21 End Of Month Millionaire

21 End Of Month Millionaire

Testing, Testing. One, Two, Three.

Something new has been added. As I published this article. I checked the option for pledges. This seems to be different from paid subscribers but I am unclear about the distinction. This pledging option is a new continent for me - and you, my readers - to explore. This will now supplement my original intention of providing the opportunity to form a community with comments and exchanges. A pledge allows readers to actively support my lavish lifestyle at the 18th Floor Homestead where I write this drivel for your enlightenment. While I am not actively soliciting your contributions, I admit to curiosity about how many readers find enough value in my ideas to make a pledge. That is all I will say at this point. I just hope that the pledges don’t push me into a higher tax bracket.

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Let’s explore the mindset of an expat with a parallel example: Wouldn’t you like to be a millionaire? It’s a fun and popular daydream. In today’s world, a million dollars does not carry the same image of wealth and power that it had for our parent’s generation. Still, it is undeniably better to have a million dollars than to not have a million dollars.

How would you feel if you got a message today that, by the end of next month, someone would place one million dollars in your hands? No conditions, no limits, no complications. Somehow, without doing anything, you are going to receive one million dollars at the end of next month. It is pleasant to daydream of being rich. For some, they visualize an ideal life as being free from all pressures and unpleasantness. They see themselves always having a plane waiting for them to board - with first-class tickets, of course - and fly away to some exotic locale. Becoming a millionaire would mean they could walk away from hostile work conditions or soured relationships. What would you do, buy, or experience if you got that message that you would be an End Of Month Millionaire?

This idea that, in the very near future, you will become financially secure is an old psychologist’s technique for getting people to visualize what they would do if they were totally free. For most people, financial restrictions or worries are the biggest limiting factors in making their decisions and setting their moods. By eliminating money worries, the psychologist implies, “Now that you are rich, you are free to do whatever you want. So, since you are free, what do you want to do with your life?”

Do you see where this example is going? Becoming an expat is such an opportunity. In many ways, an expat is already living such a reinvented life. Rest assured that becoming an expat doesn’t mean a lifestyle of financial excesses nor does it automatically mean you will be happy and healthy and wise. However, it does mean a new beginning where you have the ineffable luxury of choosing your lifestyle, of reviewing your priorities and values, of looking closely to see if you are on the right path or even if you are struggling up the right mountain. How precious is that?

It’s not just money issues. Nor only about too much stress or unhappy relationships or work you hate. The trick is to choose actions that are moving toward objectives, not driven by motives to move away from something. Becoming an expat is an opportunity to completely change your outlook, to become bicultural if not bilingual, and to choose new associates and activities in a new setting. It is truly an opportunity to reinvent yourself. How much is that worth? Becoming an expat means that you give yourself something others only dream about… a second chance. Don’t blow it.