It has taken me years to figure out that I am a complicated person. I have tried to understand what drives me and what holds me back.
We moved twice the first year I was in the first grade. The resulting slightly irrational fear of failure, drove me to work very hard in college and grad school. Understanding that one helped a lot. I haven't done too bad in life for a kid who spent two years in the first grade.
Almost all of it in the eastern half of the United States, but my grandparents and parents traveled a lot. My family moved between Michigan and Florida 10 times while I was in middle school and high school. Easy to see how I grew to understand travel as the great adventure it is. The desire to travel, and making plans for the next trip, drive my actions in many ways.
My grandparents raised families in the great depression, my parents are children of the depression. The attitudes about money and debt were very conservative in our house. This drives what I do, other than the purchase of real estate - and grad school, I have had very little debt in my adult life. When I spend money on a credit card, the cash is already in the bank to pay the bill. If I can't afford it, I don't buy it.
I don't balance my checkbook. With online access I track what I have written in my book and what is showing up at the bank and make the occasional adjustment, but I don't set down and do a formal reconciliation. One of my early memories of childhood is my mother obsessing for hours, in a demand of total silence as she went over and over the accounts, because the checkbook was off by 12-cents. Life is far to short to let a few dollars ruin your day and the day of those around you.
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