Means To An End?

My life is really warped and strange.  Not because I am abused to violated or anything like that, because I’m not.  Not because I am into dark, evil things like shrunken heads, skulls, black widows, or only leaving the house at night–I’m not.  My life is really strange because I have so many directions I would like to pursue and can only do so one at a time.  This means my other pursuits suffer and have to wait–feeling like they are dying inside of me.

I guess I should have known that I wasn’t going to be the average kid growing up.  Hell I had my dad buy me some General Electric stock for my 9th birthday.  If that wasn’t a warning sign, then I don’t know what is.  My problem right now is that I don’t have a problem.  I am not oppressed, not segregated, not held back financially or mentally (other than by myself), I don’t struggle for anything, there is food on the table and in my stomach, I can lay my head down and not worry about if I am going to wake up.

GE Stock Performance

You might look at that and say that my problem is a lack of self motivation.  And I would respond, yes and no, I am very self motivated, but when the going gets tough, I tend to become more motivated to bail or move on to something else.  This is a problem, and one that I can not address outright because once I quit something, I want to take it back up again.

Take computer science for example–my first intended major–I got out of that because I didn’t want to sit behind a desk all day hacking out code for something that wouldn’t be appreciated.  I also didn’t like the long hours that I would have to put in each week on homework.  But now that I don’t do that anymore, I am so frustrated and curious about it because I can’t program for the web in a way that I think I should.  But that project is essentially on hold.

Right now I am studying business.  Will I get my major in business?  I don’t know.  I am already looking at three and a half years of school on top of the year that I already put in–if I am to get my degree in business.  But while I study macro economics, marketing, and accounting, my mind wanders back to computers–code implementation, design, layout, digital photography, graphics, et cetera.  And then I get confused about where I need to go.

To me studying business is a means to an end.  And I know that I don’t need to get a degree in business to do what I want to do–I just need a solid foundation, a good understanding to get the ball rolling.  I don’t really want to work for a business as an accountant, a marketer, sales person or some sort of analyst.  I want to do my own thing and hire those people.  I want to free up my time.

But obviously, I need to make money to start businesses and keep my head above the water.  To do this I would much rather have a career in digital media or photography or something that I enjoy.  When I see websites like Really Japan or Playgroundblues, my mind starts taking them apart piece by piece.  I start thinking about the div layouts and how images are placed.  Then I start to give up because they become too sufisticated.  This screams to me that I need to study this more or pursue this in college so I have an understanding of website infrastructures, how to use jQuery, and coding in languages like PHP and Ajax.

Photo from Real Japan

But the same thing happens with business. I start to realize what it takes to run a business and when I see places like McDonalds, body shops, or retirement homes, pieces just start coming apart.  I see the marketing–signs in windows, fliers, commercials–I see the customers buying the product–burgers or mufflers or the room they stay in–I see operational expenses–rent, employees, maintenece, products that have to be purchased so they can be resold to the consumer–I see the balance sheets being made, et cetera.  It all starts coming together.

The thing that scares me is whenever my mind can start taking things apart like that, it means I am really interested.  Right now there are at least three areas–for me–in which this happens.  Business, websites, and to a lesser degree, Spanish (the language).  But if I was to study everything to its fullest extent, I would be in school forever-ever.

I guess that is why I am studying business at the moment.  To me it is a means to an end.  Something that I can invest time into right now, start investing and then start to minimize my involvement until I have other people running the show for me.  Granted I will step in to make important decisions and to start new things or contribute new ideas, but I want to be the owner not the manager. I want my time to do with what I will.

To me the big question is how far do I have to follow through with my studies?  I feel as if I got to intermediate business courses and then switched my major to digital media while investing and working on the side, I would be able to make it.  This is the means to then end.  Still fuzzy, still unsure about which path I am going to take after business, but I know I don’t want to sit behind a desk.

Screenshot from Playgroundblues

A Comparison of Blogging and Playing the Stock Market

I was sitting around this morning, listening to the Gym Class Heroes when I got to thinking that blogging about something on a low traffic site like mine, is in many ways, very similar to playing the stock market with out investing too much time in learning about it.  In both cases the person hopes for a good out come.  The blogger hopes the new post will attract attention to his or her site, and the person playing the stock market hopes that whatever new stock they have just gambled on will turn out to be a winner.

However, greater than 90 percent of the time, the post and the stock, does not preform as anticipated.  Why?  Well here are some problems.

The first is that the average blogger/investor is not intelligent enough.  They do not invest enough time in researching the post/stock, they do not check out who has written it before or where the company has been financially.  In most cases, the post/stock has already been over used.  The topic of the post was found, written about, and then “dugg” in a more primitive stage than you have learned about it.  If the topic was a web application, somebody was writing about it in its alpha stage.  If it was music, someone had stolen it and released the bootlegs for everyone three weeks before it came out.  It is the same way with the new stock you want to invest in.  Think about what has really attracted you to the stock?  Has it been all over the news?  Has it been shooting up recently because the company is making huge improvements or has recently merged?  If this is the case, then you’re most likely throwing you’re money away.  Sure you might be able to make some money if you stay in for a brief period of time, and get out right at the peak.  But those who made a killing have been in it from the beginning.

That brings me to the second issue of blogging and playing the stock market.  It IS all who you know.  Big bloggers typically work for big companies or have years upon years of experience in the field they are writing about.  Or if not one of these two, the blogger probably jumped on the bandwagon really early and has a large fan base due to comedic or learned informative value.  But back to the idea of big companies and years of experience.  Because they have either or both of these, the blogger knows people who can provide them with information.  The blogger is networked.  Friends keep him informed about the latest applications, games, gadgets, or whatever, that are coming out, then he or she writes about them.  Or the company that the blogger works for commands enough clout to get the blogger interviews with movers and shakers of the blogger’s writing topic.

The same goes for the ivestor.  The people making the money, reaping the benefits, are those who are in the know.  They are the people who invest for a living or know those who do.  They know about companies before the public does.  They have the opportunity to buy into the company and may choose to do so based on how the company is set up (the system in place) and who is running the company.  The investor educates him/herself about those two ideas, and makes a decision.  They know that once the company is in the limelight, that most of the money to be made is gone.  It is peaking, their money should have been in earlier, and those who buy now will most likely lose money.

In conclusion, blogging and investing are all about your education and who you know.  The more information that can be gathered and turned around the better, and the more contacts you have, also the better.