Five Things That We Are Conditioned to Think Important but Really Aren’t

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Now that I’m on the cusp of 60, I think I’ve acquired a fair amount of wisdom. And what I want to do now is drop some of that accumulated wisdom on the great unwashed. Here, then, are five things that we are conditioned to think are important but really aren’t.

Music

Way back in 1974, when I was in junior high, the following song was all the rage on pop music stations.

Yeah…don’t ask me why. The 70s were a strange time. A lot of young men decided it would be fun to run through a crowd naked and this song was a homage to that weird fad.

But sadly, this wasn’t the only lame-ass song that the music gatekeepers of the 70s foisted on a defenseless public. Here are some more:

My Ding-A-Ling (Chuck Berry: 1972)

Half Breed (Cher: 1973)

The Night Chicago Died (Paper Lace: 1974)

Seasons in the Sun (Terry Jacks: 1974)

Saturday Night (The Bay City Rollers: 1976)

The music from the 70s sucked. And if you’re a Gen Xer or a Millennial, try not to be too haughty. The music from the 80s, 90s, 00s, and 10s sucked too. This doesn’t mean, of course, that the music of your youth wasn’t fun. I love 70s music, and whenever I hear a song from that era I reflexively start singing along with it. But I also realize that my love of 70s music is purely accidental. If my formative years were the 00s, I’d love rap music and find 70s music appalling.

Now a question: If your love of something is highly dependent on what year you were born, how important is it?

Sports

Here are three things that don’t happen when your team wins the big game:

1. Your ability to lose weight, exercise, and eat right suddenly becomes easier
2. Your paycheck is automatically 10 percent larger
3. Your IQ jumps a standard deviation

And here are three things that don’t happen when your team loses the big game:

1. Your ability to lose weight, exercise, and eat right suddenly becomes even harder
2. Your paycheck is automatically 10 percent smaller
3. Your IQ drops a standard deviation

Nothing materially good or bad happens to you whenever a big game is concluded. You’re the same person you were just three hours prior. If you’re a winner and your team loses, you’re still a winner. If you’re a loser and your team wins, you’re still a loser.

I’m not saying sports aren’t fun. They are. Just put them in the proper perspective. War, plague, and civil unrest matter. These are things that can royally screw up your life. Sports, on the other hand, don’t matter at all. In fact, I’d have a hard time pointing to another human endeavor that is even less consequential. Do you even remember who won the World Series two or three years ago?

Cars

Here are three reasons why I’ve never been a car enthusiast:

1. Cars sit idle most of the day. When I was working, I used my car for roughly two hours a day. Now that I’m retired, I use my car for roughly a half-hour a day. This means that throughout my car-owning career, my cars have spent over 90 percent of their time doing nothing for me but gathering dust and providing target practice for birds, drunks, and vandals.
2. Cars don’t age well. A car with 100,000 miles on it has long lost its new-car smell. Other smells now dominate its interior. And since the human body emits all sorts of gases and oleaginous secretions, and since human beings are wont to use their cars as mobile diners and smoking lounges, it’s safe to say that those smells are far from pleasant. And as the interior goes so goes the engine. An engine with 100,000 miles on it is much more grimy and prone to failure than an engine with 0 miles on it.
3. Ride-sharing has proliferated. Thanks to Uber and Lyft, a ride to anywhere you want to go is just minutes away. Now, of course, being totally dependent on Uber and Lyft would surely be an inconvenience. Who the heck wants to deal with ride-sharing during an emergency? And who the heck wants to rely on ride-sharing to facilitate an hour-long commute to and from work? I imagine that would get quite expensive. But regardless of how inconvenient not owning a car might be, the fact remains: technology has rendered car-ownership superfluous. And this will become even more evident when Tesla perfects self-driving cars and unleashes hundreds of thousands of robo-taxis on America’s roads.

Now another question: How important is something that you don’t really use, don’t really count on remaining pristine, and don’t really need?

Clothes

Clean shirt, new shoes
And I don’t know where I am goin’ to
Silk suit, black tie,
I don’t need a reason why
They come runnin’ just as fast as they can
‘Cause every girl crazy ’bout a sharp dressed man
—ZZ Top

Ever since I owned a home, I designated some ratty jeans and shirts for painting clothes. And it’s amazing how little paint has dripped on these clothes. I’ve literally gone a dozen or so painting sessions without suffering the infamy of a single oversaturated brush or a single errant roller.

But heaven forbid I ever bought nice clothes. Since the time I was in college, my nice clothes have always been a magnet for desecration. If I wasn’t dripping some manner of food or drink on them, I was invariably putting them in harm’s way. I had two really nice jackets stolen from me while in bars. After the second theft, I vowed never to enter a New York bar with a jacket again. It was better to leave my jacket in the car and freeze for however long it took me to wade through the bar’s entrance.

And here’s another example of sartorial desecration that happened nearly 40 years ago.

The year was 1981. I was attending Buffalo University and I secured a date with a very attractive young lady. In fact, she was so attractive, I wasn’t taking any chances with this first date. I got two tickets for They’re Playing Our Song at Shea’s Theatre in downtown Buffalo, I arranged to borrow my housemate’s car for the night (no dreary public transportation for this date), and I bought this amazing dress shirt for $45 ($127 in today’s dollars). It fit just right and really complimented my steel blue eyes. And then, as I awaited the return of my housemate and his loaner car, tragedy struck. I was sitting on the living room couch and another housemate emerged from his bedroom. And out popped his German Shepard puppy, Barney. And as soon as Barney saw me he bounded in my direction. And as soon as he reached my firmly planted feet, he lept up. Naturally, I tried to gently rebuff Barney’s affection with an outstretched hand. But I was off my game at that moment and Barney’s frantic snout made contact with my left shoulder. And as puppies are wont to do, he nipped. And sure enough, one of his teeth snared a thread on my amazing dress shirt. And as gravity stepped in and Barney returned to earth, so did a nice chunk of my amazing dress shirt—in Barney’s mouth, of course. I didn’t have the amazing dress shirt on for five minutes and it was ruined.

Why? Why do my ratty clothes repel ruin and my nice clothes attract ruin? Is it God’s way of mocking my vanity? Perhaps. All I know is that I have foresworn nice clothes for at least 20 years now. My wardrobe has almost entirely been furnished by the House of Walmart and the House of Kohl’s. And this decision to go pedestrian on the clothing front hasn’t hurt me one bit socially or professionally.

Clothes aren’t important because most people aren’t as shallow as a New York City Housewife. Just wear clean clothes that are appropriate for the occasion and eschew the designer labels. You’ll be fine. And whenever ruin does visit your wardrobe, it won’t be a tragedy and you’ll be able to laugh it off.

Popularity

I despise the bubble popularity that is won without merit and lost without pride.
—Thomas Hart Benton

Prior to my fortieth birthday, I always wanted to be famous. I had no discernable talent or drive that would possibly deliver fame to my doorstep, but I wanted it delivered nonetheless. For some reason, I wanted to matter to hundreds of thousands of strangers.

And then I finally woke up and asked myself why. Why did I crave the affirmation of strangers? In what way would the obsequious fawning of strangers make me happy? Were my insecurities that depressingly deep? And how really important was fame after all? Would God really crown something important that so few of His creations could reasonably secure?

Again, something happened in my late 30s, and the switch was flipped. It suddenly occurred to me that mattering to the people around me was a surer path to happiness than mattering to hundreds of thousands of strangers. So I dedicated myself to being a great co-worker, a great neighbor, a great friend, a great brother, a great son, and a great husband. And the results of this newfound purpose couldn’t have been better. I’m a nobody. But I got great friends, a great family, and a kick-ass wife. And I look forward to waking up every day. Life is good.

The Financial Angle

A wit once remarked that the essence of dermatology is shockingly simple: If it’s wet, make it dry. If it’s dry, make it wet.

Well, personal finance is no more complicated than dermatology. Here’s the corresponding witticism for the FIRE community: If it builds wealth, don’t mock it with a poverty of resources. If it builds poverty, don’t humor it with a wealth of resources.

Here are a handful of things that build wealth:

• Work
• Earning a credential that society values
• Spending less than you earn
• Getting out of debt
• Investing in low-cost index funds

Since these things build wealth, a wise guy or gal doesn’t mock them with a poverty of resources. Our wise guy or gal throws a lot of time and money at them.

And here are a handful of things that build poverty—or better yet, build the dreary paycheck-to-paycheck existence that dogs 78 percent of American adults:

• Listening to music
• Watching sports on television
• Buying a new car with a six-year note
• Being in the thrall of designer labels
• Striving for more Twitter followers on the off chance that you might actually become a handsomely paid influencer

Since these things build poverty, a wise guy or gal doesn’t humor them with a wealth of resources. Our wise guy or gal throws very little time and money at them.

Final Thoughts

Okay, groovy freedomist, that’s all I got. What say you? Is what I’ve deemed unimportant truly unimportant and not worthy of a sizeable portion of your time and money? Or am I bonkers? Music, sports, cars, clothes, and popularity are the very things that put the Spring in Springfield and you would be foolish not to lavish them with an inordinate amount of your time and money. Financial prudence be damned!