First things first I need to once again apologize. This post is a follow up to the ‘let’s (attempt to) grow a tree together part II’ that I posted back in October of last year. I’ve had it mostly written for a while now…but just never got around to finishing it. Sorry for the cliffhanger 😊 As it turns out though, the timing works out just fine since I recently finished up a long story where I mentioned that I owe you all my favorite FIRE resources. While this post involves the sprouting oak trees, it also incorporates a take on life. I am definitely a sucker for random moments in my life that I can relate to larger life lessons 😁 I hope you enjoy!
Based on the results (or lack of) with the first set of planted acorns, my expectations for the second batch were very low. If I was able to get one acorn to sprout I would be pretty excited. Well it turns out that those fears were overblown…
Like I said before, I was hoping for one of the twelve acorns I planted to sprout. All told there were eight that sprouted!! The part I am happiest about is that this happened in six different containers. When I planted the acorns, I planted two in each container which is pretty common when starting plants from seeds. Not all seeds will germinate, so it is always good to increase your chances of having success in each container. With two seeds in each container and six containers, if we have eight acorns that sprout we can expect to have them to sprout in anywhere between four and six containers. We had six containers, so we high rolled of the possible outcomes! Very small data amount of data to go on and don’t read too much into it, but I find it fun to run through things like that. Thanks for entertaining me.
Alright enough of my ramblings and time to get onto the meat of this post. We as humans are obviously intertwined with plants, but sometimes in our modern society this can be forgotten. Between giving us the oxygen, food, and clothes that we need it is safe to say that plants have a huge impact on our lives. In this post I’ll do my best to pick out some life lessons from our acorn growing experiment. At the very least it should provide you with a few random things to think about throughout the rest of your day 😁
When looking at the sprouting acorns we can try to pick out a couple lessons. The first is that we all sprout/grow at different times. Looking at these acorns alone we had extremely different germination times. Of the eight that sprouted, the number of days it took to poke through the soil were: 27, 43, 52, 59, 69, 75, 80, and 86. Life can easily get complicated/difficult, and when looking at others around us we can begin to feel inferior. I’m here today to encourage you to not let that get to you!
Another lesson is that growing conditions are important for plants, just like the different growing conditions we all have in our own unique lives. Half of the containers I loosely covered with plastic film (to help retain moisture), and the other half were left uncovered. I also was pretty sporadic with my watering, so some may have dried out a little which delayed their sprouting. While this time difference to sprout seems important now, in the grand scheme of things this is minuscule. Assuming all these trees grow up to be fully mature oak trees in 20 – 50 years, these days or weeks will seem like nothing. So the lesson is: don’t let a little short term delay distract you from your long term potential.
I’m sure we have all had those moments in our lives where we feel just a little bit behind the others. Sometimes this can be a bad thing as in the early bird gets the worm. But other times it can work in your favor to be a little bit behind. Being the first of something usually means that you are blazing a new trail. This means there is a lot of learning along the way. Take for example, the first acorn that sprouted for us. In order to harden the sapling for winter I was supposed to have it outside through a couple of frosts. I had been putting it out only during the daytime, because I was concerned that a squirrel would dig in the pot for the acorn that did not sprout. I finally decided to leave it out overnight, and it turns out I should have been concerned with the larger animals 😂
I am guessing that a deer did this since they enjoy young sapling leaves and it looks like they took them all in one bite. Either way that sapling is now a little bit behind the others since it is loosing one of its energy sources. This reminds me of when I first stumbled upon the idea of early retirement. I was in my early thirties, and based on the math I was a little over a decade away from financial independence. I very clearly remember feeling disappointed in myself that I had not started this right when I got out of college. If I had done that, I not only would have been able to retire in my thirties, but I would have been financial independent as well without the need to grow all my own food and build a house myself. As it stood, I didn’t have a time machine, so I was in that position despite my desires to be done working immediately. It was important to remind myself that most people don’t get to retire early, and some people never get to retire at all. It’s all about perspective! It was also useful to remind myself that when I was getting out of college, the idea of financial independence/early retirement was still relatively unknown. If I had to try and figure out the investing and lifestyle choices that are necessary for early retirement I would guess that it would have taken me far longer than ten years. Mistakes would have been made along that way. Heck, I still let lifestyle creep into my life, and was very misguided on my few early investments….here’s looking at you silver and whiskey 😜 Lucky for me though, there were people out there who had figured this stuff out already and were willing to post it in a blog! Below I have listed my favorite resources that I have used along my FIRE journey.
Blogs
Mr. Money Mustache: Probably the most popular of the blogs that I read. He is also the most extreme of them, but gives a lot of great math behind the reasoning.
– https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ (main site)
– https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/05/26/guest-posting-financial-independence-23-years-later/ (one of my favorite posts on his site. It describes what I am looking for which is freedom to do what I want, and not necessarily the retirement that most people think of. It also is a guest post from the next blog I will list)
JL Collins: This one starts out a little slow, but he offers really simple and clear advice on investing. There is a particularly good set of posts called the ‘stock series’ which I have linked below.
– https://jlcollinsnh.com/ (main site)
– https://jlcollinsnh.com/stock-series/ (Special collection of his posts on investing/the stock market)
Millennial Revolution: This blog is great for those that want to retire and travel the world. Not something I am looking to do, but I know some people are. Good short reads nonetheless!
– https://www.millennial-revolution.com/ (main site)
Books
– ‘The Simple Path to Wealth’ written by J.L. Collins. This is a book that I cannot recommend enough. I know that reading isn’t everyone’s favorite thing to do, but investing a little bit of time now will save you a lot of time in the future for things that you find more enjoyable. A lot of the information is pulled from his blog posts, so there is a decent amount of overlap between the two.
– ‘Your Money or Your Life’ originally written by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin, updated by Vicki Robin. An oldie but a goodie. This book will help change your view of money and the role it plays in your life. It forces you into some very difficult soul searching on how you’ve managed your time and money to date, but trust me it is well worth the effort!
There are many more out there, and let me know in the comments if you have a different resource that you have found useful! Take care out there!