3071: What a Life Lived Has Taught Me About the Life I’m Living by Gregory Engel with No Sidebar

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[00:00:28] "Nachos!" "Hey, I'll take some!" "And some Frank's Red Hot." "Yeah." "You're just

[00:00:33] going to eat these boring nachos with no flavor." "Uh…?" "Frank it up! Frank it up!" "Ugh!"

[00:00:39] "This guy finally gets it!" "It's the perfect blend of flavor and heat." "Frank's Red Hot."

[00:00:43] "I put that sh*t on everything."

[00:00:46] This is Optimal Living Daily Episode 3071. What a life lived has taught me about the

[00:00:52] life I'm living by Gregory Angl with NoSidbar.com and I'm Justin Molick. Happy Friday, this

[00:00:59] is the award-winning podcast where I read blogs to you, hopefully adding a little bit

[00:01:04] of inspiration, motivation, or happiness to your day. This is all with permission from

[00:01:10] the websites, by the way. I'm going to keep this intro nice and short, so let's get right

[00:01:14] to it as we optimize your life.

[00:01:21] What a life lived has taught me about the life I'm living by Gregory Angl with NoSidbar.com.

[00:01:29] An elderly neighbor of mine passed away recently. He was in his 90s and had lived in this neighborhood

[00:01:35] for over 40 years and had been widowed for more than 20 years. His family was local, but

[00:01:42] he lived alone. His passing was quick, and I thought how fortunate he was to have lived

[00:01:48] out his years in his own home and among his family and neighbors.

[00:01:53] Then came the difficult process.

[00:01:55] His family took a rather pragmatic approach. A large roll-off dumpster was deposited in

[00:02:06] my late neighbor's driveway and quickly filled up with the discards of his life. He's not

[00:02:12] a practitioner of a minimalist lifestyle. Watching this unfold invoked feelings of sadness,

[00:02:19] these possessions that surrounded Joseph a mere week ago and were part of what made his

[00:02:23] house a home, were now trash. As he's feeling sunk deeper, I began to reflect on my own

[00:02:30] passing. When my time has come, would my family drop a roll-off dumpster in the driveway

[00:02:36] and similarly clear away the stuff of my life? What if my valued possessions would be trash

[00:02:43] in the eyes of someone else? What makes them valuable to me? And is that value misplaced

[00:02:50] on a thing? Looking around my home office, I imagined peering into a dumpster and seeing

[00:02:55] the things I value bound for the landfill. Yikes. What this thought experiment did for

[00:03:02] me was bring into sharp contrast the things I value and the things that are valuable,

[00:03:09] that is, what's valuable to me and what would also be a value to others. In an instant,

[00:03:16] some of the stuff I had felt were a burden yet couldn't find a way to part with, no longer

[00:03:21] felt like a burden. Those things have an afterlife in someone else's world. They have value that

[00:03:27] extends beyond my brief ownership of them. While this may sound like I found a loophole

[00:03:33] for acquiring more stuff, the insights gained from this simple exercise led to greater clarity

[00:03:39] around the gateway questions for acquiring things. I ask all 3 when considering a purchase.

[00:03:48] Number one, when I'm done with this item,

[00:03:50] them, will it be readily useful to someone else? I love books. I love being surrounded

[00:03:57] by books. I own many books. Today, I buy fewer books and borrow from the library more than

[00:04:03] I used to. The books I borrow now are those with topics that are more transitory. Business

[00:04:09] management and software technology books are in this category. The books I purchase deal

[00:04:15] in subjects like history, philosophy, and Buddhism. Books I'm likely to reread or reference

[00:04:22] frequently over time. These are also books that can be of value to someone else thirty

[00:04:27] years from now. To further this end, I've also stopped making notes in the margins of

[00:04:32] books I buy, leave no trace, the master says. I may have been unconsciously asking this

[00:04:38] question for some time. There's always been a slight tug at my conscious when buying a

[00:04:43] book, but that same tug has been absent when buying tools for my woodshop. Since I work

[00:04:49] primarily with hand tools, most of what's in my shop will be of value to a woodworker

[00:04:54] a hundred years from now. That's a comforting thought.

[00:04:58] Number two, is there something I already own that will serve as well as this item, something

[00:05:04] I can reuse or repurpose? I have a high-tech winter coat that was purchased twenty years

[00:05:10] ago. It's in great condition, but I've been told several times it looks dated or that

[00:05:16] there is better technology now, so coats are warmer and lighter. Well, I'm dated,

[00:05:22] so I suppose that makes wearing this coat age appropriate attire. Asking this question

[00:05:27] has resulted in the purchase of fewer clothes, opting instead to suffer the slings and arrows

[00:05:32] of appearing out of style, but nonetheless warm. Returning to the dumpster, I notice more

[00:05:39] closely what ends up in the daily trash. For example, we've shifted to making our own

[00:05:44] ketchup, barbecues.

[00:05:48] Sawce & Manades as a way to reuse the original glass containers.

[00:05:50] It's easier than you might think, and the ingredients are known.

[00:05:55] And number three, is this the highest quality for which I have the means to purchase?

[00:06:00] Originally, I thought this would be an easy question to answer.

[00:06:05] Purchasing the highest quality tools for my wood shop has never been an issue.

[00:06:09] Where this question became interesting was when considering services.

[00:06:13] I drive a 16 year old truck, and I hope to keep driving it until the end of my driving

[00:06:19] days.

[00:06:20] To do this, I have a mechanic who knows this kind of truck inside and out.

[00:06:25] I know I could find a cheaper mechanic, but I suspect the truck would be in the shop more

[00:06:29] frequently as my current mechanic has been able to spot and alert me to impending failures.

[00:06:36] He's clear in his explanations, and always leaves the choice to me as to the course

[00:06:40] of action.

[00:06:42] While I continue to benefit from driving a safe vehicle, it's likely this truck will

[00:06:46] be out of use to someone else when I'm done with it.

[00:06:50] There are other questions I ask depending on the circumstances, but always, there is

[00:06:55] that dumpster at the end of the evaluation, and the final question.

[00:07:00] Will this end up being tossed into a dumpster after I've passed?

[00:07:09] You just listened to the post titled, "What A Life Lived Has Taught Me About The Life

[00:07:13] I'm Living" by Gregory Angle with nowsidebar.com, and I'll be right back with my commentary.

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[00:08:05] Thank you to Gregory. Like yesterday, there's another tip in here that is probably painfully

[00:08:12] obvious, but often goes overlooked. That one was briefly mentioned, it's the public library.

[00:08:18] Again, I'm a bit guilty of this. I finally got my library card when I realized that there's

[00:08:25] one on the way to the Tai Chi classes that I'm attending. Before, I did know the library

[00:08:32] was there, but it was still something that I probably would've driven to, even though it's close.

[00:08:37] I'm trying to limit my time in the car, after all. But I've been walking to my Tai Chi classes

[00:08:42] lately, which is about two miles, and the library can serve as a little break in between.

[00:08:48] You might not have a library that close to you, but maybe there's one on the way,

[00:08:53] or just slightly out of the way from where you typically go.

[00:08:58] And there are so many resources there available for free.

[00:09:01] Yes, it's easier to one-click buy or rent from Amazon, but if it's going to save us some money

[00:09:08] and prevent some trash in the future, why not? So I'm enjoying the library now, but in any case,

[00:09:14] there were some great questions in this one to ask yourself before making pretty much any purchase.

[00:09:19] So thank you to Gregory for these, thank you for being here with me every day,

[00:09:24] and for telling others about this show, that's the greatest thing you can do to help out.

[00:09:29] It really means a lot. So thank you again, and I'll be back tomorrow, as usual,

[00:09:34] where your optimal life awaits.