Before We Plan
There’s sentimentality in the blogosphere this time of year. You’re going to see a lot of 2023 retrospectives, resolution themed pieces, and the annual In Memoriam segments that some of us find morbidly interesting.
Some of us don’t need the approaching New Year to lean into our macabre tendencies. Take for example, this delightful TED talk, where our presenter and Steve Martinez impersonator, shows the results of reading the NY Times obituary section for 2,000 days.
Why the NY Times? Apparently, having your obituary published there means you were a person of note, a sample our presenter, Lux Narayan, was keen to pick apart. Maybe he wanted to know what we, as a culture, admire in our species and how we perceive the contributions of the departed.
The finds are interesting. He divides the obits into two categories: famous and not. After analyzing them, he notes overlapping words and phrases. Curiously, the first noted overlap was “John”. Maybe we can extrapolate that folks named John are more likely to have their obit in the Times?
Others include “help”, “art” and “music”. Mr. Narayan also notes the emphasis placed on creative and cultural pursuits over more “professional” pursuits, while taking care to note the average age of achievement in most people’s lives. It’s 37 in case you don’t want to watch the video.
What might have been a lecture on death and statistics was actually bright, engaging and even motivating. He turns the deaths into lives, which turn into motivation and advice. Now we’re in our home territory.
Most people understand that any moment could be our last, but we don’t allow that to govern our lives. But we should, properly done. It’s a sieve through which we should force our worries in order to gain perspective.
Perspective is the result of measuring your daily grievances against your life’s purpose. It’s asking, essentially, does this matter in the scheme of things? That’s something you can’t know if you don’t have a vision, don’t know your purpose.
Here’s a little something you can do to help uncover it. We think it’s a great activity to start the new year.
Know what you care about. Go on, list them. These are your priorities.
Know your values. This is why you care about your priorities.
Live now, abundantly. Don’t wait too long to prioritize your priorities.
Barring emergencies, articulating your vision is step one in our planning process; it’s done before we set out to fix, establish, or improve the mechanics of your financial life.
If it seems backwards, we get it. But the truth is that financial success varies wildly from family to family. And the happiest families are the ones who know who they are, where they’re going, and why they want to go there in the first place.
Our job is to sort the finances to make them serve you on your way. We’re ready when you are.