The Virtue of the Ordinary

[pknopp]

That's a symptom of the dissatisfaction people have with a simpler life. Buy more and it will make you happy is the lie they have been sold just like the lie that being ordinary is shameful.

And you're wrong about debt.

I have a credit card that I use but I pay it off every month and my credit score hasn't dropped below 820 in 2 decades.

834 at last check and all I had was a monthly credit card payment (which isn't very much).

As an aside..............just because.......I would check Credit Karma on occasion. They would always have my rating at like 795-798 (which is perfectly fine) and push this card or that card to raise your rate.

Now I did start getting last month a check from the government where they had been "investing" all that money for me over the last 40 some years so we did get a newer car.

But that was the plan from the day we retired. (within 6 months of each other)

 

[Blues Man]

834 at last check and all I had was a monthly credit card payment (which isn't very much).

As an aside..............just because.......I would check Credit Karma on occasion. They would always have my rating at like 795-798 (which is perfectly fine) and push this card or that card to raise your rate.

Now I did start getting last month a check from the government where they had been "investing" all that money for me over the last 40 some years so we did get a newer car.

But that was the plan from the day we retired. (within 6 months of each other)

I was talking to a young guy ( he was 28 at the time) I know and he was asking me about his credit scores.

They were abysmal.

I told him to pay off everything he had outstanding and then to get a $500 secured credit card from his credit union and use it only for gas and groceries and then pay it off at the end of every week. He actually took my advice and did what I told him to then a year later he got a cash back card with a $1200 limit and he just kept doing the same thing and he started putting the cash back money into an IRA on my advice.

Just a few years later his credit score is in the high 700's and he has no debt other than his car payment.

This shit ain't rocket science.

 

[1srelluc]

That's a symptom of the dissatisfaction people have with a simpler life. Buy more and it will make you happy is the lie they have been sold just like the lie that being ordinary is shameful.

And you're wrong about debt.

I have a credit card that I use but I pay it off every month and my credit score hasn't dropped below 820 in 2 decades.

Do you still have a mortgage?.....My credit score dropped from the 830s to around 814 when I paid off my home and range property early.

 

[Blues Man]

Do you still have a mortgage?.....My credit score dropped from the 830s to around 814 when I paid off my home and range property early.

No I am 100% debt free.

Have been for a few years now.

And really the difference between 830 and 814 is nothing

 

[1srelluc]

No I am 100% debt free.

Have been for a few years now.

And really the difference between 830 and 814 is nothing

As a practical matter no but it still dropped for no other reason than I paid off my debt.

 

[Blues Man]

As a practical matter no but it still dropped for no other reason than I paid off my debt.

It's just another lure to get you to borrow and spend more.

My scores fluctuate all the time and for no reason but It's meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

Having an active credit history is more important than how much you owe.

 

[Woodznutz]

Also, what if EVERYONE was ordinary? We would have no computer technology, no antibiotics, no beautiful music or art, no skyscrapers, no air travel, no cell phones.

That is ordinary to those people. Without any false modesty I'm head and shoulders above anyone else in my company, but it's just ordinary to me. I would have to try to do anything other than above and beyond. My personal motto is "Every job a masterpiece" no matter how small.

 

[DGS49]

In my view, it is "ordinary" to...

• be clean and tidy,
• do what is necessary to complete HS without "incident,"
• get a job, always have a job, if possible,
• obey the law,
• pay your taxes, when due,
• get married, have kids,
• stay married,
• spend your money prudently, saving some for the proverbial, "rainy day," and
• retire when you can get "full" benefits.

What a wonderful world it would be if this were the real baseline.

 

[Lisa558]

That is ordinary to those people. Without any false modesty I'm head and shoulders above anyone else in my company, but it's just ordinary to me. I would have to try to do anything other than above and beyond. My personal motto is "Every job a masterpiece" no matter how small.

Nope….the people who develop life-saving medications, who design complex structures, who create magnificent art, who compose beautiful music KNOW they are not ordinary.

 

[Woodznutz]

A person of average income who lives very modestly his entire life in order to save enough to retire somewhat comfortably - let’s say $500,000 - is NOT ordinary.

Close. Bloomberg reports average middle class wealth of retirees is about $400,000.

 

[Blues Man]

Nope….the people who develop life-saving medications, who design complex structures, who create magnificent art, who compose beautiful music KNOW they are not ordinary.

Those things are natural to those people.

Not everyone starts with the same aptitudes and skills. Not everyone can excel in every skill.

Some people will be drawn to music, some to chemistry. Some will have a higher aptitude naturally for those things than other that is their ordinary state.

You have made the word mean more than it does by attaching all kinds of negative emotions to it.

I was a builder, carpenter, craftsman all my working life. I got into it because I was so poor that I had to learn to fix and make things if I wanted them. I got very good at it because I enjoyed it

I built houses and flipped houses for many years I never built the Taj Mahal or a sky scraper but that did not diminish my work or my ability.

I made an excellent living building affordable well built homes and restoring old distressed homes.

If I had though that was somehow shameful to build these ordinary homes and started chasing projects I had neither the capital nor the manpower and expertise to build I would most likely have failed.

That life of ordinary craftsmanship was responsible for me being financially independent and retired when I turned 51

But you seem to think that is somehow shameful

 

[Woodznutz]

Nope….the people who develop life-saving medications, who design complex structures, who create magnificent art, who compose beautiful music KNOW they are not ordinary.

When many people do extraordinary things, they become ordinary in their sphere.

I do ordinary things extraordinarily well. So, am I ordinary or extraordinary?

Mark Twain had a humorous quip about a do-nothing president of his time. He said,

"It's not that he didn't do anything that was extraordinary, but that he did it better than anyone that came before him."

 

[katsteve2012]

Yup. It’s justifying the lowering caliber of the masses.

I remember that I once got a C in a subject when I was about 10 or 11. You would think I got an F by the way my parents carried on. When they said, “you didn’t tell us you were having problems in math!!!,” I said that I was NOT having problems….that I was just average.

To which my father said, “Do you want to be AVERAGE?”

I’ll never forget that,

I can totally relate to that. My dad was an educator, who started as a teacher and finished his career as a school superintendent.

To him, getting just a "C" in any class was the equivalent of failure.
After I got one in an algebra class, and received his tongue lashing, I never let that happen again.

 

[Blues Man]

I can totally relate to that. My dad was an educator, who started as a teacher and finished his career as a school superintendent.

To him, getting just a "C" in any class was the equivalent of failure.
After I got one in an algebra class, and received his tongue lashing, I never let that happen again.

You two are not understanding the point of the OP at all.

 

[katsteve2012]

You two are not understanding the point of the OP at all.

I understand your OP, and what you are trying to say about ordinary versus extraordinary, and every individual finding their own niche.

I was only commenting on something that transpired long ago in middle school.

 

[Blues Man]

I understand your OP, and what you are trying to say about ordinary versus extraordinary.

I was only commenting on something that transpired long ago in middle school.

I never said anything about extraordinary.

The OP is a commentary on the belief that one must always have more than, be more than, do more than everyone else in order to live a good and fulfilling life and it's just not true.

That some people are naturally more adept at some things than others is not the point at all.

 

[Lisa558]

Close. Bloomberg reports average middle class wealth of retirees is about $400,000.

Does that include home equity? Also, it depends on your definition of middle class.

 

[Lisa558]

I can totally relate to that. My dad was an educator, who started as a teacher and finished his career as a school superintendent.

To him, getting just a "C" in any class was the equivalent of failure.
After I got one in an algebra class, and received his tongue lashing, I never let that happen again.

Ten years after I got yelled at for being average (in the math class), I was a newly-minted college grad buying her first car. The one I wanted was about $8,000 when new car prices averaged around $6,000.

My dad wanted to know why I was strapping myself with such an expensive car, pointing out that the average of a new one was 25% lower. I answered, not missing a beat, “But I don’t want to be average!” I think he suppressed a smile.

I miss you, Dad. RIP.

 

[Blues Man]

Ten years after I got yelled at for being average (in the math class), I was a newly-minted college grad buying her first car. The one I wanted was about $8,000 when new car prices averaged around $6,000.

My dad wanted to know why I was strapping myself with such an expensive car, pointing out that the average of a new one was 25% lower. I answered, not missing a beat, “But I don’t want to be average!” I think he suppressed a smile.

I miss you, Dad. RIP.

And you took the consumerism bait and are proud of it.

I never owned a new car and my work truck was my personal vehicle for most of my life. I guess I should be ashamed of that huh?

 

[katsteve2012]

I never said anything about extraordinary.

The OP is a commentary on the belief that one must always have more than, be more than, do more than everyone else in order to live a good and fulfilling life and it's just not true.

That some people are naturally more adept at some things than others is not the point at all.

Not to send your OP off topic, however if one aspires to have more, or accomplish more, it typically requires them to be more by doing more.

In the case of my earning a better grade than a C in algebra, it required me to apply myself MORE.

And as it turned out, doing MORE resulted in earning a far better grade in the class.

It wasn't a result of being more "adept" in the subject, it was a result of putting forth MORE effort.

What it appears to me that you're actually saying is that some people feel the need to have more, or do more, based on external pressure as opposed to their own ambitions or the standards that they set for themselves, which I agree with.