There are a couple of statistical phrases that I think about often. You know the ones: You read an article or a study somewhere, a while ago, and don’t remember anything about it other than this one takeaway. You don’t even remember the exact percentages or where the numbers came from, but this one thing sticks with you.

The five people you spend the most time with are solid indicators of your socio-economic status, interests, etc..

If you want to know what’s truly important to you, look at what you spend your money on.

I think about those concepts occasionally. They both make sense to me.

I look at the groups of people that I’ve spent time with over the years. When I was doing theatre, I hung out with a lot of actors. When I was heavily into fighting, I had tons of martial artist friends. Now I’m writing and most of my friends are either readers, writers, or some combination thereof. As far as socio-economics, I’ve heard that you usually make the average of the five people you hang out with the most. I’m not sure I’ve ever tried to calculate that, but usually people who become good friends do things together. Often these things cost money, so I suppose it would make sense that one would opt in to the activities that fit their budget and values and thus bond more closely with people doing the same.

I haven’t done this yet this year, but last year, I took a look at the graph the credit card company complies to show your spending patterns for the year. I spent the most money on writing/books and physical therapy/running. I’ll be interested to see what changes now that the world is opening up a bit more.

This came into conversation recently with a friend of mine. She was working in a hotel room out of town because a close relative isn’t doing well and it looks like things could end any time now. I told her that I felt this was happening a lot lately, as I had another friend who had just flown to Australia for the same reason. She then named two other people who were on “death watch.”

Although our conversation was in text, we fell into a similar refrain that I’d had days earlier in a FaceTime with my friend in Australia: If nothing else, close proximity to death really forces a look at how you’re spending your time. She agreed, and said this had made her more aware of bringing vibrancy into her life. I confessed that it made me more impatient to experience certain things.

I told her I was about to have my marketing meeting for Ghost Tamer, and that I had been asked if I’d considered working with a publicist. I hadn’t, honestly, until recently when I saw how well one author was doing due to the efforts of his publicist (and himself, I’m sure). Now I was considering it, but it’s another expense. I had earmarked money for this, it’s my debut novel, and this is what I want to spend my money on. But largely I’d been thinking of traveling to conferences, events, etc. After some back and forth and talking it over with Dean, I decided to at least meet with the publicist that was getting such awesome results and see how I felt.

I told my friend that I felt almost guilty about putting forth that additional money, but that I also had the thought of “what if I die and never get to use it?” To make things clear, it’s money I inherited from my grandmother, so it’s not something I’d be taking away from household finances or my IRA. I’m positive that she would love the fact that I was using it on my writing career.

As a person who hasn’t worked a job with a 401k in decades, I’m hyper conscious of planning for the future, but I’m also a person who—according to my husband, and I’ll quote him—”thinks about death a lot.” So I often have these internal battles: Save for retirement v. take a trip to a place I’ve never been before so that I’ll get to see it before I die. (I could die tomorrow. You never know.)

My friend then said, “Money is energy, and you’re putting it where your main goals are. I think it makes perfect sense.”

I loved that. It crystalized things for me and alleviated the guilt. Even if all this comes to nothing, this is where I am happy. This is where I want to put my energy.

Where Do You Put Your Energy?