From a personal development point of view frugality as a lifestyle is flawed. It is not flawed in the sense that it does not work, but it is flawed because it makes you aim your focus at the wrong things.

All my life I have suffered from the consequences of lack of patience. I want my projects to be finished yesterday and get stressed when I am in a situation where I am unable to work on the projects that I find important, even if the situation is just short and temporary. It also means that when I loose my patience, I risk loosing my motivation as well – it can seem like there is no point in continued efforts if the project will not be finished anytime soon – but that mode of thinking is exactly what causes impatience to decrease your likelihood of success in life. In this article I will explain what I consider to be the anti-impatience mantra : “success comes in chunks”.

There are good days and there are bad days. A bad day might be your own fault or it might not but either way there is no shame in having a bad day. If you have a positive outlook on life the ratio of what you consider bad days versus your good days will be better than if you feel depressed; so your own judgement can transform a bad day into a good day and vice versa but even if you have a habit of transforming what could objectively be called a good day into what you subjectively think is a bad day, there is still no shame in having a bad day.

I often wonder about the different ways people live their life and how it affects their life story. What kind of story would be written about your life when you are gone? I know you have many years still ahead of you but given the life path you are currently on, what would be the story written about you by your spouse? by your children? by your friends? By choosing your path today you are choosing the content of your life story. You may want your story to be written like a James Bond novel, like the biography of a great statesman, or perhaps you would rather be known for your loyal and loving role as a father/mother. In any case your ability to leave a legacy will be determined by the actions you take today.

Yesterday I fell in love. If you are not a car nut like me this will probably sound a bit silly but I fell in love with a car. I was out at a dealership and had 4 different cars that I wanted to look at, two of them were in my price range and the other two were on the upper limit of my price range. But the first car that caught my eye when I entered the dealership was a charcoal grey 500 series BMW just outside of my price range. Even though the car was a used one, it looked just like new and was obviously very well taken care of. The best thing about it though was the interior, it was fantastic, it was so good in fact that it redefined for me how good a car interior can be. Inside that car I felt right at home, there was nowhere I could look that was not made of a quality material and seemed like a natural part of the design. Before getting too caught up in a car outside my price range I decided to look at the cars I originally wanted to look at but after having had such an experience with the charcoal one none of the other cars seemed like proper cars but rather like cheap imitations of the real thing. I found myself back by the charcoal BMW for some more drooling but to my luck the dealership was closing and I left without trading in my left arm for the car.

I think most people live in a world of shoulds : You should eat healthy food, you should not smoke, you should go to work every day, you should not hurt peoples feelings, you should love thy neighbour, etc. It all reminds me of the Henry Thoreau quote “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” as all these shoulds are present exactly because the actions are not something that comes naturally to most people and probably conflicts with their desires and passion.

Much has been written about setting goals in your life and designing your destiny instead of relying on fate to fulfil all your dreams and desires. It is no wonder that so much has been written about goal setting, as it is very important and is often neglected. But before you can plan your journey towards your goal, you will need to know where you are.

What is the meaning of life? A question I think most people have wondered about at times. The question is a general one about all people alive, but normally each individual decides what to believe according to religion, intuition or philosophy. If you are a religious person you probably think something along the lines of “God has decided on a purpose for my life” and you are confident that this purpose becomes evident in the challenges and experiences of your life. If you have a more intuitive “New Age” personality, you might believe in reincarnation and that you are on earth to learn the lessons you did not learn in your previous lives. Or if you, like me, is more philosophically inclined you have probably reached some kind of conclusion by way of arguements and counterarguements.

The game Monopoly is about competing against others in order to get the best locations where you can build houses and hotels, so that you can later demand rent from those who visit your locations. As the game progresses, each player becomes part of a feedback-loop where the rent you collect enables you to build more houses (and even hotels), which in turn let you collect more rent. The player with the best feedback-loop (and some luck) will over time start to dominate, this in turn forces the opponents to sell some of their locations and the dominance will be increased until one player has a sort of monopoly of the board.

Do you feel like a free person? Do you feel that you are free to do whatever you please? Or perhaps you feel like a slave to your current situation, without possibility of parole? Is your day filled with things you just have to do, but do not really want to do. If you are at the bad end of the spectrum you have probably just lost sight of your dreams and goals. Let me explain.