The Illusion
This is the second post in our series where we're working through why financial anxiety often has less to do with math and more to do with who we believe really owns what we have. Last time, we looked at the weight of ownership and loss aversion. This week, chasing the illusion. The illusive “enough”. If I could only make another $1,000 a month, that would be “enough”. If I only had “enough” to afford [fill in your item of choice: new car, new phone, house on the lake], then I would be happy. It’s an endless hamster wheel pushing us to run harder to try and achieve something that will never come.
I had a client a few years ago that was fixated on a number. They truly believed that if they could get to that particular number in their savings then they would be comfortable and could retire. Nothing could dissuade them from that thought despite the fact that their financial plan seemed to indicate that they would be just fine with a number much lower than that saved. This focus on that particular number caused this client to become very anxious when the markets would decline as they saw their balance moving away from that “magic number”. The end result was that they pulled a significant portion of their funds out of the market when it was down and put it in savings and CD’s. Had they stayed the course, not given in to their fear, they may have exceeded the number they were pursuing as the market recovered.
The more money someone is able to save or to earn, if not kept in the correct perspective, will do nothing to alleviate the stress or anxiety that comes with the desire for just a little bit more. The stress does not ease as you build up your savings or increase your paycheck. If you don’t know how to live on the money that you currently make without anxiety, then having more will not fix that fear. Watching a 10% market drop with a $100,000 account is scary, you just lost $10,000. But if you had $1 Million dollars in that account you would have lost $100,000 over that period. Still just as scary (maybe even more so).
In the Bible when the Israelites wandered in the desert after escaping from Egypt we see a group of people that have vast wealth, but still have needs. We see in Exodus 3:21- that the Israelites, as they left Egypt asked their neighbors for silver, gold, and clothing and they plundered the Egyptians. All that wealth did them no good as they wandered the wilderness. We see in Exodus 16 that despite the treasures, the Israelites relied on God to provide for their needs. God made sure of that by daily providing quail and manna to meet their needs, specifically telling them not to gather more than they needed for that day (any extra spoiled over night). An interesting exception to this rule was that on the day before the Sabbath they could gather 2 days’ worth so that they could rest on the Sabbath and the food would last to meet their needs. Let’s unpack that idea a bit more.
We could spend a very long time unpacking what the Sabbath means to us now. We, as Christians, recognize Sunday as a “day of rest”, our Sabbath. That day should be a day where we pause, reflect on the goodness of God, and rest in him. If we were honest, of course, we don’t always do that. If we truly saw that the Sabbath was meant for that purpose then what if we extrapolated that out to change the way we look at retirement? What if “retirement” was the Sabbath of our lives? We see that throughout our lives God promises to provide the “manna and qual” that we need day to day but in the time leading up to Sabbath it may be prudent of us to save up what we need to provide for us during our Sabbath. We should be good stewards and save what we need to last us through those years of our “Sabbath retirement” but pursuing a specific number, building larger and larger barns (to use another parable) will not ease our fears if we do not ultimately trust in our Creator to care for us regardless.
We see it all over, all of us, we see the rich wanting to get richer. Some of that is good in that these investments create jobs which help more people to provide for their families. But what is the motivation behind the drive? If we seek more because we feel insufficient or we feel like we have to compete with the people next door (bigger house, better car, nicer watch/clothes), then we will never be satisfied. 1 Timothy 6:6-8 says “But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.” [ESV] Dwell on that for a bit. Dive deep into your own heart and discern your motivations. I struggle every day. I live in a world, in a job, that focuses on money and being responsible with it, yes, but truly the goal is to grow it. We would lose a lot of clients if we were not able to grow their investments over time. I wrestle with my own comparison mindset and desire for “more” but I also know that in what we do we can equip people for real impact. We can help people see that the drive for more can be good if it is correctly focused and calibrated toward the eternal.
Next week we’re going to look at the “wire”. We all grow up with certain wiring and scripts about money that impact how we see it and how we use it. We’ll dive into our true identities and how we can change the lies we tell ourselves.
