I can’t think of anything that I’d sacrifice for more money. You?

Thomas Moore’s thoughts on the matter:

It’s wonderful to succeed and have some money and get somewhere in life but only if you keep your friends, enjoy a satisfying marriage or partnership, have a real home, and feel comfortable with yourself.

[Credit]

I feel you, Thomas Moore.

(Somehow this feels related: I’m so glad I left New York.)

I’d like to turn my blog into eHow, obvs, so henceforth all blog posts shall be titled like Jeopardy questions.

The first Meditation 101 experience that I had was in Manhattan, at The Village Zendo. They host beginning instruction at 6:30p on Mondays and are located at 588 Broadway in Suite 1108.

You can learn to meditate in the Philadelphia area at the Mongkoltepmunee Temple [in Engrish, via Google Translate] at 3304 Knights Road in Bensalem. English instruction is held at the following times:

• 5:30 p.m. Fridays
• 5:00 p.m. Saturdays

In addition, you can take a course with the Art of Living. The next intro course starts August 26th and is held at the First Unitarian Church at 2125 Chestnut. I had an amazing experience with the Art of Living’s Manhattan team and I fully intend to take the refresher course in Philly at some point!

For me personally, learning yoga before learning meditation was very helpful. But I’m sure that’s not the case for everyone!

Any other suggestions for virginal meditators?

I developed a proprietary method for determining investment allocations in September of 2001, and here are the funds that I’ve finally gotten around to selecting for my Fidelity four-oh-wunk:

• 6% Perkins Mid Cap Value
• 7% Col Small Cap Value
• 13% FA Small Cap
• 13% FA Real Estate
• 7% FA Worldwide
• 7% Nuveen Mid Cap Index
• 7% Janus Balanced
• 20% FA High Income
• 20% FA Strat Income

My proprietary method is actually pretty no-duh. And I don’t think it even qualifies to be modified with the word proprietary. That said:

1. Print out the funds and their recent periods’ growth rate.
2. For each time period included, strike out the lowest three funds. Don’t strike out the fund name in the left hand column; simply strike out the cell that lists the growth rate for the fund and time period in question.
3. For each time period, circle the cell for the three funds that exhibit the highest growth rates.
4. Repeat for each time period.
5. If a fund has both a “lowest three” and a “top three” rate across two different time periods, then the lowest box cancels out one of the highest boxes.
6. Once you’ve performed any cancellations needed, count up the number of circles you have (we’ll call the number of circles “N”).
7. Count the number of circles for each individual fund. Call this number Fx, where x denotes a specific fund.
8. Your investment in fund x = (Fx/N).

The sum of all Fx/N’s may not be equal to 100% due to rounding; this is where my proprietary method relies on ye olde eyeball.

And there you have my ultra-sophisticated investment approach as well as insight into why I am not a financial planner!