Have you ever seen Bill Gates’ house? There are about 154 million things to admire about it, but one small, simple thing that I love is that he has acres of forest surrounding the property, and there is a little creek that meanders through the trees. It looks like the most peaceful place to just sit on a bench and read a book. But then I realized. Wait! I have that! There is a creek just like that about five minutes from my house. It’s a 20 minute jog. It has a little waterfall at the end with deep water I can dive into, and sometimes I go there to practice doing backflips, and get in a good workout by climbing back up the rocks to get to the top. I even thought about making a rope swing for kids to enjoy during their summer vacation. At least until some old lady climbs down there and says, ‘Hey. That’s my tree!’
Do I ‘own’ this creek? Of course not. But I’m almost always the only one there, and only young, adventurous climbers can get down to the parts of it that I like to chill at. It’s like having a dog to take on trips and go for a jog with, without the actual responsibility of owning it.
In this post, I’d like to talk about what it really means to OWN something.
You’ve probably heard that rich, wise people buy things that appreciate in value and poor, foolish people tend to purchase things that depreciate in value. If you buy a house for $500,000, you might be able to sell it for a million dollars 15 or 20 years from now. Whereas if you buy a motorcycle and have it for two years, you have to sell it for half the price you bought it for, eventhough it has less than ten thousand miles on it. It’s ‘worth’ more than that, but some guy 3 blocks up the street has the exact same bike as you with less mileage on his, and that’s all he’s asking for, so you have no choice but to low ball him.
Okay. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that. But what about something like a baseball glove? If I buy my son a $500 baseball glove, there’s no way for it to appreciate in value unless he becomes a famous major league player and wants to sell it some day. But, if he plays baseball, he needs a glove, and he’ll probably use this glove for the next 20 years of his life.
The truth is, we’re all going to die someday, possibly much sooner than we realize, so rather than just thinking about the monetary return on our investment, it makes more sense to consider; 1) how much time we are going to spend using the thing we buy, and 2) how much more enjoyment we are going to get out of life from having it?
Whatever you own, you have to share it, sell it, give it away, or take it to your grave.
When you are finished creating something, even if the work was not just a means to an end, it makes sense to try to sell it – or at least to take credit for it’s completion – and receive praise for the finished product. Sometimes this is a service or a skill, and sometimes it’s an invention that millions of people are going to use, like an airplane, a car, or a smart phone. As the ‘owner’ of this creation, I deserve to be compensated for my brilliant idea and all the hard work that went into turning it into a reality.
But whether it’s a book I’ve written, an app I’ve created, or the keys to the first ever car, do I really OWN it? Much of the knowledge that has gone into it has come from things other people have experienced, discovered, and written about. And while much of it has come through other things I’ve learned on my own, how is it that I am even here? In order to survive and pass on their genes, all of my ancestors had to endure much more difficult challenges than I ever will, and it’s doubtful they were all trying to monetize or take credit for every little thing they accomplished.
A million or so years ago, some guy was just sitting around, bored out of his mind, with nothing to do but clack rocks together. Next to him, playing tic-tac-toe in the dirt, sat two of his friends. “Dude, would you stop that already? Go find some food or something!” one of them hollered. Then suddenly, something amazing happening.
“Yo, did you guys just see that spark?” the man said to his friends. “What the hell is a spark?” they asked.
There was no such thing as money back then, and no one really had any possessions, either. All they had were ‘skills,’ notably hunting skills and an aptitude for finding and gathering resources that could be used for food and shelter, and to protect the land they were currently occupying.
It’s unlikely that this man who luckily stumbled on the capacity to make fire could ‘sell’ his invention. But what about his legacy? Didn’t he want to somehow charge people for his services? What if the others said, “Hey Jim, can you show us how to make fire? It’s a little cold tonight.” And he said, “Nah. Fuck that. You guys were making fun of me yesterday.”
If Jim demanded that he be rewarded for his discovery, we wouldn’t be here. We’d have perished with the mammoths we used to hunt and kill, because we couldn’t have travelled with their frozen meat, and waited for a time and place to devour them when it was safe and convenient to do so.
What if, on his death bed, Jim wanted to somehow be compensated for his innovative discovery before he was willing to share his secret? What could they do? Give him a chicken? What’s he going to do with a chicken two days before he dies? Thank goodness he was not a selfish man.
But what happens right before we die?
One year during the Chuseok holiday in Korea, I decided to ride my bike out to the sea (not on the motorcycle nobody wants to take off my hands even for half price. This was on my first bike). Chuseok in Korea is often called the Korean Thanksgiving, but it’s more comparable to an American Christmas. It is one of two days during the year that everything is closed, and when you walk outside in the morning, it feels like you’re the last man left of earth. When I arrived at the beach, I found a nice bench under a tree to sit and read a book. But after about ten minutes, an old man pulled up in his car, got out, and asked if he could sit down. I just wanted to read, but I could tell there was something he wanted to tell me. And he shouldn’t have been there. Not that morning, at least not by himself.
Unlike almost every other old Korean I’d ever met, rather than asking me my age, he started by telling me HIS age. He was 85. He didn’t look particularly unhealthy, but he told me he was going to die soon. When I asked why, he said, ‘I just know.’ And although that might have been true, I could also tell he was sad and lonely to be spending Chuseok by himself, which was bothering him much more than the fact that his life had nearly come to an end. After about ten minutes, I felt like I was now his best friend. Normally I just make small talk for a minute or two with people like this, and walk away, or politely go back to reading. But I could tell this man had something that needed to be said, and we ended up talking for two hours.
I didn’t want to get too personal, but I knew that was exactly what he wanted, so I asked him why he was out by himself on Chuseok morning, and not with his family. “I have no family,” he said. His wife had passed away years ago, and his son had died of cancer three years prior. His son was married with three boys of his own, but just months after his death, his daughter-in-law already had a new boyfriend. He questioned whether this relationship had really commensed after his son had finally passed, or if it had actually begun well before.
But after his daughter-in-law had started dating again, she not only stopped coming by with the grandkids, but she also made it implicitly clear that he wasn’t welcome in their home, so he stopped dropping by to visit (including on the holidays). He was like the old man from Home Alone. The ‘shovel slayer,’ before Kevin convinces him to reunite with his son.
He hadn’t seen his grandsons in years, and he was convinced that the youngest one, three years old at the time of his son’s death, wouldn’t even recognize him or know who he was. He wasn’t about to spend the holiday explaining to his grandson who he was, in front of his unwelcoming daughter-in-law (who he didn’t like or trust) and her not-so-new boyfriend. It was sad. I could tell that there was actually nothing wrong with him physically. He was just ready to go. When you’re alone, holidays never fail to remind you how alone you are.
Then, something remarkable happened. He started talking about money. Despite the fact that he didn’t have any relationship whatsoever with his grandsons, he felt he should leave them some money when he died. But he didn’t want his son’s widowed wife to receive a dime of it, so he set up a trust fund to set aside some of his savings for when they were older.
Still, he said, there was plenty left over. (For about a trillionth of a second, I thought he was actually going to tell me he was going to leave ME some of his money.) Months after his son had died, on his first Chinese New Year without him (the other day almost everything in Korea is closed), he had gone into a store to buy something, and after making his purchase, the young girl working behind the counter said to him, ‘sae hae bok mani badeuseyo,’ which means ‘Happy New Year.’ But it feels a little stronger than that. It’s more like someone saying ‘Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.’ Before he walked out the door, he stopped for a second to watch as she interacted with the other customers. And he noticed that she wasn’t saying ‘sae hae bok mani badeuseyo’ to everyone. For whatever reason, she had only said it to HIM, which made it feel much more genuine.
Yep. You guessed it. This girl had long stopped working there, but when he went in there to find her, the manager hadn’t changed, and he remembered her and her name. And when the old guy told him what he was planning to do, he gave him her name and contact information. He gave THIS girl the rest of his money! Not because she was a friend, a loved one, or a relative. JUST because she said ‘Happy New Year’ to him at a time when he was down, and he never forgot about it. He didn’t tell me how much he had left her, and I didn’t ask. Definitely more than $10,000, maybe 20, maybe 100. Who knows?
I asked what happened when he gave it to her, but he said he hasn’t yet. Just like his grandsons, she won’t receive the money until after he dies. “Don’t you want to see the look on her face when you give it to her?” I asked. “Nope,” he said. “The memory of her in the store is enough.” He didn’t want that memory to be tarnished by having her think of him as some kind of weirdo, nor did he want to give her the option of saying no. This girl, in a way, had become the most important person in his life.
I guess the lesson is that if you’re old and rich, but alone, the last few years of your life won’t be the best ones if you have tons of money but no one to share it with or give it to.
Three things you can own that you can’t give away
1. A Skill
What does it mean to ‘own’ a skill? It means you can do it, and do it well, while not thinking about how to do it. This is called unconscious competence. It’s ho-hum to you. It’s walking and chewing gum. It’s driving a car with a manual transmission while you eat your Wendy’s fries and tell your friend in the passenger seat a story. It’s singing a song while you play the guitar at the same time.
Very few golfers have ever ‘owned’ their swing. This means they can just step up to the ball and wack it down the fairway, long and straight, without a single swing thought. The golf swing is very complicated, and has a lot of moving parts, so it’s rare to see a player, even at the PGATour level, who can just function on autopilot and be ‘in the zone’ all the time. Golfers wish they could just hit a golf ball like they can ride a bike, or field a groundball at secondbase and toss it to first. But probably less than five players in the history of the game can legitimately claim to do this. Tiger Woods is not one of them. The late Canadian golf legend Moe Norman was the only player I ever saw just tee his ball up and smash it down the fairway, even whilst the starter on the first tee was still announcing his name. No practice swing. No preshot routine. Just one look and go. Even Tiger marvelled at Moe’s complete ownership of his technique.
Moe could do with a golf ball what Steph Curry can do with a basketball. If you went to the park to shoot around with Steph, it’s likely that he could just walk around the court talking to you about life, family, politics, whatever, while shooting at the same time and draining shot after shot, without a thought in the world about his shooting mechanics. Even most NBA players are not quite able to do this. This is what it means to ‘own’ your shot. It means to be unconsciously competent. This is the level at which someone can reliably perform their skill ‘under pressure.’
If you truely own a skill that is extremely complicated, extraordinarily difficult, or ultra unique, you’ll not only be one of the best in the world at it, but you’ll be so far removed from the early stages of the learning process, that you’ll find it difficult to try to teach it to other people, especially beginners. It is often said that those who can’t do, teach. But the opposite is also often true; those who are exceptional are often thinking about their skill in such a bizarre and peculiar way that most others cannot relate to.
This is why it’s difficult if not impossible to truly share your skill. It’s when you’ve reached a level in your performance where people say, “Wow, you make that look so easy, man!” And the skilled performer responds with, “Thanks. It only took me about 30,000 hours.”
2. An Experience
A personal experience can be both good or bad, but we have no choice but to own them either way. I’ll try to stick to the positive ones, and give a few examples of some of the experiences we can try to strive for.
By achieving or accomplishing something you didn’t know you were capable of, you can experience a feeling of growth. This can be something as simple as learning to ski or skate. But it doesn’t have to be an external achievement that can be observed by others. An internal experience can be just as valuable. An illustration of this is facing a fear, like riding a roller coaster, getting on the back of somebody’s motorcycle, or asking someone out on a date. It often evokes a feeling of ‘hey, I just did that!’ There is nothing perceivable on the outside that others can detect, but YOU know you are different. Growth. Pride. Satisfaction. Something like that. You feel better about who you are.
I guess, like it or not, a perfect example of the kind of experience that combines both of these, an internal experience and an external achievement, is the first time a man sleeps with a woman. Even if he just ‘lucked out’ with the first girl, it’s still probable that in order for this experience to transpire, he had to do something, say something, or overcome something for the first time in his life. This is why, no matter how disgusting or unattractive the girl is, men rarely come to regret their first time (unless of course they paid for it).
Although the experience can be similar for women, it’s slightly different in that they don’t really have to ‘earn’ the experience. It’s more about ‘allowing’ the experience to take place, which is why they sometimes come to regret doing it with the first man they did it with. Can you really ‘own’ this experience as a women? I’m not really sure. I don’t have the female perspective on it. But I do know if you’re a girl and you’re still waiting, not to worry. Just stand there. It will come.
3. Your Suffering
Finally, although it might seem strange to think about it this way, you ‘own’ your suffering. It is unique to you, so you are the only one who can own it. Some people try to pass their suffering on to others, such as when a man who was beaten as a child does the same thing to his own children. But causing others to suffer does nothing to make your own suffering disappear. If anything, it makes it worse.
But in Victor Frankl’s book ‘Man’s Search for Meaning,’ he talks at length about the value of his suffering. When a man has the courage to confront his own suffering, he gives himself a chance to achieve something that is exclusive only to him. Once he is able to form a clear and precise picture of exactly what his suffering is, he is able to change the situation that causes him to suffer, and turn his suffering into an inner achievement.
This is why with the formation of any worthwhile goal, a certain amount of ‘voluntary’ suffering is usually necessary. In fact, this is often precisely what the goal itself represents; a challenge for you to bear the weight of your own suffering. Since meaning can be found in the form of an unfinished piece of work, or unfinished business, a sacrifice of more immediate pleasures and comforts have to be made in order to complete the task/goal/work within a given timeframe.
Since the goal or chosen task is likely to be totally unique to you, the suffering required to achieve it is also something you must be willing to own. Rather than try to avoid your suffering, or passing it on to others, ask yourself how you can overcome it to grow beyond yourself.
So What Do You Own?
Regardless of whether it’s an appreciating or depreciating asset, and regardless of whether or not we can sell it, share it, or give it away, there are many things we can own. Some of them make us better, some of them make us worse. Some of them are useful and practical, while others cause us to waste our time trying to obtain them, despite the fact that they wouldn’t even make us happy if we had them.
Here are a few questions you can ask yourself; Will you spend much time with this new thing you’d like to own? How much enjoyment will you get out of it? If it’s something valuable, can you share it and enjoy it with others, or will you just take it to your grave (or give it to a girl who said ‘Happy New Year’ at the supermarket)? How useful is it? Will it at least help you pick up chicks (useful), or do you just want it to show off to your friends? If it’s a skill you’d like to own, what do you think you could devote 2 or 3 hours a day to, without feeling like you’re wasting your time? What kind of novel experience would make you feel better about who you are, and how could you turn that into a reality (it doesn’t have to be an external achievement; the experience can be totally internal)? And last, how can you ‘own’ your own unique suffering, and use it to change for the better?
What would you like to own?