Beau's Blog

I found the following notes scribbled down from a few moments this summer and wanted to process them more. They might resonate with you too. Coincidentally, all of these quotes are from a few days in Paris.

Visits are short intense periods with friends and family. These periods usually have lots of non-stop time together. When they end it’s sad and disorienting. I’ve also been reminded over and over that when one door closes, another opens.

11:51am, Sep 2, 2023 – walking down the street in Suresnes, Paris

This thought came just after spending a few days sharing a hotel with my dad. I felt sad. But then I started to feel better as I realized that doors would open with newly being on my own.

With many visits this summer, I found myself in a cycle.

1. Excitement and novelty in a new place and with new people
2. Familiarity and comfort with the situation
3. Sadness as the experience concludes
4. Repeat

Excitement and familiarity associated with visits are feelings I’m familiar with. Something that had not previously resonated as much is recognizing that a closing door (place, person, experience, etc) means new opportunities. As someone who naturally prefers to be around others, the end of a visit means less of that and therefore is uncomfortable. I’m developing a new perspective that post-visit time can be just as rewarding. Both because time alone is powerful and because who says one visit can’t go straight into another visit? 🙂 I shocked myself at how ready I felt to arrive back in Tokyo and finally have time and space to myself after months of being on the go.

Travel is full of the back and forth of making decisions and then living with the consequences. Control and lack of control. Walk (or run, your choice) on a route of your choosing to get to the subway/plane/etc and then you’re at the mercy of the pilot/plane/train/etc. This dynamic is more black and white while traveling than other facets of life.

8:52am, Sep 3, 2023 – riding Paris Metro to Eiffel Tower

I had just run to the subway station and knew I would be running from the Trocadero station to the Eiffel Tower to meet my dad just barely in time for a few minutes before he departed on his multi-month bike tour to Senegal.

This is another cycle in life. Plan, execute, repeat. Scheme, see what happens, and again. These cycles are more recognizable while traveling. Feedback loops are typically tighter and more explicit in the course of a trip than the rest of life but the same concept applies.

One life example for me is that as a kid, I always imagined myself going to the same college my parents attended and met at. I ended up going much further away. After six months, I didn’t have a strong perspective on whether my choice was good or not. After the four years at college, I felt great with my choice and that it had set me up better for the next stage in my life. Obviously I’ll never know what would’ve been. The point is that I made a big life changing decision and it took years before I developed a strong perspective and learned from it.

Many big decisions in life take somewhere between hours and months and have consequences for years. Travel decisions are lower stakes and give feedback far sooner. Therefore, these are great opportunities for learning and improving decision making.

Just like in the FP&A (finance) organization of a SaaS company, in the realm of personal finance, expense is simpler than income. Spend $5 today to buy seeds and plant them. It takes years of sunshine, watering and luck to produce tasty fruit. Spend an hour at a library studying over and over to get into a better college and repeat at college to get a higher paying job than without those actions.

2:11pm, Sep 6, 2023 – Eating at 11L coworking café

This thought came to me after having just spent 10 Euros for access to an air-conditioned coworking space.

• Both income and expenses are important.
• Typically: Expense is upfront and explicit whereas income is fuzzier and deferred.
• There is both more creativity and potential to change a financial situation with income.
• You can only save yourself to $0 whereas there is no limit to improving income.
• There is more nuance in real life than I’m recognizing here.
• Ex: Understanding the opportunity cost of our decisions in life typically takes time and is unclear.
  Ex: Opportunities to increase income by increasing expense exist – these are difficult to evaluate.

---

I’m grateful for the opportunities I’ve had this summer. It’s been rewarding to connect my experiences with things I’ve learned and ideas I’ll continue to chew on.