Am I A Hypocrite?
My first quarterly newsletter, 6 months in the making, was sent out around noon central time yesterday. If you didn’t see it, check your spam. I apparently don’t understand Mailchimp, and sent it with the title “Test” — I then resent it and I think it still had the word “test” in the title. Ugh. If you deleted it, that was the real thing.
Also, tomorrow you will be able to hear me on a podcast! Dave Denniston, who creates the “Freedom Formula for Physicians Podcast,” interviewed me in June. I no longer remember what we talked about, but I recall having an entertaining conversation. He’s promised me that he has substituted out voice for that of James Earl Jones. Update — podcast is out! Go here to listen to it.
If you want to receive the newsletter, send me an email and I’ll add you to the subscriber list and resend it to you. The newsletter contains some blog statistics, links to articles from The InterWebs that are worth reading, and a link to the promised YouTube video in making the best paper airplane. It’s my first ever YouTube video (as far as I know), so pardon the low production quality. I should have made the content exclusive to the newsletter, but I can’t deprive the world of this airplane.
I used the introduction of the newsletter to discuss a little about the blog evolving and it prompted me to look back at some of my first posts. Going back and reading some of previous posts prompted me to consider other things I recently wrote, and ask myself the question, “Am I a hypocrite?”
Like many people, I do not particularly enjoy watching myself on video or hearing my voice on audio. Even so, I thought reading blog posts from 6 months ago would be fine. Reading it now was a bit painful. The writing seems to lack polish, though some of it isn’t awful. A benefit of the blog is my thoughts are out there to see and it’s easy to go back and look at them. When I want to see if my thinking continues to evolve, or if I am practicing what I am preaching, having my thoughts online makes it easier to evaluate.
So Am I A hypocrite?
In my first ever blog post, Country Road, I discussed how discovering I enjoyed country music was leading me to be more aware of some of my biases.
A few weeks ago, I wrote another post, discussing the recent kneeling controversy in the NFL (italics added in reprint here).
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“People have a right to be offended by anything they want (I think — that’s in the Constitution somewhere, right?). If so, then I have the right to not take them seriously when they are offended, if their offense doesn’t seem justified.”
I wasn’t upset by the kneeling. However I spent more time thinking about it as I re-read some old writing. I still am not offended by it. Others still have a right to their opinion. While I know some veterans are upset, many others are not, so I do not think I have to vigorously defend my position.
As I look back at that italicized line, it comes across a little glib. A lot of people are offended by the anthem protests. While I think the arguments fall short, the dialogue needs to take place. Not just the racial tension dialogue, but the “why are you offended dialogue?” Ignoring people’s anger, even when it seems misplaced, is exactly how we ended up in our current political climate. I do not think someone will change my mind on the position, but if someone wants to try again, I’ll listen.
I’ll give myself 2.5/5 stars (1 being a certain orange politician, 5 being Mother Theresa, who I presume was not a hypocrite).
What about the money?
One of my most read posts was about love and marriage and money. I discussed how we don’t have a fixed budget, but rather focus on saving first and minimizing fixed and variable costs. However my wife and I don’t always agree on what costs have room to be decreased, so while we had a system in place, it still caused tension.
The system “works,” but as opposed to a negotiated treaty with clear terms, it sometimes feels more like the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea: try to ignore it, occasionally rattle some sabers, every so often you fire a shot just to make sure they are paying attention, then sometimes you blow up a nuclear bomb and threaten to erect missile defense systems.
I think this continue to trend the right way, still using this system, but achieving détente. While we’ve always discussed finances, savings, goals, big/little purchases, we never did so systematically. Now we have scheduled monthly financial check ins (officially on the shared calendar), and are using Personal Capital,to make it fairly easy.
While our overall spending may not be substantially different (we have high fixed costs from daycare and our mortgage), our discretionary spending is more often from a shared perspective.
I’ll give myself 3.5/5 stars.
What about the kids?
I also started a series called Future Proofing Your Children, with the first post discussing education.
This post was written during summer break — Rogue One is now in third grade (Rogue Two is now 4 years old, and Rogue Three can walk!).
Rogue One seems to be doing well — we just received his first report card and he’s “on track” — on track for what is not clear. We’re trying to let him balance between class, extracurriculars, and normal kid goof off stuff.
Some days have been too intense — arriving at school at 745 for a before-school activity and then having a couple after school activities that means he arrives home at 730pm. That’s too much for many adults, let alone an 8 year old. Thankfully, he has almost no home work, is still asleep at 8:30, and those long days are uncommon.
We are trying to back off, because life isn’t supposed to be all extra-curriculars. He is going to have a 2-3 month period without an organized sport. Unless you consider chess a sport, because he is in a chess club before school and may be joining an advanced chess club after school. He still has Cub Scouts (going camping this weekend!). He still has plenty to do, but we’re actively managing things to ensure he is not always busy.
One thing we are not going crazy about is grades. His grades on a “1-4” scale, which is probably designed to keep parents from freaking out, because receiving a “1” doesn’t seem as bad as receiving a “D,” (an example only — our children are receiving nothing but 17’s). Our main point of emphasis has been and will be effort related — I care more about the work ethic than the grade (whether letters or numbers). With proper effort, the grades will be what they should/can be. That doesn’t stop him from goofing off, but so far his overall work ethic and intensity at school seems improved over prior years, where he has mostly been a social butterfly. He’s probably just maturing and working harder, but I’ll give us a little bit of credit.
I’ll call it 4/5 stars.
The Future
I think this periodic check-in, reading old posts and grading myself, is a good thing. I’ll try to keep doing it as long as the blog keeps going.
For those that received my newsletter, you know that I plan to add a new post/feature soon. If you didn’t receive my newsletter, it isn’t too late, just email me at RogueDadMD @ gmail.com and I’ll send it to you.
I appreciate your self-reflection. I won’t try to change your mind on the kneeling post but I did disagree with your position. I will say that, while I respect everyone’s freedom of expression, I believe the choice of venue was a very poor one. Why was our flag chosen for this protest and why not an event other than the playing of the National Anthem? imho, this is the problem that so many football fans and patriots had. Not the protest per se but the timing of the protest. Thank you for your thoughtful posts – a diet of finance gets boring after awhile! JFT
Johanna — thank you for the additional thoughts.
Using the anthem as a way to protest isn’t new — NFL players didn’t invent it. Athletes going back 50 years have done things during the anthem as a form of protest.
However many of the people that are upset about the NFL anthem protest also object to all the protests, or simply have no support for the reason for any of the protests. The majority of people I know personally that are upset over the anthem did not support prior protests, almost all of which have been peaceful and using “traditional” methods. Protests by definition are meant to shake things up, not fit into an pre-defined role. The anthem protests were about as unobstrusive as possible — certainly less in your face than the protests on the street that led to cancelling TWO major concerts in my town.
While I understand people believe this protests disrespects the country in some way, I think a lot of people think that the traditional form of protesting is getting them nowhere, and that traditional political discourse and regular means (town halls, voting, etc) is not making a difference.
My initial take was that the anthem protests wouldn’t even get much attention or affect change. It’s gotten more attention than I ever expected, but I am not convinced it will lead to change. Not because it is making people angry, but many of the people for whom the protests are directed towards don’t really care or want change, and no form of protest will make a significant difference.
Simply put — I see it as getting attention, not necessarily changing minds. But if you can get the attention of a few people in power, and the people protesting have SOME leverage, then you can force change. The NFL players have gotten attention; if they can use whatever power/influence they have on their own to leverage that attention, then maybe something good will come of it.
The problem may be though that in the end they are not able to affect the change they hoped. Instead of making those that “pay” their check mad and alienate them, maybe they could have encouraged them to come alongside. They could have used some of their wealth to aide in that trip. But guess, what, at least one of them is not currently working. I did hear rumors that he may be getting a book deal so in the end, he will still be okay. But nothing changed.
The only way to change what they want to change is to bring people into the trenches with them. Did you know a police dept. did that? They took regular people through some of their training exercises. They couldn’t believe what happened.
At the end of the day, 99% of the police officers are good people who also want to get home to their families. But they are the first that will run towards a barrage of bullets to rescue you.
And they want to protest police brutality, but not own up to their own. As the one article you posted indicated, both sides have to own up to their mistakes before change can happen. It also mentioned empathy. And the author would be right, on one hand, I haven’t faced what they have faced. But guess, what, they make their own perception biases, by assuming because I am white, that I have not had any challenges of my own. So again, we have to come together to the table.
Those that want real change should use their vast resources to make such an event possible. But sometimes, I don’t think they really want to make the necessary sacrifices to see real change.
Hypocrisy as well as misinformation abound. Kapernick is only out of a job because the owners don’t want the headache, but he is qualified to play. A lot of these players are active in their community and do use their resources — but it isn’t something that is going to get a lot of press. I do think spending time with police is great idea. I am not sure what you mean about making the necessary sacrifices. Kapernick’s protest seems to have ended his NFL career. The book deal was unlikely to be a given when he started.
^^ – What she said!!! :O)
Also, frankly I don’t care if you are an orange politician or one that likes to wear pant suits or one that looks really old and needs to retire. Most of them are hypocrites.
However, in reality aren’t we all. The other day I was venting about the crazy people weaving in and out of traffic and about one that ran a red light at the metering zone. But, yet I was driving 75 in a 65 MPH zone. It is easy to see errors in others while ignore our own.
Two of the articles you posted links to in your Newsletter showed that perfectly. Mandisa has a great song out, “Bleed the same”. Can we somehow find some common ground and start there?!? Not finding any, isn’t really a pretty picture.
cd :O)
Well said, Chris! The world would be a better place if we all recognized that we bleed the same. I was involved politics for a stint years ago, and left very jaded with ALL sides. Also grew up in a religion that threatened expulsion for divorce and it took my OWN divorce to change my outlook. Many other stories I could tell on myself!
I bleed red, but that’s because I’m an StL Cardinals fan. Cubs fans bleed blue, and I do not consider them human. 🙂
My religion isn’t exactly considered tolerant in some ways, but more liberal versions of the followers such as me still find ways to reconcile things.
I’m not sure if judging others is human nature or just that we’re taught it so early (via observation of others) that we can’t separate it. I’m guilty of it as well. Fighting it and recognizing it in yourself is very difficult. Even when recognized that you do it, it’s still difficult to actually change behavior.
I’m sure there is a good psychology study of babies out there that has already looked at this.
Hi there,
I stumbled onto your blog after reading one of your comments on MMM about car safety. I was intrigued by the MD in your signature, since being an MD myself, I relate to the Retire Early Concept quite differently than most. It sounds attractive and there are days that I wished had fewer stress. But on the other hand I see I am doing something that’s beneficial to the community and retiring early would be such a waste of hard earned experience. My father, also an MD is still practicing well into his 70s. I appreciate the concept of frugal living, but don’t want to drive my kids around in a 20 year old death trap, when seemingly everybody regardless of financial ability is driving big SUVs. Feeling these contradictions, I couldn’t help wondering if I am myself a hypocrite. Reading your latest blog post the title really stuck to me. What’s your take on my thoughts?
Hi Georgy — even MMM has an element of hypocrisy that he will admit to, given that he flies around the world to do MMM type stuff. Nice to see someone stumble over here from his site. 🙂
Early retirement when you hate your work and have no outlets make sense. If you enjoy it then just seeking financial independence makes more sense, so you can walk away when you are ready. If you love the work and believe it is more fulfilling than your retirement options, then keep working as a choice. As far as the SUV goes, I don’t think you need to drive a hummer to achieve safety on the road. There is a continuum. While riding a bike is the most environmentally friendly and healthy option, it just doesn’t work in every circumstance, and I don’t think you need to feel extreme guilt for occasionally doing something that is environmentally unfriendly. I think trying to minimize impact is a great goal, but there is a tradeoff. I hope my next car is very environmentally friendly, but I won’t buy a $100k Tesla to achieve that goal.
My dad is also a physician and working last 70. It’s just what he wants to do. I think it’s unlikely I will work that long unless I have a financial need I choose (not have) to support.
Thanks for the reply. It makes more sence this way. Be financially independent, so you can work on your own terms. (or not).
Exactly. The physicians I know that are pursuing FI or already there at a relatively young age don’t really want to completely retire. They just want to do whatever it is they do on their own terms