moneyFYI
Financial Freedom Is Merely Organized Common Sense
Learning to Plan Early Is Helpful
There is no way to get everyone to agree on anything where there are more than two choices of technique or expected outcome. If your personal experience has not yet convinced you of this, you could review Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem on Wikipedia. The idea is that people cannot agree on anything complicated.
I recall Governor Mike Huckabee being astounded when the Illinois legislature voted unanimously to impeach Governor Rod Blagojevich. Huckabee thought it would be impossible to get a legislature to vote unanimously on anything, including the idea that motherhood was a good thing.
In our personal lives, as opposed to society as a whole, we see that parents and children seldom agree on the right course of action. They compromise, or a dictator decides. The result may please no one. The problem becomes even more difficult when we recognize that each of us is three persons. Past self, present self and future self.
We know that future self will ultimately be disappointed with decisions present self is making. We know it because present self is disappointed with past self. The defense is as always to pay attention and iterate or evolve a solution that might work. Essentially the art of being less wrong in the future. That is what planning is for.
Planning involves a survey of possibilities and resources and selects the most likely useful combination. As time passes, new methods, different circumstances and recognition of previously wrong decisions comes clear. New course of action to deal with that.
No one should ever fall prey to the arrogance that their plan is right forever.
Good plans are dynamic. Poor plans are rigid. Pay attention to the philosophical basis and go from there. Saving is a good idea. How much saving and when is variable. Debt is risky. Risk tolerance diminishes as we gain experience. Hopes, fears and expectations change. We know too little to make all the decisions.
People spend their entire lives trying to match the present to some desired future. Planning helps. Might as well learn how early.
Don Shaughnessy arranges life insurance for people who understand the value of a life insured estate. He can be reached at The Protectors Group, a large insurance, employee benefits, and investment agency in Peterborough, Ontario. In previous careers, he has been a partner in a large international public accounting firm, CEO of a software start-up, a partner in an energy management system importer, and briefly in the restaurant business.
Please be in touch if I can help you. don@moneyfyi.com 866-285-7772
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