When I was in high school, my friend Sparky and I invented a new word: “flotch”. To us, flotch was just miscellaneous baggage, whether or physical or mental. In GRS parlance, it was Stuff. Ever since I started blogging in 1997, I’ve used the term “miscellaneous flotch” to refer to the odd links I collect in my daily reading, the stuff that doesn’t fit in anywhere else.
At Get Rich Slowly, “miscellaneous flotch” takes the form of this Spare Change column, which is an approximately-weekly gathering of personal finance articles from around the web. Today, though, the flotch is flotchier than usual.
None of the links I’m about to share are directly related to personal finance. (Well, maybe one is.) Instead, these are interesting links I’ve gathered over the past few months that haven’t found their way into any form of writing. Enjoy!
First up, David de Souza sent me an infographic made up of the most common words used at Get Rich Slowly. He made this with something called Tagxedo. Anyhow, I think it’s fun:
Next up, my friend Craig sent me an article from Inside Higher Ed that describes models for post-university life. “Can one be devoted to the life of the mind outside of the university?” asks Andrew Taggart. In our modern world, the university has been the place for thinkers to do their thinking. Now, though, Taggart suggests there are new ways to make a living in the realm of the mind.
Back in November, I found an article from Andy, who wrote about moving on in the face of failure. He auditioned to join a band, but the gig was way out of his league. “Even though I bombed and left the tryout with egg on my face, I wasn’t embarrassed even a little bit,” Andy writes. “I had experienced the worst-case scenario and it wasn’t all that bad.”
He continues:
We spend years getting settled into a comfort zone and the thought of doing something outside of that scares the hell out of us. We’re creatures of habit and only venture outside our comfort zones if we really have to. But that’s how we grow and figuring out how to routinely expand your comfort zone just might be the secret to success.
This isn’t a “think positive” post. Optimism can breed inaction in a lot of cases if that optimism causes you to do nothing because you think everything will somehow magically work out. You still have to get your hands dirty.
I agree. Expanding my comfort zone has been the secret to whatever I have achieved in the past five years, anyhow.
On a semi-related note, I liked John Perry Barlow’s collection of adult principles, as collated by Miguel de Icaza. These include things like “expand your sense of the possible” (which goes hand-in-hand with Andy’s article above), “try not to forget that, no matter how certain, you might be wrong”, and “praise at least as often as you disparage”.
Finally, I found a couple of older posts that I liked from Jen over at Beauty and Bedlam. They’re even related to personal finance! First, she writes about choosing to pursue goals, regardless what other people think. Jen has been driving a “hunk o’ junk”, a minivan that’s practically falling apart. But she’s willing to do this because doing so helps her build wealth. A few days later, she followed up with a look at the difference between frugal and cheap. (Beauty and Bedlam is a great blog, by the way.)
That’s it for now. I’ll do a regular links round-up later in the week…
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Thank you so much for the link to the Inside Higher Ed article. I am a grad school dropout because I wasn’t a good fit for the Profzi scheme. I got an MA but en route to my PhD I said to hell with all and set sail to live by my wits with no organizational support of any kind.
This is what I faced as an employment field, to quote from the article: “Exhibit A: Ideologically blind graduate students working for universities that require their labor but then fail to value it. Exhibit B: The life of the professional researcher who writes for colleagues, not for a general readership; who’s rewarded for asking manageable questions, not for examining the big ones; and who values theoretical knowledge over practical wisdom. Exhibit C: The wasted lives of adjuncts.”
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I’m currently making films and I carry out to an extent his definition the person of integrity, but you need a touch of the hustler entrepreneur to make a living, unless you have a different kind of patronage (non-profits, publishers, etc). Entrepreneurship is often a sin among academics: which is why they always need somebody else to write their paychecks. (E.g. the “Poor Dad” in Kiyosaki’s book).
For example, the nomadic academic he describes could find a way to market her research so that her project gets well funded and supported. She could, for example, contract as a researcher or consultant for a game design company (ever played Rome Total War, or Civilization?) But instead she apparently waits tables– which compromises her “integrity”. She’s doing it wrong! She could do her cartographic research 24/7 if she finds a market for it: which is what enterepreneurship is: [finding or creating] and serving markets.
It is also peculiar that the paths the author disapproves of are in the realm of art or nomadic academia, whereas his lofty heroes fulfill more of a secular bishop role: steady and stolid dispensers of philosophical wisdom (like himself).
I disagree also with his privileging of philosophy, but that’s what all philosophers do– they tell you how philosophy is the greatest thing ever, like Tom Sawyer’s fence painting
By the way, my wife works as an adjunct and her life is far from wasted: the adjunct paycheck stabilizes the finances that let us pursue art and freelance work. If she was a full professor she’d have to sit all day in committees and give up doing what she loves most. So you can patch together something that works for you rather than divide the world in blocky chunks with no apparent cross-pollination. I think many of his observations are extremely keen, but ultimately his model oversimplifies things grossly.
He lacks granularity and refinement and a postmodern mix-match perspective. I bet you he grew up pre-cyberpunk. Self-correct and self-repair, cyborg!
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I like the term… seems to fit well. Actually some pretty interesting links though!
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Thanks for the flotch. I prefer becycling…blog recycling.
Hunter.
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I love the frugal vs. cheap article. Great collection of links, and I like “flotch” too! Thanks.
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Geeky, but I love the tagxedo turtle
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Misc Flotch on Personal Spending:
College finally paid off for me.. I sold that old Gold College Ring I don’t wear for 300 bucks!
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There’s definitely an article in this sentence: ‘Expanding my comfort zone has been the secret to whatever I have achieved in the past five years’… More info, please!
I’ve been thinking about it lots recently – feeling like I have no more energy to go outside my comfort zone. Even though I recognise that all the great things in my life have been a result of doing just that.
Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure it’s a continuous process – you gotta keep doing it or you go stale.
Reminds me of that awesome cartoon from hyperboleandahalf, where she laments the fact that ‘being an adult’ is something you have to keep working on, not a trophy you win once and display on the shelf
http://bit.ly/cN31fS
Thanks for the flotch
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I found the article on frugal versus cheap very interesting. When I initially tried to become more frugal I had assumed that being frugal meant buying the cheapest items. Thanks to articles like this I can now appreciate the value of what I buy. Yes, I sometimes still buy expensive items but only when I see the value in them is worth the extra money.
By the way, that turtle rocks!
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Balancing Beauty and Bedlam is one of my favorite personal finance sites because of the more personal nature of some of the posts balanced with thoughtful posts like the one that you linked.
I’ve been expanding my comfort zone with my home-based business for the past year. I don’t know at this point if the business itself will be a success or failure, but I have learned so much about shaking things off and moving on. I have gotten so much more comfortable dealing with people, and I’m learning my strengths and weaknesses in an entirely different way.
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I love that infographic! And I am heading to Beauty and Bedlam right now. Finding the balance between frugal and cheap can be so difficult.
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Loved Taggert’s article “Models for Post-University Life.” I’m currently struggling with trying to be financially secure without becoming a hustler. Really insightful piece (although it gets a bit too philosophical at the end).
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