51 | The More Things Change, The More They Stay the Same

This post is Part 3 of 3 of the “Promoting Transparency Instead of Perpetuating Taboo” series.

Progress continues to be made, options continue to proliferate, information continues to become more accessible, convenience continues to be ubiquitous, and yet we're still plagued by the same money problems.

These money problems existed 1,000 years ago and they will exist 1,000 years from now, because they are fundamental to the human condition.

Our lifetimes are marked by constant movement along a number of money spectrums - overconfidence vs. paralysis, fear vs. greed, regret vs. pride, contentment vs. longing, scarcity vs. abundance, control vs. chaos, and so many others - that can't be "figured out" or solved "once and for all" because our daily life experience is constantly changing our position on them.

Every single person is faced with the same unanswerable money questions - How much is enough? Am I ahead or behind where I am "supposed" to be? What is the "right" type or amount of spending? Why is it so much harder to spend out of my savings than out of my income?

Every single person's life experience is wildly unique to them and also only really known by them, so the layers of nuance that are then baked into our individual relationships with money are hard to comprehend and impossible to map out on a piece of paper.

And yet financial hardship, at every level of wealth, can be pointed back to three basic principles...

• Running out of cash on hand.
• Spending that exceeds income for too long.
• Expectations of the future that outpace the ability to support that future.

No matter the point in history or the amount of wealth, the same three principles explain every hardship that someone has experienced with money.

They’re not complicated principles and they don’t require much technical knowledge, but they continue to perplex human after human - not because we haven’t found the tactics, but because the tactics aren't the missing piece of the puzzle.

Every single one of us has the final puzzle piece in our possession, it’s just too scary and hard to place in its spot.

The final puzzle piece is the willingness and courage to begin slowly chipping away at money's taboo-ness so that we can actually begin changing our collective relationship with money.

Not recklessly talking about it, but discussing it with intent and legitimate desire to change our relationship with it.

Conversations that are characterized by more listening than telling. More questions than answers. More accountability than advice. More encouragement than judgment. More awareness than correctness.

Common languages for discussing it that span household, age, and dollar amount.

Common tools that stop measuring, bench-marking, or promising certainty and instead provide context, comparability, and promote resilience.