Thursday Time Machine: Do what you love, but pick something to do.

Today continues the series I decided to call Thursday Time Machine; which I plan to be advice that I would give a younger me if I could travel back in time.

Today's post has a bit of a dual edge to it: Do what you love, but (for the love) pick something to do.

Harvey MacKay is quoted as saying, "Find something you love to do and you will never have to work a day in your life."

Thursday Time Machine: Learn to be Still

I have decided to devote Thursdays to advice that I would give to a younger me if I could go back in time.

Today my advice: Learn to be Still.

My whole life I have not been real good at being still. Now please understand that being still is COMPLETELY different than being lazy.

I will just tell you right now (and my wife can probably attest to the fact) that though I learned a good work ethic growing up I still have a firm grasp on how to be lazy. But when I say learning to be still I mean something else.

Most of my life has been lived as a vagabond, a rambling man.

I have lived in 9 different states (California, Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, South Dakota, Minnesota, Florida, and Missouri) and I wasn't even a military kid; we just moved often.

But beyond physically moving to different houses in different parts of the country I have never been really good at being still in my mind.

Thursday Time Machine: The power of the budget.

I recently watched a video titled Dear 16-year-old Me, which made me realize that there is a great deal of advice that I wish I could go back in time and tell a 16 year old Jake. In light of that I have decided to devote Thursdays on my blog to the advice that I would give the younger version of me.

This week's piece of advice: The power of the budget.

One of the things I wish I had learned how to do better when I was younger was how to manage money.

The financial situation in my family growing up always seemed to be feast or famine. I did not learn how to set aside the extra in the good times to carry me through the bad times.

It was not until Heather and I started discussing financial matters prior to getting married that I realized how unhealthy my attitude was toward money. And the interesting thing was that I knew all the right things to do with money.

I knew that money was nothing more than a tool to be used. I knew that saving was important. I could spout off all the good advice I had ever heard in regard to money, I had loads of great advice from my grandfather on how to handle money, but my own financial habits were horrible.