When your computer, or any electronic device, decides to freeze the easiest way to solve the problem is often to press the reset button. But take this solution out of electronics and, while simple, it applies to a great many things. How does a baby learn to walk? They fall down over and over eventually starting to understand elements of walking and developing strength in their legs. Over time this slowly becomes easier and easier and in time the baby walks – how many times do they have to press the reset button to get it right?
Most things in life are like that – you have to fall down a fuckload of times before you really start to understand what you’re talking about and what the concept is. This iterative process is one of the ways we learn, from our mistakes, getting better at each attempt. Not many of us are great at many things, but those who are, definitely had to reset more than a few times.
Now this site is a blog about personal finance, recently not an incredibly active one, but that’s what it is, so naturally, I should be writing about financial matters. Now here I am pressing the reset button of sorts to get back to that.
We are brought up being taught that talking about money is bad or rude. It’s this crazy taboo topic to the point of silliness. We leave high school knowing essentially nothing about finances or in many cases even the basic math that goes into it. The result is not a pretty one for many people as they muddle through life (myself included at times)
So why the reset?
Well, the reset is being pressed on many accounts from my end and part of that is that I want to be able to have a better grasp on my money and financial situation. I find that while I know a lot of the concepts there are still things that elude me. I can be better at this – this shouldn’t be a hard thing, but there are aspects of psychology here that are even harder to explain. I find that it’s easier to talk about all of this than to actually take action and in part I want this blog to help me take accountability. (Plus the blog also got corrupted and hacked a few times so it was not in a happy place – I’m still working on recovering things)
What does pressing reset entail?
To start off with I’m only going to tackle one topic at once and only one per week – there is no point trying to do too much (at least to start with). It’s one of the adages of trying to change a habit – start small build up from there. In this case, I already have some of the financial basics in place so I’m pushing a little further and going a bit further. The purpose of each post or article will be to give me the opportunity to fully explore the topic. Writing about a topic is my way of showing myself that I understand it and in many ways, it will force me to take some level of action. Articulating my thoughts and refining them will help me solidify this.
The second aspect of this reset is I am going to start with some of the basics again; some of them I understand in principle, but whenever I’m applying them, things don’t always seem to work out. This reset is also to get me take a look at the foundations again and to apply as much as I can (and course correct where necessary). Forcing some action and accountability for myself.
There is a lot of truth to the adage practice makes perfect – the oft-quoted statement is to be world class at something you need to spend 10,000 hours at it. While I’m not sure about the number, its significant either way. How many times do you think they have to press reset to become world class?
So where do you the wonderful readers come in? To be perfectly blunt, I’m not sure at all. I am writing this for me to help myself to dive deeper into topics because I think they’re important. If you the wonderful readers enjoy it. Great! If you learn something from it. Great! But now I’m doing this for me. I hope you can join me on this little writing journey.
