Happy Are You Poor

This is a hard journey: to leave certain economic security in exchange for personal fulfillment.  In a way it seems idiotic – being content with yourself doesn’t feed you, doesn’t clothe you, doesn’t house you.  Unjobbing in a way has a complete lack of focus on the material end of our existence whereas the traditional job has a sole focus on the material end of our existence.  And with years of training ourselves that our material possessions are the goal of work, it can be understandable that there will be some turbulence making the jump into unjobbing.

Why do I want to go the unjobbing route?  Well in short, I am unhappy with all of the traditional jobs that I have held.  I sit in a cube and do what I am told.  I analyze data for companies so that they can optimize their financial strategy to produce superior results – or at least not subpar results.  It is hard for someone who doesn’t care about money to get excited about making someone else money.  Furthermore – since money is both impermanent in our lives (i.e. we can’t take it with us when we die) and illusory in itself (e.g. think about what the value of our assets would be if inflation flew out of control), having it as the sole focus is a waste of life.  This first principle is often at odds with most everyone that I interact with at work which makes conversations either very superficial or totally klunky.  Most of the time it’s the latter.

The companion to unjobbing as the source of income is poverty as our our income management.  Hey Sven – aren’t you selling yourself short?!  No no no….just wait a minute.  Not like poverty as in urban outdoorsman poverty.  I mean poverty as in seeing what we materially have as merely tools to an end, not the end itself.  And so, by using only what we need, we can give the remaining to people who don’t have enough to meet their own needs.  We are satisfied and they are satisfied.  The world is better off.

Real quick – you might see this as communism.  You would be right – if this was mandated by the state.  I do not advocate the state to take any more control than it needs.  This type of choosing to spare wealth in order to share is clearly and should always be voluntary.  Otherwise it really doesn’t help anyone.

From the second paragraph, you can see that I don’t really care or buy into the idea of financial security as being attainable or worthy of our pursuit in life.  Money though is necessary, yes, because we need to buy food, we need to buy supplies for our work, pay rent, service vehicles, etc.  But we need to strike that balance; we need to have a proper relationship with money.

I have been reading (and my wife finished reading) a fantastic book on evangelical poverty called “Happy are You Poor”.  I don’t know all of the ins and outs, but I have picked up enough to know that this goes hand in hand with unjobbing.  See, unjobbing focuses on us fulfilling our God-given purpose.  That can look radically different from person to person, both in terms of what they do, and where they do it.  Being an actuary truly could be someone’s “unjob”.  Not for me, but that is OK.

But wait…how do we get fed then?  That is where Evangelical poverty comes in.  The basis of poverty is this: all material goods are God’s to give.  We truly possess nothing.  Furthermore, if God cares so much for us that he knows every hair on our head, don’t you think that he cares for our physical needs as well?  Indeed – but how often have we put that level of trust in Him?  How often have we worried about our temporal life and just stuck to what the world has told us to do – to just work the job, pay the bills, buy the expensive toys, and stick to ourselves?  We pursue wealth under the guise of taking care of our needs – but how much of it is our needs?  How much do we really need?

By paring down to what we need, we alleviate much of the projected “need” in terms of income for unjobbing hopefully to the point that we don’t worry about whether we can make enough money to survive.  How often do we have whole rooms dedicated to housing stuff that we no longer do anything with?  If we had just what we needed, then we wouldn’t need to have a large fancy house.  Maybe a small fancy house?  Or you could go for one of those ubersmall trailers or microapartments.  A tent?

Also having less stuff means less time and energy we need to focus on managing stuff.  I remember seeing an advertisement for a wealth management company with the slogan, “Solving the problems that wealth creates.”  Has anyone thought about the problems that wealth creates and figured that it was worth it?  Imagine how tough it would be to see it ripped from you at death?

We are just getting started in applying poverty in our lives, but I feel a great liberty in giving it all to God.  And by no means are we poster children for it yet…our garage is filled with boxes we haven’t even touched since we moved here over a year ago!  But it is a journey and we just need to make one step at a time.

God bless,

Sven

P.S. Happy Leap Day!

Do What You Do

I am delightfully impractical in spirit.  I don’t really care about what the world cares about and sometimes delight in it.  Also I cower from the world knowing that I’m different, but I am working on that.  But this impracticality means that I run aground with the “real” people of the world when I follow my impractical path.

Case in point: this blog.  I am using this as a journal to write my thoughts as I fight for my exodus from the corporate world.  Writing this blog post is natural for me, and to be honest, impractical in the world’s eyes.  It really isn’t what a blog should be – I am not writing for an audience or really trying to get readership.  Although readers would be nice.

This impracticality has also caused issues at my job in the past.  I want the actuarial answer that I come up with to be the right answer regardless of what others think about it.  Even if it contradicts what I said before.  Even if I can’t articulate clearly why the answer is correct.  I want the answer to be right.  But when we have folks care less about the right answer and more about looking right, we have issues.  Thankfully, that is not the case here, but I have had that issue at previous work places.

My impracticality ties into what I wrote a little while back about the true self.  This is who I am and I should embrace it – at least to the best of my ability.  This is a great route to go in order to be fulfilled in doing what I am doing, but how does that jive with trying to get myself running with unjobbing?  As I alluded to before – being fulfilled doesn’t feed you.  Even for the most impractical, we have to find practical ways to be impractical.

The whole reason I wanted to write this post was that my wife shared with me a blog from a lady who provides blogger advice.  Some of the info was good and others not so much.  But one piece that irked me more than a little was this:  content is not king.  In fact, she estimates that a successful blog as a business should use 20% of its time writing content and 80% in promotion.  I took that to be a de-emphasis on what we write about and an over emphasis on fighting for traffic.  But that isn’t why I blog.  I blog because I like to write.

I then look to some of my favorite internet sensations like xkcd.com, homestarrunner.com, and the Oatmeal.  The one thing that I love about all three of these is that I can tell without a doubt that they are doing what they do.  They do it with gusto – and people love it.  Now I didn’t happen upon any of these because of promotion – it was word of mouth.  And I have heard that a lot – the most effective way to get an idea contagious is by word of mouth.  And the way you do that is make stuff that people want to talk about – build your content!  That has been my mantra for years.

I am staring down the barrel of a couple of projects that will see the light of day.  I finished my Christian metal CD (yay!) and I will be releasing that for free.  Way to go Sven on getting that income!  Yeah yeah…I know.  But Christian metal is what I do – music in general, but metal more often than not.  Not only am I releasing it for free, but I am going to re-release my back catalog for free.  In a way, I am putting money where my mouth is – well my no money where my mouth is – and building up that content that is available.  But even though the content is freely out there, I still haven’t become popular.  Should I get to promoting it?

By no means am I saying that promotion is bad.  In order to make a living, people have got to know that you are out there.  But I think that there is a line that we should refrain from crossing – like when we start to badger folks.  I really think that content should remain king; what we do really matters most.  When we de-emphasize our work in deference to promotion, we become mere mirages of our previous mission.

The point is this – why did I do Christian metal?  Did I do this for fans?  For money?  No – I do this because this is what I do.  Even if I didn’t change the world, it meant a lot for me to do it in the first place.  And for my internet sensations above – I think that they would do what they do because that is what they do.  I think that when we do that, we do better work.  The world is a better place.  When we start to focus on trying to get a certain reaction out of what we do (like get fans and the ilk) then it lessens the potency of our work and we have to prop it up through promotion.

So don’t expect ads for EYKIW in the future or spam e-mails.  But, you know, it wouldn’t hurt to share it if you feel so inclined.  But whether you do or not – I’ll still be doing what I do.

God bless,

Sven

Doodles from the Cube, 5th ed.

This is a sample page full of doodles from my stack of scrap paper at work.  A little glimpse into my creative process...

Serving Two Masters

The idea for this post flew into my head.  I think that it is a very worthwhile topic in my journey and probably for many people looking to make the jump into unjobbing as well.  Usually, I like to mull over ideas, but I think that this is a good shoot from the hip kind of a post.

I am struggling with serving two masters.  The term “two masters” comes from Jesus’ statement about serving God and wealth.  One cannot serve both because we will hate one and love the other, or vice versa.  For me, my two masters are my current job and my “unjobbing.”  My current job provides well for my needs, and I owe it to the company to give my dead level best because that is why they hired me – to give them my best at that job.  So it is clear why I must be loyal and serve this master the best that I’m able.

But then I start to think of my unjobbing journey as a freewheeling artist who is true to himself.  I feel a deep sense of loyalty to this master because it’s me.  And here lies my issue – because of my loyalty to my artistic side, I begin to resent my current job.  I feel that it is unfairly robbing the time and energy that my artistic self deserves because it holds over me food, water, shelter, security – the materials for survival.  I simply can’t survive without being an actuary right now.  And not just my survival, but my family’s survival is at stake as well.  I can’t abandon this job.

But, on the other hand, I can’t really abandon the freewheeling artist either.  That is what I am and no matter how I try to suppress it (which I have tried!), that artist finds his way out.  As much as I need material goods for survival, I need to be true to myself for life.

So, I need both.  Is there a way that I can serve both masters and be at peace?  I think so.  I’m slowly working on that perfect balance, but this is what I have found out so far.

First thing is that I agreed to work my current job.  I made a promise that I would provide them the best that I could in the work that I do for the company.  Because I made that promise, I need to make good on that promise.  So, my work day will first be consumed with what needs to be done at the company.  This isn’t the bare minimum; it is the best actuarial work that I can do.  As an artist I want to be true to myself, which means being true to my word.  Then, the time outside of work is clearly where I need to find dedicated time to be an artist.

Even though my dedicated time as an artist is outside of work, that doesn’t mean that I cannot work on being an artist at work.  There are opportunities.

The most obvious is in between the ebbs and flows of work as an actuary.  Some periods are really intense with lots to do, and therefore little time to do anything else.  And others are very slow, with little to do and free time on your hands.  Usually office rats will take to the internet when the work flow is ebbing.  Instead of wasting that time, I focus instead on writing a blog post (which is what I am doing right now).  Or on a drawing.  I can’t see myself working on a piece of music, but maybe write a couple of lines of lyrics.  Really anything that I can put down rather easily just in case my job demands my expertise.

Secondly are explicit opportunities at work.  I have volunteered as a copy editor for a professional magazine to get some exposure to writing and editing in the real world.  There are opportunities to do presentations, which is a great opportunity to practice public performance.

Lastly is that being an artist can be a wonderful support for my work life during the day.  It is a Yin-Yang type of a deal.  Being an actuary at times is very thought-intensive and at times requires a good measure of mental rest between tasks continuing.  Doodling is a wonderful pastime for just such occasions, in moderation.  But it can easily slip into compulsive doodling which could be harmful to my current job.

I think this was good for me to write out.  Sometimes until I actually write something out, I don’t quite grasp all of the ins and outs of the situation.  I think in my case it is a matter of priorities and an understanding that eventually I must serve only one master.

God bless,

Sven

Enjoying the Journey

In a previous post, I gave the image of you running in a crowd of people and not knowing where you are going.  If you want to, you can read it here. 

Anyway, I am working through a tough task on the unjobbing front in mastering my next Christian Metal album.  I know that for the vast majority of readers, the term “mastering” doesn’t mean anything.  So I’ll try to fill you in on a high level.  Mastering is the last step in music production and is a very (if not the most) important process.  Up to this point, a musician or band has recorded all of the music, and an engineer has worked with the band to mix the parts so that they are in the right relative ratio to each other.  Everything can be tight as all get out at this point, but the mastering process can make or break even the best of songs.

Mastering is the “sweetening” of the mix.  It is where you make each of the songs sound like they belong, such as same relative “loudness”, pop, and other sonic qualities that people like to hear.  In the mastering process you can really kill the mix by cutting too much of a frequency or boosting too much of another and make an otherwise solid song, both writing and mixing, terribly unenjoyable.  But also, you can bring that song to the next level to be forever memorable in people’s minds. 

Anyway, why am I talking about this….oh yeah that’s right…tying it all together – I have been at the mastering stage on this album since the beginning of the year and I am still not done.  I am struggling to find the right balance, the right sound, the right frequencies to have more of and less of.  Sometimes it feels that I have taken steps back instead of forward, and I feel frustrated.  Just like at times, I am frustrated that I am still at this job instead of unjobbing.  Or when I was taking actuarial exams and didn’t pass every exam the first time.  In a way, it's like writing this blogpost – I wish that I was already done!

But I think that is the problem with my frustration.  Not that I am not at my destination, but that I am not enjoying the journey.  I think most of us struggle with this problem to some degree.  We are so focused on getting to where we are going that we forget to enjoy the journey.  Sure, there are frustrating parts of journeying, but they are necessary; that’s when we grow.  Every time that I failed an actuarial exam I learned something.  Every time that I screwed up the mastering on my album, I learned something too.  We need to be patient and notice these things because that will help us in the future.

But even more than just learning things along the journey, which I think is very important, I think that it illustrates the bigger picture of humanity.  Newton’s first law of motion is summarized as all bodies at rest tend to stay at rest.  Although this applies to physical objects, I think that it is true about  human nature as well.  We want to find a place on earth to settle and get into a holding pattern.  Have a house, work our job, enjoy the proverbial white picket fence.  But we stay put; we don’t journey.  I can sympathize – I want to unjob and be done.  We do that with most things.  Take for instance school.  Who really  enjoyed the years of abuse at school?  Oh you did?  Nose in the corner mister (or missus)!  For most of us, we couldn’t wait until we were out; either for the day, the school year, or for life.  We were consumed with finishing it rather than finding some solace in the journey.

So what does all of this mean?  Well, I think that it means that we have to live in the moment and continue our journey less as conquistadors and more like wonderers (yes, with an O, as in being full of wonder at the world around us).  There is a lot about life that is truly wonderful if we just take the time to enjoy the moment rather than being consumed by thoughts of conquest or acquisition. 

And lastly, we are all pilgrims in this life; we all die and are meant for heaven.  All along the journey of our lives there are glimpses of heaven that keep us going.  In the words of St. Augustine, “Our hearts our restless until they rest in thee.”  We are not meant to stop here on earth; we are meant to journey.  And it is in that journey that we find peace.

I am far from being a thorough practitioner of enjoying the journey.  I really really want to be at home mastering my album right now, but I can’t.  Instead, I am going to focus on what I can do now and know that I will eventually get the mastering done.  Here’s to enjoying the journey!

God bless,

Sven

Doodles from the Cube, 4th ed.

Happy President's Day!

Purpose

Wow – This can get deep really fast.  I better watch myself or I might end up down a rabbit hole.  Or worse – a worm hole!

So I am going to try to take a slice at this and see what flies, mixing metaphors along the way.  What is our purpose?  I am going to side step the age old question about all of humanity and focus on just one person – you.  Well, actually you are going to focus on you, I’m going to focus on me, but the process is the same.

We all have a purpose.  An individual, specialized, specific purpose for ourselves and only ourselves.  In a general sense, we all have the same purpose, but I’m focusing more on what we have to do as work.  As a Catholic, I understand our universal purpose is to seek God in all things and live for our eternal life, not for our earthly life.  But how do we do that?  That is where it is unique to ourselves.

I believe that something is happiest when it is used for the purpose it was intended.  So a hammer would be happiest hammering nails, not scribbling a shopping list.  Well, that’s dumb.  Hammers don’t have feelings.  OK, consider this:  would an accountant be fulfilled laying bricks?  If he were a true accountant (like if it was some celestial designation) he would not.  He would be fulfilled ticking and tying numbers.  But if he was fulfilled laying bricks, then he is actually a bricklayer in disguise as an accountant.  Why he would, I have no idea!

I had this sort of a realization late last year.  I am an actuary, but I am not fulfilled as an actuary.  Ergo, I’m not an actuary.  I only play one on TV.  Well in real life.  Fortunately for me, I had glimpses of fulfillment while doing other “stuff” that people call hobbies.  I wake up early and I work on my novel.  I write music from tunes in my head.  If left to my own devices, I would not wonder about the actuarial soundness of the social security system (or its ilk), but rather doodle on paper.  I see things that aren’t there.  I know untold stories.  I hear unplayed music.  And I want to bring it to life.

I think that is another part of purpose.  What is its natural inclination?  Back to the hammer: a hammer looks like it is meant to pummel something.  But hammers are dumb.  Yeah, yeah, OK I get it.  Back to the accountant: what would be the natural inclination of an accountant?  I wouldn’t know ‘cause I ain’t one.  But I would surmise that they would wonder about systematic cataloging of financial data into some meaningful format.  Maybe do taxes.  Play with a calculator and figure out financial pot holes.  I’m spit-ballin’ here, but you get the point.

Think about your work, whatever that might be.  Whether it is a salesman, a corporate executive, karate instructor, teacher, stay at home mom, student, retired – just whatever.  Think about what that “job” does (even if you don’t get paid monetarily).  If left to your own devices, would you do that?  Would you want to do that if you didn’t have to?

To answer is deceptively hard.  One problem is that we have been conditioned from years of doing that thing, whatever it is, that we are that thing.  We haven’t thought about anything else.  Secondly, for most of us, we answer the question of what we would do if left to our own devices with some form of leisure.  I can’t get paid for watchin’ ESPN.  I’m guessing that you haven’t found your purpose yet.  I really feel that for each of us, there is a deep down flame that can burn into an inferno in our lives when we live that purpose.  You’ll know when you’ve found it.

And purpose doesn’t have to be tied to a type of work – it could be the motivation for work.  Some people genuinely couldn’t care less about what they do, but want to give the best life for their children.  That’s purpose.

If we don’t know our purpose, it is a hard journey to find it.  The easiest way that I know to find even a clue is to look back at your childhood.  That’s where I found the clues about writing.  I loved making stories about my Lego people.  Epic stories of the grandest proportions.  And I could do that all day as a kid.  Now if I did it, people would think that I was nuts!

Parting picture: who better to fix a contraption than its inventor?  And who would work the hardest to fix the contraption than its inventor?  The Creator made you and wants you fulfilled.  If something is not right, ask Him to fix it.  Because He, more than anyone (including you), wants you to be fulfilled.

God bless,

Sven

Doodles from the Cube, 3rd ed.

Trying my hand at a pastel landscape sketch to make a birthday card for my wife.

Do You Know You?

Do you know who you are?  Really know who you are?  It is rather easy to lose sight of ourselves, especially if we see our lives as series of days that are a variation on the same theme with little evidence of a new theme emerging.  And as we play this tune, we should ask ourselves, is it our tune?

The first step on this journey actually was several years ago when I made an effort to know myself.  At that point, I had been out of college for several years, already tackled a couple of actuarial exams, had a couple of kids, bought a house, bought a car…basically the American dream.  But I had this numb feeling, emptiness inside of me.  And the worst part is that I didn’t even know it.

I had vague notions that I was different from my coworkers, in particular a keen intuition about people.  I didn’t really give much thought to it because I was supposed to be intuitive about numbers and how that affects business decisions.  So, I ignored it – shoved it down where the sun don’t shine.

Then one day my wife told me about a personality quiz that she took.  It gave you four letters and told you some things about your particular personality type.  I was game for it, so I took the quiz.  I looked at the results and I was floored with how accurate it was.  Not only because it told me what I knew about me, but opened the door to finding what I didn’t know about me.  Like, why I had intuition about people.

Over the years, I have taken tons of personality tests.  Each one helped me learn a little more about myself.  So, I’m going to pass on what I’ve found along the way in the hope that it might help others. 

Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) – This was my first real foray into personality “typing.”  There are sixteen distinct personalities indicated by a four letter MBTI.  Each of the four letters indicates an aspect of your personality.  This system is very popular.  You can find folks all over the net analyzing and guessing famous people’s personalities and people pontificating how different personalities interact.  There are also lists of preferred careers by MBTI, which could be useful.  That is, once you know your type.

Here is a list of free tests.  You can pay to have a service “type” you, but I really think that the info you get in a free test can give you the direction that you need.

16 Personalities – This site gives the usual four letter output as well as an Assertive/Turbulent indicator.  Word of caution – I have a feeling that there is a “P” bias meaning that it gives false P indicators.  But that is just my own anecdotal experience.

Celebrity Types – This site has the MBTI and other tests as well.  The coolest thing about this site is that there are MBTI type pages so you can check out famous people that also share your personality.  I never would have known that I have the same personality type as Adolf Hitler!

Similar Minds – Simple test to determine MBTI.  This one is my favorite and rather straight-forward.

Truity – This is a very in depth test and shows other characteristics of your personality as well.

Four Temperaments (Four Humors)

The four temperaments are an old personality typing system based on the four humors of the human body (yuck!).  But, because there are only four types, it’s easier to be sure that you are one type and not another.  It is possible, even probable, that these are merely a partition of MBTI indicators.

Fish Eaters –Fish Eaters is a traditional Catholic site and I’ve stopped by for other reasons, but I never knew that they had a personality test attached to it.  Results are detailed with a lot of specific information by temperament.  Definitely worth a look.

Four Temperaments – This site has a rather standard four temperaments quiz and in-depth results.

Enneagram

I really don’t know much about this system, but it is pretty popular.  There are basically nine personality types.  Each person has a primary personality number, a wing, and a variant.  I think that it gives you a little different perspective on yourself than the MBTI so it is worth a look.  Most tests just give the primary personality number, but you can take tests that will indicate your wing and your variant.

Eclectic Energies – Test comes in two flavors: Classic and Instinctual Variant.  Outside of the test is a lot of information on Enneagram and what that system is about.

Similar Minds – Here is the Enneagram test on Similar Minds.  If you go to the list of personality tests on this site, there are several other Enneagram tests that also give you your wing and variant.

Other Misc. Tests

The above are the ones that I’m most familiar with and gave me the most insight into myself so I could plot my new path.  But that doesn’t mean that these are all possible tests.  Here are a couple of miscellaneous tests out there.

Dewey Color System – This one is cool.  Instead of answering hundreds of mind-numbing questions, you get to pick colors that you like or don’t like.  Oddly accurate and I have no clue how.  But do take your time and consider the colors carefully.

DISC – A friend of mine used to swear by this system.

Lipson-Shiu Corporate Personality – This one is for fun – it gives you your corporate type.  This one I think maps into the MBTI system and is just fun to think about.

Sites with a Plethora of Personality Tests

Some of the sites mentioned above have a laundry list of other tests that can give you even more insight if you need it:

Similar Minds – All sorts of tests on here.  A personal favorite of mine is the Personality Disorder Test.  Most of these are of an academic sort and you can’t really tell what they are testing until you get the results.  So if you are into a grab bag sort of personality testing, this is a great place to spend time.

Celebrity Types – Several tests on this site as well but less of an academic sort.  I see a Star Wars test, a Villain Test, some political tests…definitely looks like a lot fun.

And lastly…

You are more than what these tests say.  I am more than what these tests say.  All of these quizzes and tests are meant to be tools to give insight into you, but aren’t going to tell you who you are.  They are merely a means to an end, so try not to get bogged down.  I’d suggest if you have never done ANY of these, do the MBTI and be done with it.  If you start wondering later, try another one.

Anyway, I hope this is useful!

God bless,

Sven

So What's Happenin' Sven?

Shoveling our driveway by hand after Blizzard Jonas.  Suffice it to say that a career in
actuarial science does not well prepare one for this kind of manual labor...
I couldn't feel my arms the next morning.

The last several posts have been more pie in the sky, talking ideas and very little in terms of Sven news.  So I thought that it might be cool to let you into the world of Sven for a little bit and see how the transition to unjobbing is going.

OK, so first thing is that I still have no income outside of being an actuary.  I guess that isn’t a surprise as that will probably be the last thing that will happen.  Once I start getting a decent enough income, we will complete the transition.  But right now nothing else is coming in.

But that doesn’t mean that nothing is happening!  I am really excited about fully embracing unjobbing and living simply! 

As you can see by the illustrations in the blog posts, I have taken up drawing.  A long time ago, I loved to draw.  I think that it was until I was in eighth grade that paper and pencil were my favorite companions.  I would draw in class all the time because, let’s face it, school sucked.  I was really into soccer at the time, so that was most of what I drew.

But then in eighth grade I transferred schools and I stopped drawing.  I was shy of the new people and trying to fit in, and I knew that drawing was not what people did.  At least not normal people.  My new school was more rigorous academically, so I had to work that little bit harder in class to stay above “C” level.  So from then on, drawing was reduced to doodling in the margins and in books, but nothing really deliberate.

Fast forward twenty years to today.  Wow – that was twenty years ago.  Now I am taking up drawing in a deliberate way again and it feels great!  Not only that, but with some work, it doesn’t look half bad.  So, that is the kind of cool new thing that is happening.  And I am using this new art form to spruce up the blog.

How does an actuary find a date?  He shows off his W-2!

Musically, I am finishing up an album of Christian metal.  It will be released sometime in March and will be free.  Good job there Sven about making money!  Yeah, it wouldn’t be money in the door, but it will give me more exposure and more practice on the post production side of things.  Maybe something shakes out because of this that could produce income.  Besides, do you know how lucrative Christian Metal is?  Moving on…

With my writing, I finished a first draft of my second novel earlier this year.  Now I am working through a second draft of my first novel.  My first novel was a NaNoWriMo novel and was done with little initial finesse so it is looking like a hard slog ahead of me.  But I think the story has good bones.  My goal is to have a good enough copy by the end of the year to either get a book agent to take it on or self-publish.  We’ll see.  That could be money in the door.

I have a slew of projects in the wings that I want to get working on.  I actually have two kids’ books written (which need to be re-conjiggered a bit) that just need illustrations.  I have some other Christian music and recordings that I want to do.  I also want to do a follow up to a music album I released a few years ago that was based on fractals.  Blog post ideas keep coming too.  Once we get the income situation resolved, better watch out, world!

I want to say a special thanks to my wife for being behind this transition and being a wonderful support.  She does a lot of the editing and the maintaining of the blog as well as most of the photography needed for the music side of the house.  So thank you Svetlana!

Until next time – God bless,

Sven

Doodles from the Cube, 2nd ed.

This is a postcard I drew for a fellow Postcrossing.com user who is from China and who likes fantasy and mythical creatures.

What I've Learned From Taking Actuarial Exams

I have been dreaming of this day for quite some time.  I have wanted to write this post and the moment is finally here.  It is time for me to share with you what I have learned from taking actuarial exams.

If you read my earlier post about what is an actuary, you will know that the exam process is a “coming of age” rite.  Only by completing these exams will you finally have the right to put an actuarial designation behind your name.  During this process, you learn quite a bit about actuarial science, how to take exams, and, for me, some very important life lessons.

So without further ado, here is what I have learned by taking actuarial exams.

Perseverance.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, I did not study in school and still did rather well.  So up to the point of taking my first actuarial exam, I didn’t have to persevere academically.  Imagine the shock I got when I failed miserably the first time I took an exam.  To add salt to the wound, it was material that I should’ve known backwards and forwards.  It was straight-up mathematics, no real knowledge of insurance was needed.

At this time in my life, I needed to find a job.  I had my first baby on the way, and my wife and I agreed that she would leave her job and stay at home after the birth.  Since I failed the exam and couldn’t find work as an actuary, I settled on teaching karate.  I was content to leave actuarial science behind for good except that my wife urged me (ever so gently) to try the exam again.  So, I did and actually studied this time.  And what do you know - I passed.  It was by the skin of my teeth, but I still passed.

For the next ten years, I passed 50% of the time when I took exams, and I failed 50% of the time, necessitating many re-takes.  So, after knowing that it takes effort to prepare, I still only passed half of them.  It was a process to learn what works and what doesn’t, but with each failure I learned something new to help me next time.

Self-Discipline.  Sounds like I am back teaching karate.  Anyway, self-discipline goes hand-in-hand with perseverance.  The one lesson that I was slow to learn was how much study time you needed in order to be ready.  The rule of thumb that I heard and applied to the best of my ability was for every hour of an exam sitting, you needed to study 100 hours.  Most of my exams were four hours, so – 400 hours of studying.

Now, that is not terrible if that was the only thing you were doing.  But, like most actuaries taking exams, I was also working as an analyst somewhere (a consulting firm no less, which had zero respect for study time or personal time).  And unlike many that were taking exams, I had a family; a wife and child at the beginning and six children at the end.  So, finding the 400 hours of study per exam was quite challenging.

I was reluctant to jump into the 400 hours.  But with each failure, I worked on upping my study time until I was studying around 400 hours.  So when did I find the time?  5am in the morning.  It was not easy at first, and it took some time to settle into the routine.  But I forced myself to do it.  And it paid off in the end.

Now that I am through with the exams, I still wake up at 5am.  But instead of studying, I use that time for more worthwhile pursuits like writing and composing music.

Worthwhile pursuits now that my exams are finished:
arguing with soccer referees on TV.

Life goes on.  There is much in life that can distract us from truly worthwhile life experiences.  The exam process is exactly such a distraction.  Many actuaries put their lives on hold until they get through the exams.  No kids, no marriage, no cool traveling – nothing until they are done with exams.  And that is truly a shame, because you can live your life (and I believe should live your life) while you go through exams.  I am the proof.

My wife and I got married early and started having children early.  Not because we had all of our economic ducks in a row, but because we knew that this was the life we wanted.  My career was a support act for the good stuff of life, and I was willing to put the extra effort to take exams and live life.  It was tough, but it was doable. 

During my last couple of exams, we were going through an international adoption that required international travel during choice study times.  I tried to study on those trips and fell miserably short of my study goals.  In fact, one was a two week trip where I did not study at all.  And when you are trying to track down 400 hours, that is a huge setback.  But if that meant that I could be fully there with my son who had lived a neglected existence in an orphanage, I would gladly take even a month off of studying.  Life is meant to be lived.

Each of these lessons, unlike how to calculate excess loss factors from exposure curves, is directly applicable to my new journey to unjobbing.  One day, I will cease to be an actuary, but I will always treasure the hardships I endured during the exam process.

God bless,

Sven