Sign of the Times: You Make Do With What You Have... and Make it Work!

As Christmas winds down, I start to think about 2024 and how we are going to navigate the new year.

Without a doubt, we live in challenging times. Well, many of us do.

Much of life is colored by the reality that there are many things we want to — and even need to do — but the only viable answer is actually to not do and make the most of that choice.

Over this past year, I have canceled more services and subscriptions "of convenience" than I can ever recall doing. When I think long and hard about it, the value I derive from paying for them don't justify the expense.

We had a lovely Christmas, and have had several days of enjoying a beautiful feast, food wise.

It was lovely, but the reality is also setting in that our food budget is increasingly at a point where we are going to be limited to grocery shopping for what we can afford, rather than for what we want.

We didn't do much in the way of Christmas gifts this year... and what we did do had a distinctly practical ring to it.

Gardening tools, boxes of heirloom seeds for vegetables and fruits, art supplies to help make things we can supplement our income with. Socks. I needed socks...

I suppose what is sometimes worrisome about the world is that fewer and fewer people are effectively able to save for the future, because every penny has to go towards the basic process of staying alive.

Perhaps that sounds more dramatic than it really is. My point being that it becomes really difficult to build up even an "oh shit fund" to be able to handle that "$1,000 emergency" an estimate 60-65% of Americans would not be able to handle, if it suddenly came up.

The "Time Budget"

I guess I have always felt pretty capable of dealing with whatever challenges we face in life. Some setback or issue comes along, and you toss some extra hours of energy and effort at it, and things work out.

But we do have to work with this fixed amount of time, consisting of 24 hours per day, and those hours remain a constant length... and eventually it feels like to run out of hours, even if you have the willingness to put in the needed work. There's just no place to put it.

Your "time budget" has run out of resources!

And that's one of the things I'm working with, as I set my eyes on 2024. Sometimes it makes me wonder whether the time to "throw in the towel" on self-employment is at hand... leaving the option of a return to wage slavery, after so many years.

Staying optimistic is a challenge all of its own. I suppose what makes it a challenge is being cheerful in the face of a protracted series of outcomes where you pick yourself up and say "that definitely didn't go as well as we'd hoped!"

How many times do you overcome "less than expected," and still carry on? Maybe that's part of the experience/lesson we are working through, here.

Not trying to be a "Debbie Downer" here... just trying to be realistic about life.

But who knows? Maybe 2024 will be one of those Unicorn-rare examples of "things turned out BETTER than expected!

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great week ahead!

Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation! I do my best to answer comments, even if it sometimes takes a few days!

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Created at 2023-12-25 23:18 PST
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