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There is a fine level of difference between hopeful and expectant. Hopeful indicates that the person desires a certain outcome, while expectant indicates that a person feels a certain outcome is inevitable and they're waiting for it.
I'm more hopeful than expectant in many ways. Those who know me know my mantra -- Expectations Decrease Joy. I keep trying to shed my expectations, both positive and negative, to get out of the trap of placing expectations on things, especially things I can't control.
This is why when people ask me about how I feel about O'Bama getting the presidency, I respond with, "We'll see what happens." I didn't get all blissful about the election -- I personally feel that we haven't had a race between anything other than two really bad candidates for long before my lifetime -- probably Kennedy and Nixon started this trend. I don't care about the man's skin color either -- in my way of thinking, there are no black people, red people, yellow people, white people -- there are just people. People are individuals, and between most people, even if they're aberrant people like the mentally insane or criminal, the similarities are still overwhelmingly much smaller than the similarities, by an order of magnitude. This is why I consider things like prejudice, bigotry, and jingoism to be rather destructive and self defeating. And as it follows, also counter to my mantra. Prejudice breaks down to pre, meaning before, and Judice, meaning to Judge. To pre-judge one must have expectations, and expectations decrease joy.
I also don't really buy concepts of "cultural" differences for native born Americans to any significant degree. More often than not, what is often termed "minority culture" is actually differences coming from different socio-economic levels more than anything else. The notable exceptions to this are the cultures that managed to keep fairly homogenous, like the Mexican culture groups, (though those are eroding) and the different Asian cultures, especially ones that keep clearly seperate like the Hmong.
I do know this -- We're on a big slide downward, and unless something changes dramatically we're not going to survive it in any way we'd like to. We're in economic trouble, and we'll have to work fast to turn that around. We'll see a nice increase in the stock market which will help somewhat in 2014 or 2015, but starting in 2016 things are going to start hitting the rotary air circulator at about Mach 4. This is something hardwired into the American investment culture, and unless some things get changed quickly it can't be averted. (Moral of the story -- if you have your 401k invested in stocks or mutual funds, which are just collections of stocks, make sure you get out of that when you see the market rise in 2014 or 2015 or you're going to feel like an Enron employee soon afterward) This financial crash would be devastating at any time, but with our current economy it's potentially disasterous.
Now, before any of you say, "But we have a new president who's going to fix that," go read the description of the president's job. Presidents don't fix economies. The only influence the president has on the economy is who he picks as the FED chairman and some minor influences on tax amounts. And when a major state is in such bad shape that they're issuing IOU's instead of sending refunds, things aren't looking too good.
The root of the problem is that we've thought for too long that we're invincible. Couple this with FDR's decision to push financial problems on future generations, a practice that politicians have done againand again since then, and some comeuppance is due at some point.
So, what do I suggest people do? First, stop worrying about what anyone else is doing. We've all got enough problems without compounding them by taking on everyone else's problems. Second, Start developing some real financial knowledge about how things work. Shed the assumptions and nonsense people have quoted as mantra for decades. After all, if a million people believe in a dumb idea, it's still a dumb idea. Understanding how money really works is a great way to understand how you can keep more of it and minimize debt. And being out of debt oneself is the way to protect against the situation where you suddenly find yourself broke and upside down. Third, if you have any investments at all, even a 401k, (not your house -- a house isn't an asset, it's a forced savings account, because assets put money in your pocket, not take it out) then you owe it to yourself to learn about those investments. Learn things like why Trump, Keosaki, and Buffet don't invest in mutual funds and exactly why they don't, for example. Know the four types of investments, and what the pros and cons are to them. This stuff should be taught in schools, and some forward looking ones are now. It's not hard, it's actually pretty common sense all told.
Finally, don't accept anything anyone says in the media or politics at face value. We have this wonderful tool that allows us to research all kinds of things to primary sources. Use it. It'll make you smarter, and it'llalso make you more informed.
I'm more hopeful than expectant in many ways. Those who know me know my mantra -- Expectations Decrease Joy. I keep trying to shed my expectations, both positive and negative, to get out of the trap of placing expectations on things, especially things I can't control.
This is why when people ask me about how I feel about O'Bama getting the presidency, I respond with, "We'll see what happens." I didn't get all blissful about the election -- I personally feel that we haven't had a race between anything other than two really bad candidates for long before my lifetime -- probably Kennedy and Nixon started this trend. I don't care about the man's skin color either -- in my way of thinking, there are no black people, red people, yellow people, white people -- there are just people. People are individuals, and between most people, even if they're aberrant people like the mentally insane or criminal, the similarities are still overwhelmingly much smaller than the similarities, by an order of magnitude. This is why I consider things like prejudice, bigotry, and jingoism to be rather destructive and self defeating. And as it follows, also counter to my mantra. Prejudice breaks down to pre, meaning before, and Judice, meaning to Judge. To pre-judge one must have expectations, and expectations decrease joy.
I also don't really buy concepts of "cultural" differences for native born Americans to any significant degree. More often than not, what is often termed "minority culture" is actually differences coming from different socio-economic levels more than anything else. The notable exceptions to this are the cultures that managed to keep fairly homogenous, like the Mexican culture groups, (though those are eroding) and the different Asian cultures, especially ones that keep clearly seperate like the Hmong.
I do know this -- We're on a big slide downward, and unless something changes dramatically we're not going to survive it in any way we'd like to. We're in economic trouble, and we'll have to work fast to turn that around. We'll see a nice increase in the stock market which will help somewhat in 2014 or 2015, but starting in 2016 things are going to start hitting the rotary air circulator at about Mach 4. This is something hardwired into the American investment culture, and unless some things get changed quickly it can't be averted. (Moral of the story -- if you have your 401k invested in stocks or mutual funds, which are just collections of stocks, make sure you get out of that when you see the market rise in 2014 or 2015 or you're going to feel like an Enron employee soon afterward) This financial crash would be devastating at any time, but with our current economy it's potentially disasterous.
Now, before any of you say, "But we have a new president who's going to fix that," go read the description of the president's job. Presidents don't fix economies. The only influence the president has on the economy is who he picks as the FED chairman and some minor influences on tax amounts. And when a major state is in such bad shape that they're issuing IOU's instead of sending refunds, things aren't looking too good.
The root of the problem is that we've thought for too long that we're invincible. Couple this with FDR's decision to push financial problems on future generations, a practice that politicians have done againand again since then, and some comeuppance is due at some point.
So, what do I suggest people do? First, stop worrying about what anyone else is doing. We've all got enough problems without compounding them by taking on everyone else's problems. Second, Start developing some real financial knowledge about how things work. Shed the assumptions and nonsense people have quoted as mantra for decades. After all, if a million people believe in a dumb idea, it's still a dumb idea. Understanding how money really works is a great way to understand how you can keep more of it and minimize debt. And being out of debt oneself is the way to protect against the situation where you suddenly find yourself broke and upside down. Third, if you have any investments at all, even a 401k, (not your house -- a house isn't an asset, it's a forced savings account, because assets put money in your pocket, not take it out) then you owe it to yourself to learn about those investments. Learn things like why Trump, Keosaki, and Buffet don't invest in mutual funds and exactly why they don't, for example. Know the four types of investments, and what the pros and cons are to them. This stuff should be taught in schools, and some forward looking ones are now. It's not hard, it's actually pretty common sense all told.
Finally, don't accept anything anyone says in the media or politics at face value. We have this wonderful tool that allows us to research all kinds of things to primary sources. Use it. It'll make you smarter, and it'llalso make you more informed.
