Tell Yourself The Right Story

Tell Yourself The Right Story

Tell Yourself The Right Story

We tell ourselves the stories about our life that make it bearable.  Or better yet, magical.  Mystical.  When my father died when I was eight years old, there were no stories that made sense.  How could this kind, loving father leave his devoted wife and three boys behind.  I spent a good deal of my younger years puzzled by this contradiction.  But happiness, I found, is not something that is  guaranteed.  Sometimes to make sense of the horrendous things that happen to us, you have to tell yourself the right story.

These stories, these myths, define our origins.  They become our elevator pitch speech.  Will we travel the hero’s journey or devolve into yet another Shakespearian tragedy.

The choice is ours.

But first, let me share one of my stories.

Home Is Where The Heart Is

Shortly after I was born, my mother and father decided that our small apartment was getting crowded with three young boys.  They began an extensive search which landed in a sprawling Chicago suburb.  They visited house after house to no avail.  Until they found the perfect one.

Four bedrooms, one and a half baths, a lovely neighborhood, and a back yard with a large sprawling elm tree.  My father always joked that it was the elm that sold him.  If anything ever happened to it, we would have to leave.

Years after my father died, this home had burrowed itself into the heart of it’s owners.  It had become more than just brick and mortar.  Safety.  Comfort, familiarity.  A stalwart reminder that in a world where everything can change, fathers can die, there is structure and foundation.  Roots that wend their way into the ground and stubbornly refuse to budge.

Life, however, was changing.  My mother met a wonderful man who had two children of his own.  Our little house could never accommodate five teenagers.

My mother struggled for months with the decision.  To get married, pull her children out of the school system, and move them out of the only house that they could remember.  The house in which around every corner, within each nook and cranny, the fading memories of our father still lived.

A prolonged impasse followed.

Tell yourself the right story.

Frugal Role ModelsA Resolution

Upon arriving home one evening, my mother glimpsed a notice from the city hanging half way out of our mailbox. Upon lowering her briefcase to the ground in the front foyer, she unfolded the flimsy paper and started to read.

Our tree.  Our wonderful backyard tree.  The emblem of my father’s love for this particular house, had been tested.  The tree had Dutch Elm Disease.  The city would be removing it the next week.  There was no means of appeal.  No measure of prevention.

The tree had to come down.

And it was time for us to move.

So What The Heck Does This Have To Do With Personal Finance?

At some point you will look back at your own financial history, and all you will see is misery.  You will scold yourself for having so much debt.  You will curse that stupid financial advisor that you blindly entrusted.  Or you will castigate for that real estate deal that went south.

Whether you end up happy or sad, accomplished or a failure, has little to do with all those missteps.  We all stumble.  But if you tell yourself the right story.  If you look at your life as an epic battle between good and evil in which good prevails, you will end up on the right side of contentment.

Your financial mistakes can be either fuel or fodder.

Be the protagonist.

Be the hero.

Tell yourself the right story.

 

What are the stories, and myths that you tell about your financial journey?  Please share them with us in the comments!

 

Doc G

A doctor who discovered the FI community but still struggling with RE.

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13 Responses

  1. I always look back on mistakes in college and medical school, which had they not happened would have allowed me to come out debt free. Then, I imagine myself coming out of the matrix to realize my ignorance in all things personal finance.

    Once I was freed, I realized there is a better path. The one I am now on and following. This path will not only make up for those past mistakes, but will take me wherever my family and I want to go financially.

    You, too, can make mistakes and defeat the dark forces of tyranny that fight to make us financial slaves.

  2. BucketBabe says:

    The successes are so much sweeter for the mistakes.

    • Doc G says:

      Totally true. Since I throw myself into most everything, the successes are also more rare! Far from bein annoying, it makes them special!

  3. We are the product of all our experiences, both good and bad. I am happy with where I am at so I wouldn’t change a thing.

  4. DGuy says:

    Having the right attitude and mindset goes a long way. It is easy to be impacted negatively by bad moments, but even in darkness there is always a silver lining somewhere.

  5. I like that story Doc. The house I grew up in had a giant Walnut tree, and it faced a similar fate. Great post!

  6. Gasem says:

    Sorry about your Dad and your tree.

    Heraclitus gave us the insight that one never steps into the same river twice. His philosophy engaged the notion that the universe is in constant change and nothing is static. Engage the change. To live in the static is to live in delusion. He also believed opposites were one, like two faces on the same coin. Interesting dude. I’ve been stepping in it ever since.

    I had a monster Oak in my back yard. I called it my $20,000 tree because of the idyllic beauty it gave to my scenery. It even had a swing facing east so you could go sip some latte and watch the sun rise over the Atlantic, catch the sea breeze and listen to the wild life wake up. Hurricane Charlie flew overhead one night and my $20K tree turned into 20 ton of firewood. It also destroyed my well and water treatment. Cost me $4998 to rebuild the well. My insurance deductible was $5K.

    When all was said and done I was ecstatic that the toilet worked again. Right story?

  1. October 9, 2018

    […] lifelong contentedness.  Finding this well of vitality is complicated.  Certainly it starts by telling ourselves the right stories about our lives.  By becoming the protagonist of our own unique narrative, we dive deeper into […]

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