Living well ain't rocket science.  You don't need a Ph.D. to get what you want out of life.  But you do need to be clear on some certain principles, and knowing these, you need also to be flexible in your thinking.  The fewer your boundaries, the more options you have.

Take for example one of the greatest minds in human history, Albert Einstein.  Now there was a fluid thinker - highly individual.  I mean, you'd have to be a little eccentric to dress the way he did.  And that hair!  Great Caesar's ghost, as my grandma used to say, who was his dresser?  Clearly the guy had other things on his mind, and he made his choices accordingly.  I'm not judging here - well, not much.  I'm just sayin' he knew for himself what was important.

Everybody makes choices.  Everybody creates and responds to their own surroundings, even this fabulous, wacky genius I'm talkin' about here.  You didn't know you had so much in common with Al, did you?  One thing that people forget about Albert Einstein is that he had teachers - influencers - and his brilliant Theory of Relativity came from that foundation.  It wasn't born in a vacuum, so to speak.  It came through his focus, his education... and his self-knowledge, his fluid mind.  It was the way he looked at what he knew, his personal philosophy, that shaped his life, his body of work, and ultimately mankind.  How he related to the material he focused on ultimately shaped his results.  Let's face it, the guy had some serious political restrictions at the beginning of his career, what with his living under the Nazi regime 'n all.  But the freedom of his thought created new circumstances for him, and ultimately commended his life's work to the Ages.  I point this out to you to say, this is what's possible - all that stuff about Man's grasp and his reach and whatnot.  ...Yeah, like that.  

Time, Money & Beer Are All Relative

"Okay, Jack," you might say, "that's all well and good, but what does it have to do with me and my personal economy?  I mean, I'm trying to fit another six-pack into my budget, and you're talkin' about the chalk-dusty coat of a long-dead Nutty Professor."  Indeed.  I see your point.  I have been given to a tendency toward languid exposition in past posts, it's true.  I do appreciate your time, and I recognize that's it's your most priceless commodity.  Taking it up unnecessarily would be inconsiderate on my part, and I promise I'll get to the point here any moment now.  Perhaps with this slight delay you can appreciate that I'm drafting an argument that, when you really get right down to it, it's all Relative.

Yeah, I really said that.  It is all relative.  Time, money, beer - your experience of all these things depends on your perspective of them.  It all relates to where you're at, where you want to go, and how you choose to look at it.  This is not a lot of woo-woo mumbo jumbo I'm talking about here; this is pure science applied in your daily life, whether you like it or not.  How you live is a direct result of your perspective and the choices you make as a result.  It's really not all that abstract.  Here, I'll explain.

I'm going to take you on a trip back in time, way back, close to the dawn of your intellectual flowering, all the way back to High School Algebra.  Unless you cheated on every test, what I promote here should ring some distant bell.  Any formula says that what rests on one side of an equal sign is the same as what's on the other.  That's not too hard, right?  This equals that.  This equals that times that.

Now, just the mention of Einstein's name makes some people glassy eyed, which I can understand, and his most famous formula e=mc² tends to be a symbol in our society for the ultimately inscrutable.  It's pretty simple though, and it doesn't have to be confusing.  We're looking at Energy... and weight or Mass... and the Speed of Light.  E... M... C.  You already understand something about each one of these things separately.  Putting them next to each other shouldn't muddy the water.

Here's the thing.  These items can each be measured by taking an objective look at their own unique perspective of each other - or how they Relate. Used in another way, Mass can be measured by looking at its relationship to Energy and the Speed of Light - except this time we're using division instead of multiplication: m=e/c².  This equals that.  Same equation, different perspective. It's kinda like your own interaction with family at Thanksgiving.  Whether somebody gives you a big maternal hug or gives you a noogy in a headlock depends on what that relative means to you.  These probabilities can be defined... unfortunately not always controlled, but at least defined.

Making Room For Another Six-Pack

Now we can get to the part about putting more beer in your fridge.  How you define something depends on your perspective of it, and how you relate to it.  We all live on a rock that's spinning through the vastness of space, right?  For convenience and comfort, each one of us tends to gravitate toward a unique locale, huddle together, and identify with it.  We buy into a system of government, engage in the country's mass culture and local customs.  All of these things come about through the accident of birth, and at a certain age, we make a choice to stay or leave.  Is it Manhattan or Phoenix?  Is it Springfield or Nome?  Sydney or Rishikesh?

Not only do you make choices about where to live, but there's also the choice of your neighborhood and your particular type of housing.  Factor in choices about how you labor in your days, how you feed yourself, and what you do for entertainment, and you've got a Relativity soup - one that you've concocted all on your own.  Your life is a series of relative choices.  Nobody's going to make you live in Anchorage, Alaska.  If you do, you'll notice that the high price of a gallon of milk factors in not just the cost of keeping the cow, but also shipping said moo juice a thousand miles so you don't have to eat dry Rice Krispies.  The flip side of that is that you can make a pretty decent living wage for putting up with some crazy stuff - like the fact that 30-degree weather can, under the right circumstances, actually feel warm.  You also get to see an incredible part of the world that only the most curious or strategically inclined would venture to.  Your choice, your economy, all relative to your perspective.

You wanna buy a condo in Manhattan?  Terrific - do it.  Other people have done it, are doing, will do it, so why not you?  Sure, it's expensive.  By the very act of deciding that's what you're up to, you set the wheels in motion.  Deciding - declaring what's important to you means that's where your attention and resources will flow.  Folks will naturally line up to help you get it done.  It's not magic, it's a fact.  It's human nature.  It's one of the laws of Science.  So pick up the classifieds and start looking.  Find ways to succeed.  Shifting things around in your thinking makes it happen.  Aligning your actions with your values brings you the rich, full life.  When you let your philosophies be fluid, you'll find that much like your own personal economy, it's all relative.  Now... please pass the cranberry sauce.

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Until next time,
Jack Schmidt
Spokesman

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