| He seems like a nice guy but comes across like he didn't really think through the implications of his life choices, and when they piled on top of each other, it put him in a bad place. (I'm almost his age & have faced many of the same issues but made different decisions.) My take-aways: - being a single-source-of-income family is risky - the above is esp true if you have high cash outflow (big family & big mortgage in expensive part of the country) - if you've saved less than 2x your current annual income, don't make the mistake of thinking that's a lot - taking years out of the workforce, esp in the 2nd half of your career, can hurt your changes of getting back into a decent job - industries can change really quickly, so don't get too comfortable just because your skill set is hot stuff at a given moment in time - always have a plan to build up a secondary skill set or source of income (for example, imagine if he'd bought a small rental property back when he was flush...) - think through the lifestyle implications of jobs/careers: for example a job that requires a lot of travel or long hours or relocation will have impacts on your family/ non-job life - think through the implications of having a kid (much less eight) in terms of the stress on family finances, your time, your marriage - there's resources online that can help with almost any problem you encounter in life, you just have to find and use them |
And, therein lies the problem. Life doesn't always (i.e. almost never does) present you with a perfect set of circumstances that allows you to respond by making the perfect set of choices.
For instance, you point out the need to consider that a job can have negative impact on family life. That's true. OTOH, perhaps that was his means of maximizing economic opportunity. It's a tough choice, and many make the same one he did every day (for better or worse).
Another: "being a single-source-of-income family is risky". Sure it is, but this must be weighed against the benefit of having one parent focused solely on raising the children (especially with a large family). Also, the costs of day-care in the case of multiple younger children vs. the earning potential of the at-home parent must be considered.
That's not to say the author didn't make poor decisions (as he's acknowledged). It's just to say that life presents a lot of really difficult decisions that frequently require making tradeoffs. Nailing them just right can be very, very difficult. Further, many times the quality of our decisions (or lack thereof) are borne out by circumstances that are beyond our control and not always by our prescient and masterful decision-making.