After a long day at work in South Florida, you leave your cubicle and leave anything even remotely related to finance behind and go home for the night.
You walk to your car dreading what tomorrow brings; whether it’s endless meetings, conference calls with your boss and peers, or even a project due before 5 PM the next day.
You step into your car, a 1988 BMW M5, and prepare for the drive home from Coral Gables to your home an hour away in Boca Raton. The sumptuous Natur leather-clad bucket seats give you a reaffirming hug to remind you that your hard work has paid off.
As you merge onto I-95, you turn on the local pop radio station and hear the opening notes to a song. By 10 PM on a weekday, the roads begin to open up due to a light drizzle. The 1984 hit “Self Control” comes on the radio and you turn it up. At this very moment, all your worries and troubles seem to have gone back to stay the night in your cubicle. You have 40 miles of left lane beckoning the full force of the 255 hp S38 engine. Drop it down from 5th to 3rd as you leave downtown Miami and hit the truly open stretch of I-95. You’re alone in your own little world. It truly feels like a scene out of a movie. The next 5 minutes or so of your life are spent in a different world from the one you left your discounted cash flows in.
This glorious moment where cars and music help alleviate your pain and give you a small window of time to escape the stress is what we live for. I’m sure we all have those days where we just want to throw everything to the ground and give up, but it’s those brief moments of sheer, unadulterated joy that give us hope and the driving force to keep reaching our goals.
Am I currently procrastinating with a financial forecasting assignment on my desk? Maybe.
That’s not the point. Keep your head up. Look forward to that next moment you have that brings you some joy to help you get through your day to day life.
Thanks for listening.