Who is in charge of Your Financial Future?

If you are like most, you do not plan your financial future. You just hope that things will work out somehow. Some pin their hopes on gratuity and pension. They assume that the company they are working for will always be there. The winds of change will not affect it in any shape or form. The company cannot go out of business or be acquired by another. That government department can never be eliminated by a rationalization exercise. Future governments will always keep the department and axe others. It cannot happen to me. It always happens to others. As the builders of the Titanic thought, even God cannot sink this ship.

Others put their hopes on the last authority – God. They believe that God will take care of them, if they do good, give to others, pray, and hope for the best. They assume that the brain God gave them is a decorative accessory, that after God has provided the field, He will send in angels to cultivate it, remove the weeds, apply fertilizer and pesticides, and harvest the crops. All they need to do is face their jobs and religious obligations. They expect the miracle of financial independence to drop on their laps on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

Still, others that are not religiously inclined do hope things will work out right nonetheless. They take it one day at a time, believing that when they get to the bridge they will cross it. They assume they can always get another job, either at home or abroad. They are willing to travel to wherever the jobs are and are willing to work into their 70s if the need arises. Some put their hopes on social security, ignoring warnings that there may be no money in there when they need it. The government can always borrow to close the gap. They are pretty good at doing that.

Some put their hopes on the market, and their fund managers, both mutual funds and pension funds. They sincerely hope the folks there know what they are doing, the market will keep trending up and their nest egg will be saved till they need it.

If all fails, some believe their children will take care of them in old age. They assume that after sending their children to good schools to get good grades and a good job after graduation, the children will live happily ever after and will take care of them.

In each of the cases above, the assumption is that the responsibility for our financial future lies somewhere else, and all we can do is hope and pray. That is a disempowering position to be in. It is a passive position that leaves our financial future to circumstances. We create our circumstances by omission or commission. The reason we leave things to chance is that we do not have a clearly defined destination in mind. When you are going nowhere, any road will take you there. When it comes to our financial future, most of us are going nowhere. We are simply going with the flow. It is like jumping into a canoe without a paddle. Wherever the water current takes us, that is good enough for us.

We have a choice to make – to take responsibility or leave it to circumstance and others to do it for us. We are always making decisions. Doing nothing is a decision, and each decision has consequences. It breaks my heart when I see old people engaging in manual labor or begging for alms. I feel very sad when I see pensioners carrying placards asking for their due, some dying from starvation in the process. They left their financial future to circumstances, and more often than we care to admit, circumstances can be very cruel.