For What?
I received a question from a blog reader after yesterday's post. I don't know this man personally, but based on my handful of e-mail interactions, I respect him a lot. He's very insightful and always brings wisdom to the conversation. I also know by now that his intentions are always honest. Therefore, when he asked me a fairly intense question, I received it with the utmost respect and care.
In short, he asked why I'm so personally interested in my investments. It would appear to be an obvious answer, culturally and financially speaking, but he added some additional context based on my prior content:
I don't believe in retirement.
I don't plan to leave my children a large inheritance.
I believe and practice joyful and sacrificial generosity.
I'm anti-hoarding
I don't care to "build wealth."
Money, stuff, and status don't interest me.
Therefore, his sincere question has so much merit. If all that is true (and I testify that it is), why do I personally care about having investments? He didn't say this, but based on the fact pattern I shared above, it's possible that I'm a liar, a hypocrite, or don't quite follow the principles I teach. Again, this is me saying this (not my friend!). Why, then, do I personally care about investments?
I responded to his message, but after pondering it more, I thought it might make for an interesting blog post. Why do I believe all those things above, yet still have personal investments?
It's a two-part answer:
A day will come when I'm no longer physically or mentally able to do good work. I hope that time doesn't arrive until my 80s, but it will most certainly arrive at some point. When that happens, I want to ensure we can financially care for ourselves.
A day might come when I leave this planet before Sarah does. Statistically, men typically die sooner than women. As such, I want to make sure Sarah will be financially cared for after my passing.
Both of these factors lead me to pursue investment assets that can someday achieve one or both of these objectives. Something interesting happens along the way, though, when we perceive retirement investing through this atypical lens. The math looks different, easier. When you won't need retirement funds until later in life, the math says we need to contribute less money for a shorter period of time (since the wonders of compounding have more years to cook).
What that means in my household is that nearly eight years ago, we realized that if we are good stewards and ensure our investments are well managed, we might not need to contribute much more (if any) to meet our two long-term goals stated above. In other words, we're probably going to (eventually) be fine with what we already have invested, so investing more would only serve our own materialism, pride, or selfish endeavors.
Therefore, we made a very odd but definitive decision approximately eight years ago. We will commit to never investing again. No more contributions. No more pushing. No more building. No more more. Enough is enough because enough is enough.
It's a weird journey to follow, and oftentimes difficult given my strong bend toward finance and "winning," but living life with an external focus rewires our souls. It connects us to people unlike anything else I can compare. I'm not necessarily advocating that people try to adopt this way of viewing life, but perhaps it will give you something interesting to ponder today.
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