A number of years ago, I was sitting in my doctor’s office and saw this quote hanging on the wall:
“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” – Anais Nin
This quote has been applicable to a variety of areas and decisions in my life. It is also applicable to financial stress and changing money habits. We often keep doing the same thing, even if it is destructive, because the pain is tolerable. It is once the difficulty can no longer be ignored that we become ready for something different.
Recent studies have highlighted that 3 out of 4 people live with financial stress – that’s 75%! Those same studies often show that at least 25% of us are unable to escape financial stress. For these reasons, personal finances often affect our emotional well being, faith, personal relationships, employment, physical health, and, of course, our financial stability. Acute financial stress can also impact our immediate living situation and create difficulty in acquiring or maintaining basic essentials, such as food, shelter, clothing and transportation.
Because personal finances affect virtually every area of our lives, financial planning must be comprehensive. Sometimes, we cannot change external circumstances. In times like these, we will be more open to changing ourselves and our habits. Change is often perceived to be more painful than continuing with our current plan.
When the pain of continuing on the same path becomes too much, we become open to making changes. In the meantime, the building financial stress can have a greater impact on our lives than we want to admit. The value of seeking help from knowledgeable professionals is that they can help us assess how continuing on the same path or making changes might affect us. They can help us explore each path before we actually make the change. They can help us see over to the horizon when we are unable to see beyond just getting through today.
R. Joseph Ritter, Jr. CFP® EA is the Executive Director of Zacchaeus Financial Counseling, Inc., a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Lake Junaluska, NC which specializes in tax services and financial counseling and planning for low and middle income households.