Mulling over the idea that Compound Interest
can be your Best Friend or your Worst Enemy...
whether you buy cameras or not...
Some of us are laid back and seem content to let life wash over us, making do with whatever the universe decides to send along. This cohort falls into jobs and stumble into careers without much thought. Others of us are planners and worker bees and we tend to set goals, set procedures in motion, and constantly push toward some distant pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
I'm not sure where I fall on the continuum but I am discovering one thing: It's more fun to struggle and work hard, and fail, and get back into the game again, than it is to be finally, successful. Why? Because, if you don't have to struggle; if the friction of artistically participating in life is reduced or eliminated, then it seems like there's no point.
"Success" as described by a freelance photographer or small business owner can have many measures and many definitions. A lot of our culture's measures of success have to do with how well we have done financially. Wealth and security are key yardsticks with which to measure small business success.
When I meet with other photographers (or ad agency people, or illustrators, or filmmakers) there is always a question that seems to get asked after everyone is into their second beer, and that is, "Do you have a plan to retire?" And usually what is really being asked is: "Will you ever be able to retire?" The implication being that people in the arts have made a stream of conscious decisions to reject economic stability and security as some sort of required payment for being invested in creative enterprises. For doing their art. For writing their books or painting their canvases.
I am disheartened when, with each mention of my having bought a new piece of gear, the comments pour in questioning whether I have raided my child's college fund, stolen communal money from the kitchen cookie jar, done this behind my partner's back, or if I have just plunged myself into the bowels of sticky credit card debt from which I'll never recover. My acquaintances who opted for STEM careers seem not to be able to conceive of a non-technical/big vision job (like photography) that isn't wedded at the hip with intractable poverty and, at the end of life, financial ruin.
But what if...... what if you had little business successes every day, week, month and year of a long career in the arts? What if you shied away from endless exotic vacations (those are trips which clients are not paying for) and big, fancy cars, and houses which were clearly a stretch too far? What if you ate evening meals that you or your spouse prepared from scratch, in your own dining room, five or six nights a week, for decades at a time (and actually became better chefs than those in 90% of the restaurants you've visited) and saved somewhere between the $9,000 and $13,000 a year the average American family, whose appetite for meals acquired outside the house, spend, on average (family of four, middle class) eating out?
What if you saved up and paid in cash for your cars? What if you started saving when your child was an infant to ensure that you could send them to the college of their choice? What if you put all your "disposable" income in SEP accounts and Roth IRA's? In short, what if you did all the things people in all those other careers do (mostly in concert with HR departments) while you were happily grinding away at a pleasurable career in the arts?
I had a big epiphany this year as I was working on other people's financial legacies. The reveal was that I had followed in my parents' footsteps by doing the 1950's work/live/save construct in which people get decent jobs (or careers), spend less money than they make, invest that money in things that generate compounding interest, and reject the ideas of conventional, contemporary status seeking. No ten thousand dollar watches. No Ferrari in the garage. No skiing in Gstaad. No gold flakes on my butterscotch pudding...And, no gold toilet seats.
Doing the final math I discovered: that I could have retired (with few financial consequences) a few years ago. That I don't need to accept any jobs I don't want and that I can pretty much purchase any gear I want without impoverishing or inconveniencing anyone in my family. The house is paid for . Our cars are paid for. We have no outstanding debt. We're not in thrall to our credit cards. There's money in the coffers....
At this point of sudden economic realization I hit the wall and experienced my own bout of post responsibility depression. If you don't need to work then you have to come to grips with what it is you really want to do. Why you want to do it. How you want to do it. And all that this entails. You have to find a new target that has meaning for you. A new thing, besides need and want to drive you to do your work.
The realization I've been batting about is related to something I wrote long ago, called "The Passion is in the Risk." (You look it up, I don't get paid to do research...) The whole idea, in a nutshell, is that art works as long as there is fear and friction, and the chance of failure involved. Get too comfortable and you lose the spark that kept you awake at night (sweating the numbers) and working hard at doing your best work during the day.
I wonder if so many of the readers here at VSL are in the same existential boat. Is our random flirtation and dalliance with gear a substitute for the passion we felt for photography when we had to work harder at it?
I don't really have an answer and I haven't figured anything out. But I wonder, if I had the chance to do it all over again (which I may....) whether I should have emulated some of my younger friends and spent every last cent on expensive alcohol, amazingly impressive German cars, and a never ending stream of expensive and emotionally needy partners. Would my work be better now? Even better in the future?
In the end I'm okay with my choices. Now I have to figure out how we succeed once you've been blindsided by success.
the "serious" business face.
20 comments:
I am 77, and will finally "retire" at the end of this year. Will I become a study in idleness? Not likely. Why didn't I retire at 65? Because I do interesting stuff, have spent decades learning how to do it, and to just throw it all away seemed wasteful and foolhardy. Plus, it has paid well. But, I find myself confronting an existential question as I confront the transition: Will my life have meaning after "work" is no longer a part of it?
I actually gave myself an answer to that question earlier today, in an annual meeting with a representative of my long term care group. Among the questions designed to assess my emotional state, one was, "What in your life gives you meaning?" I had to think about this for a few minutes. My answer? "I give meaning to my life. I am not the result of something outside of myself."
Nice answer. And Smart!
Success is not a goal I guess, but something that is achieved by pursuing goals.
In the last 18 months I have been rethinking a lot of my goals, and my strategies... Putting them into action has led to a great deal more success than I had over years of trying to be successful.
I hope that makes sense ;)
When I reached the point where I could retire and we could live comfortably for the rest of our lives, I went through the same soul searching you appear to be describing. My career, while not in the creative arts, was challenging and creative nonetheless. I was pretty good at it (based on the jobs I got and what companies were willing to pay me), I enjoyed it most days, and I liked most of the people I surrounded myself with. So I kept going for quite a while.
About ten years ago it changed. The business world was upended in the 2008 financial upset, and I realized that the work no longer was either challenging nor satisfying. It had become, finally, repetitive and looked to quickly become boring. So I “retired”. I did some part time work for a while based on my experience, but mostly I started working on the project of “me”. I resumed exercise (which I had lapsed from), started eating better, took jazz guitar lessons and joined a yoga class, took up photography seriously for the first time, lost a lot of weight.
Ten years on all of those things have morphed in ways I never could have predicted. But I don’t regret the path I’ve chosen one bit. The Me Project continues, and I learn about myself everyday.
You have reached a point in your life where you can do those things that you were afraid to fail at without suffering the consequences. I'm writing this more for me than you.
I did the same thing you did, but don't you ever look at young people who are blowing everything they have to trek through Colombia or climb the pyramids or live a nomadic life as a surfer or downhill skier or sail around the world in a leaky sailboat, and wonder if you should have tried that? I once took a rare ski trip to...somewhere, I can't remember where...and saw a cheerful, chatty guy flipping burgers in a seasonal ski-slope burger stand, probably fifty years old, all wrinkled up by years of sun, a season ticket dangling from his pants, earrings, tattoos...and I thought, "Nope." If the guy doesn't get killed skiing, or kill himself, his last thirty years look to be pretty miserable. But his youth may have been pretty wonderful, those years when I had my nose to the grindstone, being totally responsible and taking orders from many people for whom I had no respect.
I will say that, living in Santa Fe, I have run into quite a few trust fund people of both sexes, some quite old, and after getting to know them a bit, I generally feel sorry for them, even as they loll around their 10,000-square-foot houses and fly on their private jets to their other houses. All they seem to talk about is money; most of them seem to have passed through life without touching the sides, and are generally about as ignorant a group of people I have ever encountered. (There are exceptions, of course, but few and far between, and when you get to know *those* people fairly well, they still seem to spend a lot of their time obsessing about who has how much.)
JC
I'm retired. I spend my time trying to help those that never had the chance to put away a retirement nest egg. Either because of the life they were born into, medical issues (FASD) or being sold into the sex trade. Goals for them are simple. Find shelter and enough food to eat TODAY. Yesterday doesn't matter anymore and tomorrow may never come.
I also spend time on trying to better myself. Beyond that I still love getting out with either my digicams or film cameras and seeing if I can move my creative rock a bit further down the path.
As long as you enjoy working and Belinda isn't pining for some extended travel keep at it. But remember tomorrow may never come. Live today to the fullest. Pithy yes, but so very true. I have lost many friends who worked way too long and then died within two years of their retirement. What they left behind were some very resentful family.
Eric
The odds on your ever going into retirement...in the sense of quitting all of it...are just about zip. Nobody who works as much as you do, at the same time maintaining a heavy, disciplined regimen of exercise, can come to a full stop without falling on his face. Too much momentum. Reapportioning more of your time to writing fiction, assuming you actually enjoy it, wouldn’t be the worst idea. And creating an occasional do-good pro bono project which incorporates writing, photography, and video could prove fulfilling as well.
Can’t give any how-to examples from my own life. Too few, too infrequent, and of too little consequence.
I've always been a saver, not a spender. Fortunately, so has my wife. However, I have enjoyed lots of decent trips away and some nice camera gear (mostly second-hand) so I feel I have the balance about right. We are debt free and I have about 15 years left to retirement age. What I don't have is a big pension pot. I lost trust in the financial sector and basically save for my retirement myself.
I don't know if my generation will ever truly retire, but I don't mind too much. I need something to keep me interested at least two or three days a week and my job does that for me. I work for myself too which helps. I enjoy a quality of life with my family now, that I would not if I were an employee.
This sounds very familiar. My wife and I (kids are grown now) make our own meals 6 days a week. We might go out on that other day or just eat leftovers. We gave no credit card debt. No lines of credit. We live in a nice house but nothing outrageous. I’m on track to retire from teaching in 6 years and we will be financially healthy and stable. My wife has her own business. I will confess to owning and enjoying a BMW but I didn’t buy it new and it hasn’t been a financial burden to operate it, it’s actually very reliable. I haven’t purchased a new camera in years and I’m happy to use older gear. Used camera gear suits me just fine. Consumerism is a real sickness in our culture. I’m not immune to it but with some discipline I’ve been able to set myself up nicely in life. My wife is more disciplined than I am and we make a good team.
Kirk, lots of thoughts in your post. Some of which I can relate to and lots to think about more. Over the years many people asked me how I did it. My answer was simple: we spent our entire lives living below our means and I have never paid a penny cent in credit card ineterst (if I couldn't afford to pay the bill in full when it came I didn't buy it). A meal out is atypical, I didn't buy lunch - I brought it with to work.
Now that I am older a couple of thoughts have become apparent to me. I originally retired at 49 and one thought that occurred to me repaetedly afterwards was gee it has to be harder than that, that was too easy. It didn't seem right, and perhaps there was a bit of what you called "struggle" associated with that feeling. I didn't struggle nor was I struggling. Retirement is something I think you have to be in the right frame of mind for, at 49 I wasn't ready for it. So I sought a part-time consulting job and worked that for years, mainly because it gave something to do and I felt I could add value to my clients business operations. It has now been a little over a year since the second time I retired and this time I feel pretty content with it.
To be clear I wasn't born into an affluent family, I didn't inherit wealth, life hasn't handed to me. I worked for it, going to college and getting a master's degree while working and raising a family. In my early married days we had a single car - that means I walked a bit. Much of life's about choices.
Yes there were times when I held back at things and feel I should have done some things but didn't because I didn't want to spend the money or didn't think that was the best thing to do at the time from a family perspective. I think there is a balance somewhere between doing things and saving that I hope my children find and live by. I think the objective is to have enough financially to feel comfortable but not live extravagantly.
I think its true that money can't buy happines; happiness is a byproduct from doing kind things, from loving and being loved, from experiencing things, from on the whole having made good choices. Happiness is not something to seek it's simply a byproduct of living a better life.
As you, I and others enter our golden years life is more about enjoying things and interacting with people. If that includes accepting jobs that you don't need financially but enjoy then go for it. You mentioned in a previous post about you and your wife taking a vacation to Quebec. Do it and do it more often now that you can. JEFF
One more think Kirk. My "helping" activities include doing a lot of photography and video work. I would like to thank you once again for spending time over the phone helping me set up my Panasonic G85 prior to my two trips to Guatemala a couple of years ago. The videos and images I was able to produce where of great help in their efforts.
It's exciting "work" and presents a whole new set of logistical challenges to overcome.
Thanks again Kirk.
Eric
A slightly off topic note on retirement and photography. I worked as a lawyer with the long hours, etc., and it was a challenge to divvy up the limited free time among me, family, friends, and chores. I would squeeze in photography where I could - taking photos from the car at traffic light on the way to work, taking an hour for a photo walk after a court appearance downtown, for example. I looked forward to retirement when I could devote more time to my photography. But in fact, after retiring, I became less productive. The urgency was gone, both to get out and photograph, and when I did, in the "seeing." Turns out that the time when I was stealing brief moments to engage in photography was when I was most productive and created my best work.
I've found that retirement has many meanings. You can't distill it down to an easy answer. Yes, there are the answers I give to those people who constantly ask, "how's retirement" or "are you keeping busy". I usually give the stock answer that it's great and I have plenty to do.
The reality? Some days I don't do a damned thing. I spread my time between writing, playing drums in a band, and photography...all perfect activities to pretend and tell myself that I'm keeping busy, and fulfilling some long postponed adventure to Nirvana. It's a little bit like just getting out of high school, where you know you'll have a future, but you're not quite sure what it's going to be.
I think that's the true beauty of it. If you don't have a certain appreciation for the unknown, then you're probably not ready to retire. I've simply accepted the fact that sometimes it takes all day to do nothing. I'm good with that.
I was born during the Great Depression. A number of my relatives lost their job and those that did not worried that they would. I graduated as an engineer and worked in the Aerospace Industry. I was constantly concerned that I might be laid off. My grandfather, a very successful engineer, told me: "Every day do your job and a little bit more and everything will turn out all right." I took his advice and everything did turn out all right.
I retired very suddenly. A large company bought our small company. They did not need a 65 year old president and so, unexpectedly, I had no job. I had saved money for retirement but had no plans for what I would do.
I tried several things, but what worked me was helping other people. It happened that I know a lot about income taxes. So I became deeply involved in an IRS/AARP program to prepare income tax returns for low income people. I prepared tax returns and taught other volunteers how to do it. The people I helped appreciated it and I got a lot of satisfaction from doing it.
So, I suggest that you consider how you could use your expertise to help other photographers. Perhaps teach a course at a local college or university. Perhaps lead your own photo tours combining teaching and travel.
I spent a large part of my income wisely on horses, foreign holidays and fast cars.
The rest I frittered away on savings plans for my retirement.
I expect to work until I'm at least 75.
Don't regret it for a minute. :)
I have come to a similar realization after these many years in photography.
When I was young I was on fire to set the world a-buzzing with my genius.
I was sure I would have amgazine covers, clients flying me here and there all on private jets etc.
What actually happened was small jobs with small clients. Tiny pay and a small lifestyle with three small kids. We never went hungry and vacations were camping and fishing trips. Slowly the clients got bigger and better paying but he vacations were still weekends at the beach or a campout in the mountains.
We enjoyed the family and kept out of debt and saved what we could.
At 60 I realized I was not going to get to be the world famous photographer I thought I would be at 22. For a while I was down but slowly I realized that what I really liked was time with my family and not the shiny cars or big houses some of my peers were buying (and financing). I also realized that what I had done as our children were growing up was modeling a person who had a good work ethic. Our kids did not grow up in a house where they got everything (they certainly agree) and had no sense of a struggle or challenge to life. They think carefully about money, work hard and enjoy the experiences they have with friends and family. They seem uninterested in worldly goods as just so much more crap to look after.
So yeah, I made enough money so I could stop tomorrow but I am having fun. The work is still a challenge and truth be told, it is my social life too. Being healthy, having a good partner and a happy family is the goal I actually ever wanted.
Vaclav Havel wrote some interesting things about art under the Soviets and then after the country was free. While he appreciated the freedom (he had been imprisoned and otherwise ill-treated by the Soviets) he found that it was hard on the art.
OTOH, there are artists who live perfectly sedate, prosperous lives and whose art is driven by inner direction/demons and who do great art for all of their lives.
Kirk, this is a very good and resonant post.
These are very recognizable issues. I took a three year "tour of duty" job, that involved us moving to Brussels (in Belgium), which was a great experience, as a last step in my career, I thought, to do something I felt was very worthwhile. When we moved back home, I turned 64, and since we were "sorted" financially, I stepped back from the 24x7 professional life we (I) had been living for decades.
Regular time looking after the young grandchild, personal projects, the first 4 week vacation since 1981 when I was still a student (again). And then... I got into helping a couple of promising but struggling companies. I did some teaching. I did some work on climate-change adaptation approaches, applying my systems engineering and other professional background. Did a lot of photography, bought and fell into synergy with my X-H1. So... Very much recognizable issues. I cooked a lot, brewed up a couple of batches of world-class culinary vinegars (another obsession and story)...
But basically, I was feeling void, not practising my true craft, and still with drive to spare. I don't need to work. But. So now I am back as general manager (part time) and CTO driving a company once again. Still keeping a day a week free to dedicate to our first grandchid, with a second on the way.
A long-winded way of saying that I really get it - you're home and dry, there are choices, but what are you going to do when the first flush of "freedom" projects are done?
Wishing you wisdom and joy,
Murray
I love that quote from 'JC':
"most of them seem to have passed through life without touching the sides"
I'm not sure if it originated elsewhere, but I came back here looking for it. Great post and comments.
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