Dear fellow blog reader (seriously, who still read blogs these days? thank you for staying around),
I just finished the book Die with Zero by Bill Perkins and I am thinking about you.
Yes, YOU.
More specifically, I am thinking how I can summarise what I have learnt from this great great book (seriously, read it if you have the time, it is a short one (just 190 pages)).
I really have been on a streak of reading great books recently!! All great in their own ways.
This book has one single theme:
How to optimise your life so that you can get the most out of life.
The Big 3s in Life
Time, Health, Money – these are the “Big 3s” in life. At different stages of your life, you will have different combinations of these, and very rare, you would have all 3. Of course everyone wants to be a happy sexy milionaire that has all 3 of these, all the time. But that is probably not the case realistically for most of us. So what should we do? We might have time and health but no money in our 20s, while we may have money and health but not time in our 40s, then in our 60s, we have money and time, but not health…
Bill has provided a lot of thoughts and practical ways on how we could optimise our life, and here are what I believe are the key ones:
- Most people “overworked” and “oversaved“. They worked super hard in the office in their 20-60s, and they did not really enjoy the fruit of their hard work, leaving them with a lot of savings when they retire, but they do not have the health to enjoy them.
- Because of that, you should start spending more and enjoy what life has to offer you at an earlier age, preferrably in your 30s or around that time, when you have the time and health to do so. Travel. Spend time with your loved ones. Do not wait until they are not here or they do not have the health to do it with you.
- There are certain things in life that you could only experience once, and that you do not know when would be last time you would do so. For Bill, it is watching Pooh’s Heffalump movie with her daughter. It was her daughter’s favourite and they would watch it once in a while. As her daughter grew, one day her daughter said she was no longer interested in it. Had Bill know it earlier, he would have spent more time with her daughter doing that. Now Bill got the money, but he could not get those time back. There are different life experiences like these and they only happen once in life. You cannot get them back. Do not miss them.
Bill also talked about exactly how you may calculate your income and savings that you can actually get closer to “Die with Zero” (die with zero money in your bank account, so you have totally optimised all the money you earned and did not overwork and got too much savings than your life need), and what about the kids etc. But here I would not get into them – I just want to get the key points across.
The key theme is to live in the moment and try to experience more of what your life has to offer instead of digging your head into work without thinking. Do not wait because some day you will not be able to enjoy them, literally, due to health or whatever reason as life progresses.
It is a great book. I recommend it to you, especially if you are young, because you still have the power to alter the path of your life.
Ryan