. So being the change I want to see, well, I want to see friends prioritize our relationships, and so I have to make sure that I prioritize prioritize our relationships by reaching out and saying, Hey, when are you available? Does the day and time work for you? So I need to take that step. I get so sad when I think of my family members who um don't seem to be building financial security. I want to change that for them, but I've got to be the change I want to see. I gotta change my own finances first. Now, with that being said, I part of me goes, well, it's a different situation because I'm a solopreneur, I've got these businesses, and I'm really committed to turning my business around. I keep saying turn it around, but honestly, I feel like the turn has happened and now we're just um focusing on growing and strengthening, so growing revenue and strengthening the business so that when there is another dip in finances, I'm not suffering. And part of that means paying those bills because uh without debt, without bills, without those obligations and commitments, that means that there's more income to be saved for the rainy day. So it's all purposeful, it's all a process, but it also means when I am itching to, oh, I want to buy some more of those calcium chews that taste like chocolate that costs$15 in the store, and then$10 if I have it shipped to me. But in order to meet the minimum for shipping, I have to order three or four bags. So now is it really worth it hauling around three or four bags of chocolate vitamins? That's four months' worth, sitting in my car. And so, with that being said, I really want it da-da-da-da-da-da-da. But maybe I need to just hold off for a hot second because that same$15 or buying the four bags, the$40, right?$15 might not seem like much, but$40, that can be paid to that credit card with that high interest rate, and I'm this much closer to paying off that credit card, so that I never have to worry about that credit card again, and the next time I want to buy vitamins, I'll be like, Yeah, I can do that because my credit card is paid off. And I've honored that commitment, and I'm setting an example for my loved ones, even if they don't bother to freaking call me. And I'm living the life that I say everyone should want to live this life, everyone should want to honor their commitments. Not everyone should want to be a solopreneur and have to have all these suitcases because they house it and I was recently listening to one of my preferred financial thought podcasts, and um, the podcast is Money for Couples with Ramit Setti. I used to listen to it when it was under the name I Will Teach You to Be Rich. I do miss having single people on the episodes. I understand why he made the transition. It's not only branding for his book, but it also sets himself apart from the rest of the financial advice sector, financial influencer sector, because there's tons of people online giving advice to individuals and yelling at them, but there's not, I can't think of anyone else who was specifically focused on couples. And because he got in there early, um, he dominates that niche, that market. With that being said, I have recently found myself less into some of the episodes. There was one where it was like, we make over$400,000 a year. Why do we feel like we can't afford anything? And I didn't even bother to listen because I'm like, I don't, I don't know, and I don't care. You make over$400,000 a year. I didn't even make$100,000 in the last three years. So I don't effing care. I don't I don't effing care about you. Um now, with that being said, I'm not jealous. I'm not jealous. Um, with that being said, there could have been something very valuable in that episode. Maybe those people were overspending, maybe they were living in a house that they truly could not afford. Maybe they were out buying tons of luxury goods, maybe it was all in their minds, maybe they're formally in the fire community and they're just afraid to spend. I don't know. I didn't watch the episode. That's just an example of something where I don't really know about this. And there's another episode with um two individuals where one of them made like, I don't know,$150,000 a year or something like that. And she was constantly using loan advances and uh paying for installments and things of that nature, and always, you know, just overspending. And her partner was making less than 60k, but had savings and didn't have credit card debt and didn't have those loan advancements and was a saver. And so, while you could tell I listened to some of that episode, I listened to some of it that after a while I was I I had to stop because I'm like, you're stupid. You're over here spending all this money and saying, Yeah, I probably shouldn't do that. And I think the thing that got me, and the girl was talking about how she owned a house, um, and her teenage daughter lived in the top floor, so it was a three-bedroom house. This woman took out a loan to redo her basement so she could live in the basement because she and her teenage daughter were arguing too much. So now her teenage daughter has the whole three-bedroom upper area to herself, kitchen, living room, all that stuff. And this woman is living down in the basement like a freaking Airbnb. I'm like, you're stupid. I don't have time for you. You don't represent the average person thought process. You can see I'm getting a little angry because I just remember what I was about. I was like, that's just stupid. Okay, so she's saying she wants change, but she's not doing anything to demonstrate that change. And clearly, your problem is not that you can't manage your money, you can't even manage your teenage daughter, you can't handle conflict in bad situations, and maybe your teenage dollar is walling out because you over here taking all these trips that you cannot afford. Just saying. So, recent episode was um a couple in which the husband's mother or stepmother, I guess, would give the couple thirty thousand dollars a year as a gift. And this, I guess the stepmother would also buy clothes for the kids um as a gift. And so it one year the she couldn't buy the clothes, so she just gave them a check. And this woman, the the wife of the couple, the couple, right? So she took the check and put that in the bank to help cover the mortgage payment, because otherwise they weren't gonna be able to make their mortgage for that month instead of using that money to buy clothes for the kids. So we have all kinds of problems. Because why do your cloth kids need clothes every month? They probably don't. And secondly, if they're outgrowing things, you have more than one kid, so that's hand-me-downs. You can also take some of those clothes and uh look in your circle of friends, do swaps with other families, go online, sell it on Facebook Marketplace, sell it on eBay. Now you have some money so you can go buy your kids new clothes. So her reasoning was ridiculous. Um in terms of reasoning for being broke. She starts talking about, oh, well, I have to, I need that bird seed from Amazon, and I needed some plastic popsicle bolts. And she just goes on and on. And I'm thinking, you stupid. You're saying you want to see change in your relationship, but you're not being the change you want to see. You are basically saying someone else fixed my problems for me, but what do you expect other people to do for you? Is it that you want for the host of this show to wave a magic wand and all your debt will go away? Do you want for him to guilt your husband and to make you more money? Because you don't even want to go back to work. You're saying, oh, if I go back to work, then I won't be here for my children. Okay. So which is it? Do you need for your kids to have bird seed, not for your birds, because you don't even own any birds, bird seed for the wild birds? Do you need for them to have those plastic cups for the popsicles? Or do you need for your kids to have you home with them when they get out from school? Because I don't even think she was homeschooling. So yeah, she was just all kinds of annoying. And I was I just stopped listening. I'm like, no, you're stupid. I can't deal with you. And you need to be the change you want to see. So I want to see change in many, many areas in life, not just my life, but in life. I want to see other people take accountability for their actions, responsibility for their inactions. Be responsible. Like you didn't do it, okay. How are you gonna handle that? Um I want to see people stop tuning out from what is happening politically wherever they live. Um, it's really easy to be like politics is so depressing, um, the world is so depressing, war is so depressing. So I'm going to scroll. I'm going to give myself a break. I'm gonna, you know what? I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna have a drink. I'm just gonna relax with my friends. Like, you know, TV is entertainment, social media is entertainment, YouTube sorts is entertainment. We all do these things, and yet tuning out to recharge, and even therapists are like, Well, you know, you need to, you need to. Tune out and you know focus on you. And while that is helpful, it's not helpful to be 24-7 tuning out and focusing on you because that perpetuates problems, right? When I don't open that envelope of that bill, that perpetuates the cycle of ooh, there's something that's on my to-do list, something I gotta do, something I gotta get to. And am I not the person who said that she would honor her commitments? And so if I'm committed to receiving mail, right? I may I have some sort of contract with somebody where they are mailing me, then part of honoring my commitment is to open the envelope, answer the call, respond to the email, pay the bill. And if I don't want to deal with the mail, then I better make sure I pay that bill on time so there's no excuse to mail me. Yeah. And so I myself am often at odds with do I want to work another hour? Do I want to look for another job? Do I want to create another course, teach another class that might not meet the my my standards, my enrollment numbers that I need? Do I want to put more into X in order to have just a little bit of extra money to on that commitment of paying that bill to be just a little bit closer to not having to stress about that? And it's a back and forth because sometimes I'm like, honestly, another$10 ain't gonna make enough of a difference. And I'm tired and I'm stressed. But when I can reframe it as, well, it's not just another$10, it's if I do another five hours, it's another$50, another$50, it does make a difference. Well, that's something. So yes, there is that need to balance your energy and to make sure that you're not pushing yourself to the point of making mistakes. But at the same time, we also need to make sure that balancing your energy does not become an excuse for not doing what you said you wanted to do. And in my case, what I want to do is to be the change I want to see, to make change, to inspire change, to change things. I want to change things. And I bet you do too if you watch this video. Okay, my friends. Well, I hope you found this somewhat helpful. And until next time, peace.