Everybody is probably guilty at sometime in their lives of wasting huge amounts of money on big ticket items, then penny pinching somewhere weird which makes absolutely no difference in your long-term family financial outlook.  Aren’t you?

My pet stupid money saving routine is to try and get the best gas price.  It is a noble thought.  As the price jumps and drops like the temperature on a Midwestern spring day, you think you’ll be able to hit the pump at the exactly the low point to fill your tank up at the cheapest possible rate. 

This, of course, doesn’t happen, because you then drive 10 miles down the interstate to see the $3.19 price per gallon you just paid is $3.09 per gallon three exits south.  !@#$%^&*()_+_)(*&^%$#@!

You bang your head on the steering wheel.  You berate yourself for your idiocy.  You plan to use this new gas station next time you drive this way to ensure you get the best price. But when you do that, the pattern has shifted and it has raised its prices before all the other surrounding stations.  !@#$%^&*()_++_)(*&^%$#@! Again.

The irony involved in this scenario is the belief that over the course of time you are saving a worthwhile amount.  You aren’t.  Trust me, I’ve done the math many times.  But it doesn’t stop me from continuing to try and save pennies that turn into dollars and then 20 bucks and then maybe even $50 over the course of a year.

Here are the multiplications and additions if you want to do the exercise:  Say you save 10 cents per gallon and you put 10 gallons in your tank a week because you bought a fuel efficient car to save money and the environment over the course of the rest of your lifetime.  That’s a buck a week.  Yippeee. 

Okay, now with 52 weeks in a year, you have now saved $52 for 2014.  That’s if you can find a 10 cents saving by moving from one pump to the next.

Yet how many people like me go around searching for the cheapest gas?  How much gasoline do you expend driving to the less expensive station?  Now there’s a question few of us consider, so let’s not go there.

The point is our psychic, emotional and intellectual energy is spent on something trivial rather than an area where you can really save, like going to a high school sporting event rather than a professional one.  Think about those savings.

Take a family of five to a Kansas City Royals baseball game.  We’ll presume $200 to walk in the gate at $40 per ticket, which is a somewhat in-between price for seats at a Major League baseball game.

“Hey guys, want a hot dog and soft drink?”  Ooops, you are now 50 bucks deeper in debt, since one of your kids wanted peanuts, you grabbed an $8 beer and your youngest had to get some ice cream.

Round two of food and trinkets could be another $50, or if you exercise maximum restraint, maybe you walk back to your car for that $250 total, which is actually $260, since parking cost another $10.  Do you ever wish you owned a slab of concrete near a pro stadium or downtown in a major U.S. city?  I sure do.

If you went to that high school rivalry baseball game instead, you’d all get in and be fed for $50 max, and the drive there and back would be shorter, so you’d save on gas.  There’s a $210 savings.  Do that five times a year and support your local high school.

Like families, businesses penny pinch, getting rid of potted plants, wall hangings and coffee for employees, when they need to save 5-10 million bucks.  The math doesn’t work.

Big ticket items are where you get savings. Make sure you keep the coffee for workers.  It’s good for morale.  We all need more of that.

A couple of weeks ago, I had an email dialogue with a couple of close friends. This sounds stupid, but as a lark, we chatted about what it would be like to follow around some guy whose job description has to do with process improvement.

Many people have jobs in this area, so we fully recognized the need for SOMEONE to do this type of tedious, repetitive, mind-numbing work.  Oh wait, you mean some people find it exciting and seek careers in the process improvement field?  No way.

Follow us down this trail as we wonder what it would be like each day looking at how work is done by others, what the paper trail is so-to-speak, and figuring out ways to shorten it, make it faster and more efficient.  You have to be nuts like the three of us on the email dialogue to even consider following someone around on this type of job.

To start the day, our fictitious process improvement engineer either clocks in, or gets to his desk and turns on his computer to check emails and see what type of progress was made overnight on all his projects and what meetings he will attend today to give updates and find out what new systems aren’t working and require his attention.  As we sit with him, staring at the screen, we know an extra dose of coffee will be imperative to keep from nodding off in the course of the day.

After the quick morning prep time, our PIE (Process Improvement Engineer) is off to the warehouse floor, where he checks in with the manager to see how the trucks are running, which pallets didn’t fit properly into their receptacles and whether the forklifts need to be adjusted to raise materials to 12 feet rather than 10.  This issue puzzles PIE, as it may mean having to purchase a new fleet of forklifts.

Writing a note to his boss later that morning, he wants to enliven the day and add an emoticon to make his point, but can’t find one that fits.  There are all kinds of smiles, and frowns, but nothing that indicates what he wants to say, which is, “This is messed up.”

This causes him to start thinking about how difficult it is to express what is going on without emoticons.  In turn, he wants to improve this process, so he realizes there is a need for a whole new set of emoticons to fully describe what happens to people rather than tears, giggles and anger.  He decides to improve this process.

Once he gets started and realizes he’ll be messing around all day rather than working, he knows there’s a dose of irony involved.  He looks for the irony emoticon.  None there.  He chalks up it up and sends a note to the Emoticon Manager, “Please create ‘irony’ emoticon.”

Immediately he is struck by remorse.  He knows what he did is silly and not right, so he looks for the “regret” emoticon.  Again, none of the faces fits, so his quandary continues.

We need more emoticons to describe our lives and work, regardless of whether we are tracking a PIE or just emailing a friend.  Those extra descriptions will enliven our day, and help us better capture the specificity of what we felt. 

For example, think how much better we could relate to people, their jobs and what they do socially if we had emoticons for “tongue in cheek,” “I’m messing with you,” “didn’t really mean it,” “I’ve been drinking” or “I want a ham sandwich.”  You could just look at the picture, sigh, and move on because you’d know exactly what the other person meant and what s/he was feeling.

Let’s build the emoticon base.  We can follow the PIE around on this task.  It might actually prove interesting.

When was the last time you got dirty?  Think about that for a minute.

Then think about the last time your kids came home dirty.  Don’t count an organized activity like soccer, baseball or football.  Instead, it has to be where they went outside on their own, decided to do something with their buddies, hung out for an extended period of time, and came home with hands that actually NEEDED to be washed because dirt would run down the drain.  It’s probably been awhile, hasn’t it?

There’s a life lesson in there somewhere about the importance of getting down in the trenches and soiling your hands.  If you don’t get dirty, you ain’t living.

We need that lesson in today’s world.  It seems like everyone wants the shortcut.  Cheat, lie, steal, undercut someone else, puff yourself up to be someone you’re not. 

It’s not a new syndrome, nor has it snuck up on us.  The seeds of laziness and buffoonery have been upon us for many years, but it does seem like more and more people want to wash their hands after they haven’t done anything.

The easiest fish in the bowl to shoot is the reality TV shows that so many people sign up for, assuming they’ll become a “star.”  There is no factual basis to back up that statement, but one can certainly argue aggressively that a lot of people who audition for “Survivor,” “Big Brother,” “The Bachelor” or any of the many other reality shows populating the screen these days think that their exposure will allow them to make it big.  They assume the power of their personalities will win over the viewers, I guess.

The producers do look for likeability qualities, and for those contestants who will create chaos by playing the villain.  There must be bad guys, of course.  By role playing – good or bad – people think they will get exposure, win some money or receive a shot at fame and its attendant bounty.

You don’t get your hands dirty in most reality shows.  Instead, you hang out, shout who you are in the vain attempt to get more camera time, and then presume this will make you successful.

School is another example where the upcoming generation doesn’t seem to want to get their hands dirty.  Though this is only one egregious example, a close friend of mine does a lot of work in our local high school and overheard a girl who participated in a team sport voicing how she didn’t know how she could improve her grade to keep her eligible to play.

Hello!?!?!?  Have you heard of STUDYING?  Have you heard of doing your homework?  Have your heard of asking the teacher questions when you don’t understand something or seeking additional resources to help you overcome a difficult subject?  I guess not, because the girl just presumed she was done.

She could choose to get her hands dirty and work harder.  Fewer and fewer people seem to recognize that to get something out of life, you have to put a lot into it.

Maybe families are missing bars of soap at home.  Kids don’t want to get dirty because they have nothing to wash their hands with.  I don’t know.

A day well-played as a child was one where you came home with torn jeans, grass stains on the knees from diving on your belly, tree bark ground into your hands from climbing up branches.  If you took a bath at night, there was a dark ring of dirt left as residue in the tub as the water drained out.  That left a testament to a day of activity, accomplishment and fulfillment.

There’s a longstanding myth that you can be anything you want in life.  The reality is:  You can’t.  We need to quit lying to ourselves.

This myth has been perpetuated year after year.  It’s so insinuated into U.S. culture that it’s hard to separate the concept out and look at it logically and realistically for what it really is.

We grow up being told if we work hard enough, study, play by the rules, then certain rewards will accrue.  I’m a strong believer in putting the time and effort into learning and becoming a better employee as we move into the workforce, whether it’s straight from high school, after a stint in the military or college.  The more we contribute, the more we should earn, and we should receive more flexibility and authority within our jobs.

At the same time, you can’t just be anything.  No matter how much I would work at it, I’m not going to be a good auto mechanic, software engineer or physicist.  My mind doesn’t work that way. 

Pick any person or look inside yourself, and you can say something similar.  Some things we are good at, and we can develop those talents over the years.  We are weak in other areas, and if we are honest with ourselves, we know we shouldn’t pursue certain professions -- that would be a disaster.

Given the divide between gurus who say “you can be anything” and reality of life, is it any wonder our society seems so schizophrenic?  When you have a lot of people thinking they can be something they can’t, there are many unrealized expectations, and dangerous personalities lurking about.

One of my pet peeves is people who write books, lecture, tweet, blog or train others to believe anything is within their potential.  We need to disabuse ourselves of that notion.

I’m an okay golfer, for example.  In my book, “Bad Golf” (www.justwrite15.com/bad-golf), I lay out the premise that most people fall into the bad golf category, defined as shooting 18 over par (or more) for a round.  Statistically, 90% of golfers fall into that category.

The irony is that most people would not call themselves bad golfers.  Instead, they retain hope they will become a decent golfer or a good golfer, just like I deceive myself that “Bad Golf” deserves to be an international best seller despite its sales of 700 copies over four years.

It is BS we are fed by leadership speakers and authors who repeat their mantra that if you set your mind to it and keep a positive attitude, you’ll get the job of your dreams and wake up every day singing your favorite song.  But many gobble it up, just as the bad golfer does – presuming he will magically be able to change one little thing to improve his game.

It takes dramatic effort, dedication and talent to get to an elite level of anything.  And that’s the stuff the leadership drones preach to the masses.  It’s a tonic most of us should not guzzle.

Instead, find your niche.   When you seek your ideal job and have looked for it repeatedly over a three-year period, it may not be out there.  Find something that works for you, pays the bills and allows you to live within your means (IF you can even find that job in today’s economy).

Pursuing what you are good at and enjoy (something I’ve done my entire career) doesn’t guarantee you arrive at Nirvana Land.  It doesn’t mean you’ll ever land your ideal job.

At the same time, if you push down that path, it does place you in an area where you should be.  Are you reasonably happy?  Have you had a decent career?

If you can answer “yes” to those questions, that’s probably enough for most of us.  If it’s “no,” then get outside your comfort zone.