Write it Down, Make it Happen

I was reminded today of a phenomena that might make sense for a blog about trying to become financially independent. The book is called Write it Down, Make it Happen by Henriette Anne Klauser. Back in my hippie/art degree days I was really into this sort of thing. Even though I've put away the Tibetan wall hangings from Urban Outfitters and Be Here Now, I still use this idea all the time.

You really don't even have to read the book. It's all right there in the title. Anytime you want something, write it down. Keep the piece of paper or throw it away, it doesn't really matter. (Our method is to put them under the mattress.) Every time we've really wanted something, and realized it was almost completely out of our hands to make it happen, we've written it down & stuffed it under the mattress.

We used it to find Husband a job he loved; find me a job in Big City, USA; to find a house (ongoing); and to find a dresser to match our bed and a multitude of other small things.

The dresser/bed story goes as follows: we bought a bed on Craigslist. I LOVE this bed. It's from the now out-of-business furniture store Storehouse. We paid $750 for this $1400 bed, year old, GREAT condition. Since the dresser we had inherited & refinished in a light birch color didn't match anymore, I set out to find a dresser. Well, the matching dresser at Storehouse was in the $1300 range, so that was definitely not happening. I combed Craigslist for anything with dark wood color and contemporary feel, nada. Eventually I got tired of actively looking for something and wrote down what I wanted: a dresser in a wood that matched our bed, $400. I guess this was last summer. Randomly 2 weekends ago Husband saw that Storehouse was going out of business, and it was the last weekend of the sale. We immediately went over there and bought the last dresser they were selling for $411. Yes, it matches the bed perfectly.

That's a more superficial example, but you get the picture. This method takes a lot of patience. You don't get what you want right when you want it. I couldn't tell you why it works; it just does. And it seems to work best for the kind of opportunities you just stumble upon, like dream jobs or incredible furniture deals. Fortune, of course, favors the prepared. You still have to go out an actively look for a job, mention to everyone you meet you're looking for a job, and send out resumes. However, you may have noticed that the best opportunities that come your way were brought about be seemingly random circumstances that you never could have engineered yourself. I think writing it down just helps those circumstances come together.