Flip this life

Integrity - (noun) the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness.

What happens when you sell your soul to the devil? I had the best life when I was poor. No money = no bills. Actually, no money meant no anything. I remember my freshman year of college and I had to choose between ordering a five dollar pizza or washing my laundry. Duh, pizza always won that battle. Ramen noodles were my specialty. I know a million ways to cook them damn noodles. Back then, you could find them 10 for a dollar (15 if they were on sale). Not any more.

Now, I spend $30 on dinner. I don't even bat an eyelash. Today, I spent $8 on a damn piece of catfish and two sides. Eight dollars... that damn lunch place is killing me. The more money you have, the more you spend. It's a vicious cycle. I like Ramen noodles. I want to return to the Ramen noodle lifestyle.

I had a conversation recently with a friend about my goals in life. What do I want to do for a career? Is my current career leading me to that goal? What is stopping me? It boils down to one word. FEAR. That's right. I'm a lilly livered, yellow bellied, scared pansy. I'm so afraid that my dreams won't work out. Why must I need a safety net for everything I do? Sometimes you just have to jump and trust that it will all work out.

I have been hooked on those damn house flipping shows lately. I watch em all. The best one is Property Ladder (TLC). These average people try to flip homes. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it all comes crashing down. The episode I watched today was a good one. I thought these two guys were going to loose everything. They bought a house for $487,000 (or something like that) and put in $350,000 of renovations. They wanted 1.1 million dollars for the house. The current area usually sells homes for $600,000. Damn that's a big risk.

So I waited until the end to laugh at the fools for spending $15,000 on kitchen appliances. Oh, I knew how this was going to end. But fuck me... they found a buyer after four months. They made almost $200,000 profit for their risk.

So what can I learn from them? They were scared shitless and could have lost it all. They kept waiting and waiting, but all they needed was one person to buy the house. They finally found the one person. Maybe everything else in life is like that as well. You have to put it all out there on the line to reap the biggest rewards. What will it take to make me put it all out there on the line?