How To FUBAR Your Life In 5 Easy Steps

I’ll confess that this article’s title is a little click-baity. I don’t really want you to FUBAR your life. I feel that I’m an expert on how to live your best life by being an example of how NOT to do things. Look at the decisions I’ve made, do the opposite, and you’ll probably be just fine. And for those not versed in military vernacular, FUBAR stands for F***ed Up Beyond All Repair (or Recognition). In this case, I’ll be using the latter “R”. I believe the best way to illustrate this is by sharing my own personal FUBAR journey. So, in no particular order, here are five ways to easily FUBAR your life.

Be Financially Irresponsible.

There are two main ways to do this: Get Into Debt and Don’t Save Any Money.

Get Into Debt. For the record I’m referring to stupid debt, like credit cards, store cards, and lines of credit, you know the ones. Anything that will allow you to spend now and pay later, all for 0% interest and pay nothing for 6 months. Yay! Free money! On a side note, you can make the argument that car loans and student loans are stupid debt, but I think it’s subjective, depending on your particular circumstances. I was never in a position, especially when I was younger, to have enough money saved to buy a vehicle for cash (see below). But back to free money! Yay!

Ok, no. Credit cards and their ilk are not free money. It’s borrowing money that you have to pay back and if you don’t pay off what you owe by a certain time you will have to pay interest. Interest, my friends, is how the banks make their money. And here’s the best part: if you borrow the maximum amount against your limit, you then get to pay back all of that money with a butt load of interest to boot! And just imagine if you have more than one line of credit. You could be paying it all back for years! Take it from me, there’s nothing like being a slave to debt and watching all of your hard earned money go to paying it off. This also makes it very difficult to save any money. Which brings us to:

Don’t Save Any Money. Maybe it seems like a no brainer to you, but it’s not going to be to everyone. Case in point, yours truly. For me, money was to be spent, well whatever was left over after paying the low monthly payments on all of my debt. But of course, I didn’t stop to see the value of saving at the time, not until much later. Saving money can serve many purposes, but for me it boils down to two: emergencies and paying cash for big ticket items instead of getting into debt. When I suddenly and unexpectedly found myself without a day job, do you know what would have been really nice? Three to six months’ worth of salary saved up to cover the bills, repairs, etc.     

Don’t Take Any Risks.

Hey, I get it. Change can be scary. What if I fail? What if I find that I don’t like writing after all, that it was just a pipe dream? All valid fears. And it took me thirty plus years to move past those fears. What if I’d taken the risk back in the day? I can tell you one thing for sure, the older you get, the more difficult it is to take those risks. When I was younger, I didn’t have the same responsibilities I have now. I had more energy. My body worked better. Not that it necessarily would have been easier to pursue a writing career back then. The work still would have had to be done. But I believe I would have stood a better chance of succeeding at it.

Unless you’re planning on something truly death defying, what are the consequences of failing if you take the leap to pursue that big idea? Sure, you could lose the house, maybe the car. Well, maybe try not to do that. I found that I literally have to make that big dream a second job. Plan the best you can, put in the work, and take the risk. Failing IS an option and it’s ok. As long as you learn from it, iterate, and keep moving forward. I’m speaking from experience here. I’ve done an outstanding job of discovering what I DON’T want to do by trying things out, taking the risks, and failing.     

Ignore Your Health.

One underrated way to FUBAR your life is don’t take care of yourself. And surprise, surprise, you should start paying attention to this sooner rather than later.

Fun fact, I used to be a crises-led person. In other words, I wouldn’t take action on anything until it became a crises. Case in point, I am a type 2 diabetic. And for those of you who don't know, it's not the diabetes you're born with. It's the type that usually develops as you get older, when you don't take care of yourself. I let myself get overweight, stopped exercising, and ate, with reckless abandon, all those things that are tremendously unhealthy for your body.

Now in all fairness, plenty of people live this way every day without major consequences. Lucky you, you freaking bastards. I on the other hand was not one of those people. After being told numerous times to get my eyes checked, change my diet, start exercising again, etc., it wasn't until I lost partial vision in one of my eyes that it became a crisis and I responded. Since then I have learned how to take care of myself and manage my diabetes, but I miss the days when my body worked the way it was supposed to.

Try To Do It All On Your Own.

Admittedly, I am a self-proclaimed lone wolf. At every day job I’ve ever been at, I was almost always more productive if left alone to do the work. But life as a whole is not meant to be done like that. We need a support system, a shoulder to cry on, people to laugh with. We need to share each other’s burdens. If you’d like to FUBAR your life, try to do life on your own. That’s what I did and it worked out GREAT!

After leaving the Army, I went through some dark days. Trying to navigate post-military life, wrestling with my own spirituality on my own, left me broken. It took me awhile to come back from that. Hindsight being what it is (20/20 in case you’re curious), I realize that trying to handle all of that on my own was a big mistake. We are not meant to do life completely on our own. If you’d like to miss out on this particular level of FUBAR, be a friend. Help someone else out. Share the burden.

Don’t Do Anything at All.

You’re going to love this one. The easiest way to FUBAR your life is to not do anything at all. Yeah, I know! Instead of doing what you know you should be doing, do something else instead. Eh, you’ll get to the important stuff tomorrow. The next thing you know, you’re sitting on the couch twenty years later wondering, “How did I get here? What the hell happened?” Yes, it’s that easy. IF you don’t pay attention. Believe me, I have been the king of excuses. And I’ve been the king of the daydream. I loved looking forward to the idea of something but not actually doing it. I have been an expert at doing fifteen other things (that make complete sense mind you) instead of the things I should be doing: staying out of debt; saving; taking care of my mind and body; making human connections; pursuing a writing career. It’s easier to do nothing. But I guarantee one thing: if you don’t do anything, nothing will happen. That book won’t write itself. Your best friend from the Army won’t reach out to you. You, I, need to do something. Anything. Just get it started.

Most of the ways I’ve FUBAR’d my life can be summed up in one sentence: Let Future Self Worry About S***. I may not have consciously or intentionally thrown everything at him, but that’s what happened. I just figured I could do things later, that there was plenty of time to start that writing career. After all, I’m only twenty-five. There’s time. Until there isn’t. Now that I have more years on this earth behind me than in front of me (I’m not a fan of the “O” word), it’s more difficult to make the changes that I need to make to be that financially responsible, healthy, less lonely, successful writer guy. Harder, but not impossible.

So, I’m going to go do some stuff. Maybe I’ve caught you at the beginning of your FUBAR journey. Great! Start making changes now. Maybe you’re halfway into it. Maybe you’re like me, with more years behind you than in front. It’s not too late. It’ll be hard, but not impossible. Start doing something now, today, and don’t do it alone. I don’t believe anything is F***ed Up Beyond All Repair. You may not recognize your life from the one you imagined you’d have, but it’s not over yet.

I would love to hear your thoughts on how to FUBAR your life. Maybe you have a FUBAR story of your own. Please let me know. Share the burden, remember?