4th Oct 2008
Hey guys,
Well I am sitting here at my home on the Gold Coast overlooking the water and enjoying being back home preparing for my wedding on the 25th. Arlene is calm and relaxed, she is in Sydney putting the final preparations on what will be an awesome extravaganza. Despite all of my married mates telling me that they all turn into Bridezilla she hasn't missed a beat and is more excited than ever about our forthcoming vows.
I have finally turned on the computer and I thought I would catch up on the previous fortnight of property and finance news. You see I had my bucks (stag) week in Phuket and Koh Phi Phi in Thailand for the past 10 days and I was deliberately not pursuing the news, watching TV, reading the newspapers or asking what was going on in the world. All I really cared about was myself and 12 of my closest mates and having the most fun time we could.
Needless to say that I achieved this goal 100%. I also achieved a black eye from May Thai Kickboxing, a sprained ankle from trying to run in flip flops (thongs in Australia), a bruised rib (not quite sure how I got that) and a really sore arm from Golf. Overall the entire trip was a massive success with many of my groomsmen from Brisbane, Sydney, and London meeting each other for the first time.
Anyway enough about the fun that I had in Thailand, I'll post some of the photos in the next week or so and you can see for yourself and I am sure that Youtube and Facebook will be full of our antics.
The point is this, whether you read the papers, listen to the news or ask what's going on in the world.
Life goes on...
All too often we feel the need to read the paper in the morning, watch the six o'clock news at night and get so caught up in the current affairs that we forget to live life in the now.
So much has changed in the world of finances in the past 12 days but really not a lot has actually changed at all. My portfolio is costing me a lot less because of the decrease in rates (in Oz 1% and UK and Spain 0.5%), one of the properties I am buying is still waiting for a suitable mortgage, and another is going to cost me more than I thought because the mortgage product offered has increased by a full percent but overall nothing has really changed that I really need to worry about.
I could have spent the past 12 days stressed and worrying about what might happen, about what could happen, about what is likely to happen, BUT I didn't. Instead I focused on what's important... My friends, my family, my bucks/stag week and I had a ball doing it. Meanwhile I realised that nothing much did happen in 12 days that I needed to think about.
Far too often we can get so caught up in the little things that distract our attention that we miss the truly important things.
I remember about 10 years ago that one of my friends called me to go for a coffee for his 30th birthday that weekend. I was busy with unimportant work stuff so I took a rain check, after all it was only coffee. That weekend while parachuting for his birthday his parachute failed to open and he died. It's an extreme story I know but all too often we put off the important for the unimportant (the little things). The sooner we realise that life goes on regardless of whether we commit to the big stuff or the little stuff.
So if you are stressing, worrying by reading the news every morning, watching every evening try and stop it for a week. Forget it... Read a book, go for coffee with a friend and pretty soon you will realise that most of the supposed important stuff on the 5 o'clock news is actually rubbish that will not affect you and the coffees and conversations, the time alone thinking, the dinners, the lunches they are actually all the precious stuff.
Set and Forget is about replacing the little things with the important things. Lifestyle is as much about relationships as it is about possessions, maybe even more.
It was Aristotle that said something like 'Man would not choose to live without others around him!'
Live with passion,
Brett Alegre-Wood