I’m a big fan of JL Collins. He’s smart, an entertaining writer, and good at making big (and often complex) subjects very understandable. In short, everything I’m not. Like me.
In addition to his blog, JL’s written a few books. The most recent is Pathfinders: Extraordinary Stories of People Like You on the Quest for Financial Independence―And How to Join Them. The tl;dr story on it is that he asked his blog readers for—and received—a buncha personal stories about their FIRE journeys, and the book includes dozens of them.
The book groups the stories by various sub-areas, each with an intro in which JL drops some of his considerable wisdom. Some of those profiled are working their way to FIRE. Others have reached it.
I recently read Pathfinders. Tho I didn’t necessarily learn any FIRE-related strategies or tactics from it, I enjoyed the read. The stories were interesting.
Ignoreland
However, a passage from one story (Pathfinders: Extraordinary Stories of People Like You on the Quest for Financial Independence―And How to Join Them, pp. 167-169), written by someone I’ll creatively call “Profilee.” caused me to raise my eyebrows. In it, Profilee admits, “We always have lived frugally with little or no debt―and none at all right now. Over the years we might occasionally meet with financial advisors, including the one provided by whatever company was overseeing the 403(b)s. Most of the time we found it overwhelming, complicated, and stressful to think about. We were always inclined to put off doing anything. It was easier to not think about it!”
Now, lemme first start by saying that Profilee and their partner were and are probably doing most things right and are instinctually financially responsible. I base that conclusion on this part of the quote, “We always have lived frugally with little or no debt[.]” Left to their own devices and absent extenuating circumstances they’d likely have continued to live within their means and have a financially decent enough life.
It’s also entirely possible that had they met with a financial advisor—even one provided by the retirement plan administrator—they’d have been steered into investments that made them poorer but the advisor richer.
But statements like that last part of the passage—”Most of the time we found it overwhelming, complicated, and stressful to think about. We were always inclined to put off doing anything. It was easier to not think about it!”―are all too common and make me throw up my hands fast and hard enough to do damage to the ceiling of the room I’m in.
Ignorance that one doesn’t know something, and therefore takes no remedial action, is one thing. After all, one doesn’t know what one doesn’t know. That describes my pre-discovery-of-FIRE knowledge and path well. This isn’t an excuse. It’s an explanation.
But knowledge of something and a conscious decision to ignore it or procrastinate? That’s just self-defeating, if not self-sabotaging. Not saying I haven’t been guilty of that myself. Just rarely if ever as to anything major.
Aaannnddd . . . action!
A while back, I wrote about some health issues that I discovered I had that, left untreated, could kill me. The discoveries came by way of annual physicals I’d proactively scheduled for myself.
Did I like learning about these health issues? Flute no! But am I glad that I learned about them? Flute yeah! And I’m especially grateful that I learned about them in time to positively address them without a great deal of difficulty, inconvenience, or expense.
I kinda broadly take this approach in life, regardless of subject. As an admitted glass-half-empty kinda fellow, I’d rather know the full extent of bad news, adverse consequences, or my own ignorance. And I’d rather know it ASAP. If there’s good news, sure, lemme know that, too. But for me, it’s just there to provide (further) context.
I’ve found that in this, I’m an outlier.
Let’s take personal finance education and FIRE as an example. When I discovered FIRE, was I happy to discover the depth and breadth of my ignorance? No way. I was downright red-faced with embarrassment. Amplifying this was discovering how simple the path to wealth was (see what I did there, Dear Reader familiar with JL’s work?). How could I have been so ignorant?!
But was I so embarrassed by this blow to my ego that I was paralyzed to the point of inaction? No way. I was giddy. I couldn’t wait to change things up.
And change things up I did in short order. And then more, as my knowledge increased. My financial world had been flipped on its head, and the forward progress was swift and massive.
I know, I know
Now back to that discovery of me being an outlier. I’ve found that most people don’t want to learn of bad news or unforeseen challenges. Or to discover their ignorance. At least until a point far later than I’d personally wish to. And, all too often, at all. Profilee and their partner would seem to me to be at least slightly in this hear-and-see-no-evil camp.
I’ve never understood this. I mean, why . . . WHY?! . . . would someone willfully self-sabotage? Or at least invite the possibility of as much by sticking their head in the sand?
Maybe you, Dear Reader, see this more from Profilee and their partner’s perspective. And perhaps you’ll remind me that just a scant few paragraphs above, I conceded this: “Left to their own devices they’d likely live within their means, absent extenuating circumstances. And live a financially decent enough life.”
But consider the consequences of Profilee and their partner’s mindset. At the very least, they’d not take advantage of sound and positive strategies and tactics ASAP, or at all. At worst, they’d be more (or totally) exposed to the consequences of an adverse situation by not being in the stronger position in which they otherwise could have been.
Again, I’ll analogize good health. Willful ignorance, or ignoring, of an adverse health condition not only will leave you vulnerable to the known and natural consequences of that condition but also (and this is the case for my conditions) to other adverse medical conditions as to which the pre-existing condition is an exacerbating or complicating factor. Yikes!
Don’t look back in anger
With both health and personal finance, the longer one delays in making what are known to be remedial and more positive changes, the longer the initial problem may persist and the more difficult the remedial and more positive steps will be to have larger effects. Just as bad for some people will be the regret they might feel at knowing they might’ve done something upon acquiring the knowledge, but instead waited X amount of time to act.
For me, I’d feel that regret. So, so bigly. Maybe you would, too, Dear Reader.
But it don’t have to be so. If you, Dear Reader, are delaying on doing something you have objective reason to believe is the right thing to do, do it! Now! Don’t wait. Don’t invite regret. Or, worse, a situation in which it’s too late not just to effectuate any significant positive effect, but to do anything. You’ll look back and be happy you did so.
And in the end . . .
Prob’ly Maybe I’m not reading the quoted passage as Profilee intended. And Profilee and their partner did suffer more from ignorance than a conscious knowledge that they could do something that’d have an all-but-certain positive impact but chose not to. If so, mea culpa. Fer reals. Regardless, there’s no shortage of folks who fall into the crowd that I’m targeting in this blog post. I obviously don’t know where they all physically live. But I have an idea where they mentally reside.
