This month's Wired magazine (subscribe) had a review of a couple dozen rules for tech-savvy folks, and one of them dealt with the subject of hyperopia. Hyperopia means “excessive farsightedness” and describes people who sacrifice today for gain tomorrow more than most people do. The negative consequences of hyperopia are lots and lots of regrets; studies show that the “doing the right thing” like giving up a party to put in a few extra hours of work in turns pretty quickly from self-congratulation to self-flagellation.
Saving as much income as possible in order to cover future needs can turn into hyperopia as well. As Lazy Man and Money said in that article, it's “not very fun” to be brown-bagging your lunch, drinking water, and staying home all the time just for the sake of building up the bank account “for someday.” If the studies are to be believed, “someday” will likely be filled with a lot of empty memories and a lot of regret. So, if one is to avoid this, the solution is easy: spend money on fun stuff, today.
I know that sometimes I get concerned about not doing more family getaways to see The Mouse and wonder about what other things in life my family and I are missing. But I also have a healthy fear of where things are going, and a few thousand dollars can go a long way to alleviating fear if invested correctly. I'm certainly not so concerned that I want to put a vacation on credit, and I hope you're not, either. (Maybe it never crossed your mind. Good for you!)
At the end of the day, there are more important things to do anyway, like building a legacy and fulfilling a calling. Once those are clearly defined, working toward them is its own reward, and regret falls by the wayside. Time, and money, that's spent working toward the most important thing you can do is never wasted, but getting into debt usually postpones the time that you can start working on your calling.
The bottom line, then, is to figure out what are the most important things you want to accomplish with your life, count the cost, and begin working. Then, the decisions you make about your time and money aren't a matter of work vs. fun. They're a matter of unimportant vs. important, and hopefully there's no regret involved in channeling resources toward important things instead of unimpostant things.
I try not to worry about money and when I want to spend money I think that I may be able to find it and if I can’t afford it I work hard at making money on the internet to make sure that I can
I think you stumbled on the key here. It’s about balance and understanding the important things in your life.
I think the hyperopia principle only applies to certain circumstances. Just like you mentioned, if you are applying extra effort towards the one thing you feel is most important, then you would be willing to make major sacrifices for the sake of fulfilling that important thing(goal).