I had a post a few weeks ago about my past and the lack of sleep I got, I talked about the morning I almost crashed as a result of dozing off. I wish I could say that was the only time I’ve had a close call but there were several others.

A few years ago I purchased a motorcycle from a friend, it was a Yamaha R1 with a special racing motor. I didn’t realize how much power that bike had and how dangerous it was, I just really enjoyed to ride. The day I got it I was driving on a major Highway in our hometown, I decided I wanted to see how fast the bike could really go, so I punched it.

Before I even looked down at the speedometer I was going 115 mph (I’m dead serious) and it felt like I was flying. As I was driving along I was focused on watching out for cops, that would have been a huge ticket but as I was driving the wind really started to kick me all over the place. I started to get scared and had to slow down, as I was driving back home I had all kinds of thoughts rolling through my head.

First and foremost I thought of what would have happened if I hit something or dumped the bike: probably death. Then once I was thinking about death, I was thinking about my family and how they would survive, that thought was scarier then death. It really got me thinking about how stupid I was with some of the things I was doing and about what legacy I would leave behind.

The old ways don’t work anymore

Back before our economy got so messed up you could work for a company for forty years and retire with a nice pension and a nest egg, life was good back then. These days most people won’t last more than ten years at a company and pensions have become extinct, so we have to think about retirement in a different way, we have to find our own options. (more…)