My Blog Reading List

I’m surprised how often people ask me to list the blogs I read. To me, a blog reading list is as individual as a fingerprint. Everyone has different tastes. Sharing my favorites doesn’t seem useful.

But last week, after yet another person asked for my list of “best blogs”, I decided to sit down and share the sites I check daily. Here they are:

Afford Anything — I met Paula Pant at Fincon 2012 in early September. In early October, she picked me up at the Atlanta airport and gave me a ride to my hotel for Savvy Blogging Summit. In those two brief encounters, I was impressed by Paula’s brain and by her entrepreneurial spirit. I subscribed to her blog, Afford Anything. In the past month, I’ve come to realize that she and I share similar philosophies, not just about money, but about life in general. Plus, she’s a damn good writer. That makes her blog one of my current favorites.

The Art of Manliness — Brett McKay started as a personal finance blogger, about the same time I was starting Get Rich Slowly. Somewhere along the way, he and his wife started another blog, a blog about modern gentlemen. It didn’t take long before this new blog became a full-time business for him. It’s easy to see why. The Art of Manliness covers classic manners and style for young men — and for middle-aged men like me. As I’ve dabbled in the dating world over the past year, this has been an invaluable read.

The Art of Non-Conformity — Over the past few years, Chris Guillebeau has become one of my closest friends. I’m proud to be a part of his team that organizes the annual World Domination Summit. Kim and I plan to join him in Oslo next April as he completes his quest to visit every country in the world by his 35th birthday. And two or three times a week, I enjoy reading his thoughts at The Art of Non-Conformity, where he writes about entrepreneurship, travel, and personal development. It’d be one of my favorite blogs even if I wasn’t his personal catsitter.

BBC Mundo — My Spanish lessons may be on hold, but my Spanish learning isn’t. I get my daily dose of news from BBC Mundo, the Spanish-language BBC site. It’s pitched perfectly at my reading level, and I enjoy the wide range of topics covered at the site.

Get Rich Slowly — No surprise, but the personal finance blog I founded six-and-a-half years ago is also a daily read for me. I don’t comment there much anymore, but I do read the articles so that I can keep up date with what’s going on over there.

Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools — Kevin Kelly is the former executive editor of Wired magazine, and he hosts several blogs at his site. Cool Tools is my favorite. It features an ongoing list of books, gadgets, and other things that make life easier. (I was shocked and honored when he featured my own book — Your Money: The Missing Manual — as one of his cool tools, writing, “This is the best user-guide to personal finance I’ve found, and I’ve probably read them all.”) Cool Tools is a great site, but also dangerous. It tempts me to buy things I do not need!

Kottke.org — Jason Kottke’s blog was one of the first I ever read. And here I am, over a decade later, still reading it. His site is simply a collection of interesting links he finds around the web, but that’s okay. I trust his ability to curate content. It saves me time and keeps my mind stimulated.

Legal Nomads — Like Paula at Afford Anything, Jodi Ettenberg has an amazing brain. Over the past eighteen months, she and I have had some great chats by phone and in person. But when I’m not able to tap directly into her head, I get my fill of Jodiness through her blog at Legal Nomads, where she writes about food, travel, and related topics. (Speaking of which, Jodi just published her first book: The Food Traveler’s Handbook. I downloaded it for the Kindle the other day, and now need to find time to read it.)

Mimi Smartypants — I don’t remember how I found Mimi Smartypants, but I know why I stick around. This personal blog features some of the funniest, smartest writing on the web. The Chicago-based author works in the publishing industry and writes with candor (and humor) about sex, adoption, public transportation, music, food, sports, and more. She doesn’t post often, but when she does, it’s a treat.

Mr. Money Mustache — Before I retired from Get Rich Slowly, my readers had been singing the praises of Mr. Money Mustache, whose brash personal finance advice resonated with many folks. I met the author at Fincon in Denver, and was impressed. His view of blogging and mine are very similar, and I admire his personal philosophy. Mr. Money Mustache is now on my reading list, and I recommend it to folks looking for solid money advice.

Zen Habits — I’ve been reading Zen Habits since day one. I’ve enjoyed following Leo Babauta’s development, his quest to lose weight, quit smoking, make money, and raise a family. What I like most is that Leo’s blog is a true reflection of his own quest to become a better person. He’s flawed, just like me. And it’s because of his flaws that he’s constantly striving for improvement. It was a joy to meet Leo in person last year, and I look forward to spending more time with him next summer.

There are other blogs I read less often, and others that are new to my daily routine, but these are the sites I find myself reading regularly. As I say, the list is personal. These sites have info I find useful and/or fun, and authors with compelling voices.

What do you think? Do you read any of these sites? Based on what you see in my list, can you recommend other blogs I might like? I’m always interested in finding well-written content that stimulates my brain and keeps me entertained.

Gangnam Style — Acoustic!

When I returned from Turkey, I came home to find that the song “Gangnam Style” was everywhere. (600 million views on YouTube!) I’m okay with that. I love it too. Here, though, is an acoustic version of “Gangnam Style” that may be my favorite version yet:

I’m a sucker for pop music.

Bonus: Here’s a Halloween light show set to the song. Crazy!

Bonus Bonus: Haha! In the days since I wrote this, Andy linked to infinite Gangnam style. Also crazy!

Bonus Bonus Bonus: This song will be the end of us all…

On Self-Esteem and the Value of Time

Earlier this week, I mentioned Do the Work!, Steven Pressfield’s small book about overcoming procrastination and getting things done. Today, I want to share something I read recently in The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck.

My parents loved The Road Less Traveled when I was a boy, but I’ve never read it myself. Kim has a copy of it on her bookshelf, so I’ve been making my way through it slowly when I have downtime at her house. It’s interesting.

Peck’s book begins in a buddhic fashion, postulating that “life is difficult”. (The first of Buddha’s four noble truths is that “life is suffering”.) Peck argues that suffering is necessary, but that we can achieve mental and spiritual health by using four tools to cope with the challenges we face. Namely:

Delaying gratification
Accepting responsibility
Dedication to truth
Balancing

I don’t know what he means by all of these yet because I’m not very far in the book. I have, however, begun to read the section on delaying gratification, and I find it fascinating.

Note: Peck’s four tools for dealing with difficulties remind me a little of Don Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements, which I shared last week.

I particularly liked this passage in which Peck explains that procrastination is, essentially, a manifestation of low self-esteem. If you don’t like yourself, you don’t value your time, and so you waste it or you put things off. (As always, emphasis is mine.)

When we love something it is of value to us, and when something is of value to us we spend time with it, time enjoying it and time taking care of it. Observe a teenager in love with his car and not the time he will spend admiring it, polishing it, repairing it, tuning it. Or an older person with a beloved rose garden, and the time spent pruning and mulching and fertilizing and studying it. So it is when we love children; we spend time admiring them and caring for them. We give them our time.

…

The time and the quality of the time that their parents devote to them indicate to the children the degree to which they are valued by their parents.

…

The feeling of being valuable — “I am a valuable person” — is essential to mental health and is a cornerstone of self-discipline. It is a direct product of parental love. Such a conviction must be gained in childhood; it is extremely difficult to acquire it in adulthood. Conversely, when children have learned through the love of their parents to feel valuable, it is almost impossible for the vicissitudes of adulthood to destroy their spirit.

This feeling of being valuable is a cornerstone of self-discipline because when one considers oneself valuable one will take care of oneself in all ways that are necessary. Self-discipline is self-caring. For instance — since we are discussing the process of delaying gratification, of scheduling and ordering our time — let us examine the matter of time. If we feel ourselves valuable, then we will feel our time to be valuable, and if we feel our time to be valuable, then we will want to use it well.

The financial analyst who procrastinated [mentioned earlier in the book] did not value her time. If she had, she would not have allowed herself to spend most of her day so unhappily and unproductively. It was not without consequence for her that throughout her childhood she was “farmed out” during all school vacations to live with paid foster parents although her parents could have taken care of her perfectly well had they wanted to. They did not value her. They did not want to care for her. So she grew up feeling herself to be of little value, not worth caring for; therefor she did not care for herself. She did not feel she was worth disciplining herself. Despite the fact that she was an intelligent and competent woman she required the most elementary instruction in self-discipline because she lacked a realistic assessment of her own worth and the value of her own time. Once she was able to perceive her time as being valuable, it naturally followed that she wanted to organize it and protect it and make maximum use of it.

I used to be a terrible procrastinator. I also used to waste my time on frivolities. Based on the above passage, it will probably come as no surprise to find that I had little self-esteem. I didn’t like myself, so no wonder I didn’t value my time.

Now, though, I’ve changed. I do like myself. I like who I am. I like what I do. And because I’ve found self-worth, my relationship with time has changed. Whereas I once wasted hours on mindless television or (especially) on videogames, I rarely do this anymore. (Sure, I play games and watch TV sometimes, but it’s a conscious choice, a chance to unwind now and then.) I’ve also become much better about procrastination. When I do procrastinate, it’s usually because I’ve done a poor job prioritizing, not because I’m unhappy with myself.

There’s a lot of good stuff in The Road Less Traveled; I can see why it has sold seven million copies. If I’d read it earlier in my life, it might be one of those foundational books that my personal philosophy is built upon. Actually, it may still become one of those books. I’m sure I’ll be sharing more insights from The Road Less Traveled as I slowly work my way through it.