Yesterday, I was hanging out with a few friends, and the classic million-dollar question came up: What would you do if you had a million dollars?
I replied that I would invest this money so that I can get reasonably good interest on it, and then use the interest to finance my dream yoga-bum lifestyle (basically, quit my day job, go wherever I want whenever I want, and practice and study yoga with whoever I want. Sounds neat, don't you think? :-)). I reasoned that if I can invest this money in some kind of account with, say, a five-percent interest rate, I would have an annual income of 50K. Not a lot, but I might be able to do a bit of traveling if I plan my finances properly.
Upon hearing of my plan, one of my friends, who is a finance geek (being an Ashtangeek, I tend to hang out with geeks of other sorts...), said, "Not to rain on your parade, Nobel, but I don't think your plan is going to work. First, with interest rates being as low as they are, and with little reason to believe that they will go up anytime soon, you'll be lucky to get even a 3 percent interest rate from any savings account with any bank in this country." He then went on to quote a bunch of facts about the Feds and how they are depressing interest rates, and a whole bunch of other things that went over my head. He then continued, "Moreover, with inflation being as high as it is, and showing no signs of letting up in the near future, your 50K (assuming, of course, that you do get 50K) is going to be worth less and less with every passing month."
Well, shows what I know about finance, right? Long story short: It looks like even if I have a million dollars, I still won't be able to be a yoga bum. Bummer...
Another friend suggested an alternative: In this day and age, if you want your million dollars to grow, you will probably have to become an entrepreneur. Maybe start some kind of yoga business with the money, and offer your yoga skills to the public. You're taking a risk, of course, but if you don't take a risk, you will never make money.
Okay... sounds good on paper. Except that I don't have any yoga skills to speak of... I mean, I do, but there is nothing I can do asana-wise that all the Kino MacGregors and David Swensons and Richard Freemans of the world cannot; if anything, they can easily kick my ass out the window in this area.
Of course, yoga is not just asana; I've heard that somewhere. But how does one go about marketing and entrepreneuring the other seven limbs of yoga? Beats me. If you know the answer, let me know. Then again, if you know the answer, you will probably be out there entrepreneuring and living the high yoga life. Would you even have the time of day for a nobody like me? ;-)
Ah, what is the world coming to, that one can't even live one's dream yoga-bum lifestyle with a million dollars in the bank! We must really be in the Kali Yuga, for things to be so messed up!
But lamenting and whining about things won't bring me any closer to actualizing my yoga bum lifestyle. Writing a best-selling novel (or, at least, starting to write a best-selling novel) might. After a little bit of thinking yesterday, I finally came up with a working title for my book (see this post). I'm going to tentatively title it
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