So… I’ve been thinking a little more about the “52 things I keep saying I’ll do in 52 weeks” idea I sorta floated for a hot second.
I still don’t think I’ll ultimately make it a 52 project. But I’ve just been thinking about a number of things I keep ‘meaning to get around to’.
And I’m realizing a fair amount of them come down to money.
For instance, I have one tooth on my bottom row of teeth that’s never been quite straight. Never. Not in a round of braces and two rounds of invisalign.
I’m pretty sure it was the tooth that used to be, for all intents and purposes, completely sideways when I was a kid. So, it’s gotten SO much better.
And people love my smile. I get complimented on it all the time. And I love my smile!
But that one tooth being off a few millimeters always bugs me just a little bit. Like, food gets more easily stuck in that one. And even though it’s not that noticeable, every once in a while it looks slightly odd at certain angles if a picture or video catches it.
I don’t think anyone would have an actual problem with it – and as far as things I’d want fixed in my life, that’s SO far down the priority list. There are other, even physical things, before we get to things outside of physicality I’d rather fix first.
(E.g. I would MUCH rather have a thigh lift to fix my skin from weight fluctuations over the years before I’d want to straighten my barely crooked tooth. I would rather find the perfect shade of brown for my hair, and figure out how to correctly style it, than fix my ever-so-slightly crooked tooth.)
And that’s just one example, but it’s indicative of the overall thing.
I do feel like one of my mantras in life basically is “money? Who cares about money?” And I get that that’s an overall privileged take.
But I always just kind of feel like if you’re really running on fumes, there’s always a way to survive – even if you’re in your last line of defenses (food stamps, homeless shelters, etc), and that you also have so many rungs to fall before you reach that (from small things like getting a roommate, getting a second job or getting a worse job if you don’t have one you want, to big things like bankruptcy or whatever would probably come before homelessness).
So, I dunno. I don’t like stressing about money. I don’t like caring too much about money. I kinda tune out politicians whose main messages are “class!” “the rich!” “money in politics!” Like, yeah, those things matters, but I care so much more about the social issues [though I do believe they’re all interconnected].
Anyway, I’m digressing.
But all that to say I think a number of these things I always ‘say I’m gonna do’, a number of them keep getting put to the back burner because it’s like “do I want to fix a tiny flaw for like $6,000, or do I want to take an international trip/save for a plastic surgery I’d rather have/etc.” “Do I want to spend money on laser hair removal, or should that be used for something else?”
“Do I want to spend the money on the big honking SUV ubers to transport my bike to a safe park/parking lot where I can learn to ride it, since I can’t ride a bike well enough to ride there, and there are no places within my walking vicinity that have the place to learn?
And on and on and on. And obviously those expenses run the gammut. Even if the uber ride is like $30, give or take, let’s say, well $20 – $30 isn’t so bad… But both ways, now you’re up to maybe $60 or so for the day… And say you do it 2 – 3x/week because want to make progress. You could all of a sudden be spending $600/month just to learn how to ride your bike [although I recognize there may be other workarounds than that].
If you put that much away each month, at the end of a year, you could pay for your braces!
So, in conclusion, I don’t think it’s just me always pushing things to the side. I think some of it is me ‘waiting’ to have the finances to invest in some of these things I’d like to do…
But there have been points I’ve had nice jobs and could’ve had the finances – had I chosen to prioritize things differently.
So, I think if I really want to start prioritizing the things I say I wanna do, it might be worthwhile to make a list of like what ones require more urgency. (e.g. I’d really like to finish my UCLA extension program. I think you’re technically supposed to finish it in 5 maybe? I’m not sure. That’s probably something I should look into (eep), but either way, it’d be nice for it to be done.)
So, I should probably be ranking and then budgeting, as much as I hate money stuff… it might not hurt to at least just kinda slightly critically think about it. *shrug*
So we’ll see what kinda list I start making and what I can chip away at – if I focus on it… which I may or may not, time will tell, I suppose!