Some say that the modern “smart phones”, which Apple brought to us in 2007, have significantly changed our lives. I do have to admit that you almost feel naked
when you leave your phone behind or if it is running out of charge. It’s like part of our bodies. It has become a human need.
I do have to admit to certain level of dependence on my iPhone,
and my iPad, but another aspect that continues to have a huge impact on my life,
something that didn’t exist before the iPhone, is the availability of
Podcasts. I am an avid podcast
listener. There I said it.
I wish I could say that I have a healthy balance on my
listening habits, but when it’s 2 AM and I should be sleeping, I find myself
reaching in the dark for my iPad and the earphones to almost randomly select
from the several podcasts I subscribe to.
And the rest of my night is then compromised.
Some of the podcasts I listen to are so engaging that I choose
not to listen at night. Just about any
topic on those particular ones, suck my attention to the point that sleeping
takes a second tier for the rest of the night.
A shout out goes to Afford
Anything’s Paula Pan who manages to discuss very relevant topics to me and to
explain the subjects in a clear and concise manner. If there is one podcast that I wish I could
have my children listen to, it would be Paula’s. I’m 62 now and a little late to be
considering “early” retirement, but I wish I had started listening to Paula
about 20 years ago! Unfortunately, she’s
so young that 20 years ago she would have been in elementary school so probably
would not have been as knowledgeable as she is now. Lucky for me, I happened to have done some of
the very ideas she recommends now so my retirement has not been one where I am
wanting more.
Other podcasts that are better for me to listen in the
middle of the night are the “Mighty
Blue on the Appalachian Trail”, “The Good Life Project”, “Smart People”, and “Back
Story”. These are more relaxing and good
for learning but seldom wake me up to the point of losing the rest of the night
sleep.
Recently I started following Australian Myles Wakeham’s Unconstrained podcast where he
speaks his mind on a number of topics of interest to the financial independent
community. Myles introduces himself as
one that made and lost millions and now is in a good position to speak about
how to make it in America and how to prepare for a potentially rocky future
when the nation confronts the huge deficits we are running with at this
time. One recent entry is very relevant
to my most recent blog entries. Myles
was confronted with the low value of our American Healthcare system and suggests
ways that the financially independent community can find better value
elsewhere. I like how he separates the
3 types of healthcare into 1) Preventative, 2) Elective and 3) Adverse/Chronic. When considering cutting costs in healthcare
by practicing medical tourism, you have to keep in mind that you can only
consider those for categories 1 and 2 but need to keep some sort of medical
health insurance to cover you for the 3rd category.
One of my big decisions of the upcoming year is that we will
do more of the preventive healthcare for ourselves by doing a most of the
preventive care abroad when we travel and maintain our healthcare insurance to
be used in the event of any catastrophic incident or any illness that we may
acquire as we age. I will be writing
more on my experiences as they come along.
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