Did You Create Memories Today?
Did you create memories today?
Years ago in the early to mid 1990’s I met a gentleman who had an extremely successful Amway business. Through his front yard, he would move nearly as much product in a month as a single WalMart.
He said, “I used to spend money buying stuff. I now spend my money creating memories.” Why create memories? For many when they age there comes a point where all they have to live for is to relive their lives through their memories.
In his book, Die With Zero: Getting All You Can From Your Money And Your Life, Bill Perkins introduces the concept of “memory dividend”. There are many ways to spend and invest your money. Like other forms of investments, memories pay dividends and the earlier in life you create and accumulate memories, the longer memories pay dividends. At the end of life all many of us will have are our memories. You certainly are not taking any money or belongings with you when you die.
My Son’s Gap Year
Let me illustrate the power of memory dividend. When my oldest son graduated from high school, he took a gap year and went to Denmark. There he lived with a host family. He received a nominal monthly stipend in exchange for helping middle school Danish students with their verbal English.
During the gap year, he traveled to Finland, Estonia, Germany, Iceland, Spain, and Great Britain. In a single year, he traveled to more countries than I have in my life. In addition, he met other gap students from other countries and learned about their cultures and he remains friends with a couple of them.
He has an interest in cooking and subsequently spent a year in culinary school. It just so happened his host dad was a chef and gave him personal lessons. He learned something about teaching and dealing with adolescents. He became proficient enough in Danish which is a challenging language and also picked up some German.
He learned to play handball which is a major Danish sport. His gap year was an ideal way to create memories and memory dividends to last a lifetime.
If my son lives to 80, he will have 60 years to relive those memories and apply the knowledge and skills he picked many of which are more valuable than anything he would learn in a classroom. How many other things pay 60 years of dividends? Nearly anything you buy outside investments depreciates with time. Not memories. We tend to value them the further removed we become from the time of the creation of the memory.
Plus, such an experience stands out in a resume. A former patient of mine works for a major life insurance company and trains and supervises some 40-50 field agents. He would always ask about my kids during his office visits. When I told him that my son just got back from his gap year in Denmark, he said, “I love to see something like that on a resume.” It tells much about a person and I love working with young adults who show that type of courage and initiative.”
Sandlot Days
My closest friends I met in grade school and on the Little League diamond. We know each other so well that we can look at each other and know what the other is thinking. Four or five of us regularly get together once or twice a year. If you ever saw the movie The Sandlot, that is what most of those years were like for me and my friends.
Invariably, when we congregate we rehash all the fun, crazy, and even stupid things we did from grade school through high school – of which there were many. But, we also try to create new memories – things we can talk about 10 years from now. It is hard to create memories by yourself. Great memories typically involve others.
Learning with others and simply being with others are great ways to set the foundation for creating memories.
Weaving a Unique Lifestyle
You do not have to have much money to create memories, you just have to be creative in how you create them. You can weave and design a unique lifestyle.. The goal is to try to live life more fully. Take it all in. Absorb as much as you can. You don’t want your life to be like the movie Groundhog Day where each day is the same.
You can weave an interesting life with little money. Instead of spending $10 for 10 fast-food meals. Save up and splurge and drop $100 at a nice restaurant and get dressed up. You are not going to remember a meal at a fast food chain as well as you remember a meal at a more upscale restaurant.
Go to community plays, local concerts, and museums. Go hiking. Go camping. Go to a comedy club. Just go for a walk and take in the sights, sounds, and smells. Go to sporting events in person rather than watch them on television which is becoming more common with high-definition TVs and multimedia making it tempting to stay home and watch the football game from the comforts of home while catching all the replays and having the convenience of a bathroom nearby.
I prefer to go to athletic events in person and will even go on road trips to football games in cities I have not visited. There is a different vibe when you go to events in person. Instead of just being an observer watching something on TV, you become part of the event.
We are more likely to remember those events we attend in person compared to those we watch from the convenience of our home. Plus, there’s something to be said about the journey just to get to and from an event. Interesting things happen during the journey.
We have an innate desire to learn though we may suppress or deny it. When you go sightseeing on a trip, what are you doing? You are trying to learn about the past, and if savvy enough learn from it.
When I lived in Dallas there was an adult education company called FunEd. It offered nearly any educational program you can think of. Want to learn to cook? It had classes. Want to learn to buy a house or sell your house without an agent? It had a class. Interested in dance or golf lessons? Yep, Fun Ed had it. Do you want to learn to patent an invention or get a trademark? There was a class. It offered classes on creative thinking and how to write and publish a book and classes on photography and painting. You could even take a helicopter ride and see the landmarks of Dallas-Fort Worth. You probably now get my point on the programs it offers.
Some of the classes might meet only once, some might meet ten Tuesdays in a row and most were affordable for anyone who wants to create memories and is interested in learning and exploring the world around them. I took several of its classes. The classes were great ways to meet others in a non-intimidating and fun environment.
We are more likely to remember things that involve other people so do not isolate yourself which many tend to do as they age. And we are more likely to remember things when we are having fun.
Make a point to create memories daily. It will pay dividends that will last a lifetime.
Source:
Die With Zero: Getting All You Can From Your Money And Your Life by Bill Perkins.
