Live wisely today as you plan for tomorrow

WE should look to the future with hope in our souls and a song in our hearts. The alternative is to wallow in counterproductive selfpity. The best way to lift up our spirits is to focus on the facets of our future we can control.

For instance, we could choose to exercise disciplined self-sacrifice fuelled by hopes and plans for a brighter future. When we do so, we will opt to exercise wise delayed gratification instead of foolish immediate gratification.

Those two forms of gratification were identified decades ago by psychologists who studied the inclinations of life’s winners and losers. The worst of the losing set are typically alcoholics and drug addicts who focus only on their next shot or fix and don’t plan beyond it.

At its core, the reason life’s winners commit to delayed gratification is its ability to propel them (and hopefully us) up the path of wellbeing, including material wealth and physical health, by allowing us to build steady, consistent cash flow surpluses. As the old English proverb goes: “If you put nothing into your purse, you can take nothing out.”

At least that’s the way it used to be until the invention of the first so-called “credit card”, which was really just a charge card, by Diner’s Club in 1950. It then set the stage for a huge permanent change in consumerism — the preoccupation of human society with the acquisition of consumer goods.

Building upon it, in 1958 Bank of America began testing its Bank-Americard (true) credit cards in parts of California that granted cardholders a revolving line of credit. Eight years later, in 1966, the bank rolled out its enticing credit card across the

United States.

RECTANGLES OF ENTRAPMENT

I could say a lot more about it, but as someone who has had to battle credit card over-usage in the UK in the 1980s, and for a shorter period in Malaysia in the 1990s, I’ll limit my observations to this:

Credit cards have two enticing attributes — convenience and actual credit. I see no problem using them for convenience, which is when we treat our credit cards like charge cards and pay them off in full well before the end of each billing cycle.

But I also consider them plastic rectangles-of-entrapment when we spend more money than we have or can afford, and so utilise their tantalising lines of credit by allowing them to morph into expensive long-term debilitating destructive debt. I hope you’ll learn from my mistakes and those of millions around the world: Don’t overspend unwisely because it leads to mountains of debt that rob us of better quality living as we pay — and pay and pay — today and tomorrow for yesterday’s excesses.

The way to sidestep that trap of tribulation is to manage our money so well upfront that we rein in our appetites and commit to delayed gratification by keeping our eyes on the long-term prize of financial freedom. (Visit http://learn. rajendevadason.com for both my free and premium learning resources to better grasp edifying steps you might take in the years ahead.)

STRIKING A BALANCE

Delayed gratification is vital for long-term success. Yet, like all good things, too much of it can be toxic. You see, none of us can (or should) sacrifice too much for too long because life is to be enjoyed today, as we live it, and tomorrow, as we aspire toward ever improving lifestyles.

The best way to strike a balance is to internalise the truth that delayed gratification means deferred gratification, not denied gratification.

So, after we proactively slash our lifestyle expenses at the beginning of our personal journeys to financial freedom, we should then intentionally — yet ever so gradually — ratchet up our lifestyle as the years roll by and as we incrementally beef up our financial vigour by raising our total monthly income = our monthly active income + our monthly passive income. Translation: We reserve enjoying facets of the good life when we can afford it using our own wealth and not utilising borrowed money.

CHOOSING THE MIDDLE PATH

Along the way, though, also be careful about permitting our — shall we say — behavioural pendulum, which swings between pain and pleasure to get permanently stuck on the side of soulsucking over-sacrifice.

Although only God knows how much longer we have to live, statistically speaking we’re likely to live longer than our parents will (or did) because humanity is reaping a massive longevity dividend from improved nutrition and medical care, notwithstanding the current pandemic.

But at the granular level of the individual, we might die young; so don’t underspend so much for so long that you miss out on living the life you should.

Instead, choose a middle path of moderation even as you embrace delayed gratification. Toward that end, about 1,900 years ago the wise Stoic philosopher Epictetus observed: “If one oversteps the bounds of moderation, the greatest pleasures cease to please.” Regular readers may remember my also quoting Epictetus in a recent column: “Fortify yourself with moderation; for this is an impregnable fortress.”

What moderate changes might you make in the coming weeks to maintain, or better yet raise, your internal levels of self-satisfaction as you rework your written budget and temporarily sacrifice some things today to permanently brighten all your tomorrows? Read his free articles at www. FreeCoolArticles.com. He may be connected with on LinkedIn at www. linkedin.com/in/rajendevadason or via rajen@RajenDevadason.com. You may also follow him on Twitter @Rajen Devadason and on Clubhouse (Rajen Devadason).

If you put nothing into your purse, you can take nothing out.

English proverb