If you’ve ever driven a car in Italy you will know that the landscape can be breathtaking, but as the driver you need to be aware of the fairly common potholes along the way. When there is a pothole or some other road damage, the road crews will put up a pretty good-sized barricade that drivers have to go around. They also install road signs on the approach to the damage, coming from both directions, warning drivers of the hazard and announcing a temporary reduction in the speed limit. I was having a fun conversation with an Italian friend about all the potholes in the roads and asked why the highway department didn’t just fix them. In return he jokingly said, “They can’t afford to fix the roads because they spend their entire budget on the signs.”
Though this experience occurred in Italy, it could have happened anywhere because the world is filled with sign makers. In fact, I believe that in life, there are two types of people. Those that approach problems by putting up a sign (or sticky note) and procrastinating any action for a later date, and the second type who gets a small load of asphalt and fixes the pothole as soon as it appears. Which one are you?
Procrastination is one of the world’s greatest thieves. It steals our time, our money and our resources. It preys upon those who do not understand the high price that it demands. It whispers in our ear, “put that off for a while and it will make your life today much easier.” But what it fails to say is that when we put problems off, our tomorrows’ keep getting more and more cluttered with problems that get bigger and bigger.
I used to tell my kids, on Saturdays when they were stuck home cleaning their rooms, that I couldn’t remember a time in my life when I actually “cleaned” my room. From a very young age I never wanted to have a messy room, so if I took off a shirt, I put it away. It was so easy to do, and my room stayed clean. I clearly remember not understanding why my siblings would create so much work for themselves by dropping their clothes on the floor. “You are going to have to pick it up anyway, so why not just not drop it in the first place?” I would ask. But they didn’t listen and some of our kids didn’t listen either, so every Saturday there they were, in their rooms cleaning and whining for hours instead of being outside playing.
Let me say this as clearly as I can to all of you younger readers. With few exceptions, everyone with an income source can build up an investment account to support themselves comfortably in retirement. It is not that difficult mathematically to be financially successful no matter what your career is. It just requires you to spend your time and money proactively maintaining your life and repairing potholes when they occur rather than wasting both of those precious assets by installing signs so you can put it off. Be that person who takes care of things in the moment, the person who doesn’t wait until tomorrow to do the right thing but who does it now.
We humans sometimes go to great lengths to make our lives more difficult than they need to be. When it comes down to it, potholes in the road and in life, don’t go away on their own, and they generally keep getting worse. Eventually the problem will need to be addressed so why not simply bypass the high cost and time of that thief procrastination, and just fix the problem?
Dan Wyson, CFP® is a long running national financial columnist, author of several books and CEO/Founder of Wyson Financial/Wealth Management 375 E. Riverside Dr. St. George, UT 84790 – 435-986-9525 Securities and Advisory services offered through Commonwealth Financial Network™, member FINRA/SIPC, a registered investment advisor.