Sometimes I feel like I'm a day late and a dollar short.
Specifically, I feel like this with money, with my finances. It's a big area where I feel this viscerally and very strongly. I'm 34 years old. I have a wife, a young son, another kid on the way, and we rent an apartment. I don't have a house that I own and have never had one. I rent with my family, and it's not that nice of an apartment either. I can't afford that nice of an apartment. It's a small two-bedroom.
Many of my friends, my peers who I went to college with, and others, do have houses, and some have very, very nice houses, big houses in nice areas, and some have had houses for a long time. So that's an area where I sometimes feel very insecure and feel like I didn't do the right things financially in my 20s. I wasn't successful enough and didn't focus enough on my career and my finances and getting that stuff in order to be able to purchase a house. So that's a big area where I feel like, "Man, I missed out. I missed the boat."
Housing prices are insane right now as well. They've just gotten really, almost exponentially more expensive over the last few years. Mortgage rates are high. Home prices are high. I also live in Massachusetts, which is one of the highest cost of living states in the country, and I live in one of the highest cost of living areas within Massachusetts as well. So it feels like home ownership is just completely out of reach and impossible sometimes. And we also had a situation where we thought we might have to move out of our apartment recently, kind of a surprise, not out of our own volition. So that kind of really highlighted this feeling of insecurity and that I missed the boat and should have had a house at this point.
Whenever I have this thought though, whenever I have this feeling, this insecurity, and comparing myself to the Joneses (which really is what I kind of reckon the thought to be), I always, every single time, circle back to what I'm grateful for. I just can't help but to circle back and think about the things that I do have and the things that I should be super grateful and appreciative of every day, which is my health and my family's health. Having a loving family, a loving wife, a great, amazing son, having loving friends and other extended family, and living in a safe area, and having a good job, a good steady job, where I have potential to earn more money. Having a sound mind, a fit body, a really deep purpose in life, and a fire in me to build, be generative and transcend my current situation. Those are the things I do have. I feel like I have almost everything except the finance piece, the money security, and, you know, all there is to do is just accept that and relentlessly work towards improving it.