94 | The Story is All That Matters

It’s hard to keep track of the story.

Early in life, one dollar comes in and one dollar goes out and it’s easy to say, “This dollar paid for that thing.”

It doesn’t stay this easy forever though.

The number of transactions explodes, the perspectives change, the preferences proliferate, the people multiply, and frankly, there just isn’t enough time to do this kind of accounting.

Slowly, and then quickly, the story in our head begins to diverge from the story on paper.

“Our spending is out of control” is the story in our head when the story on paper is that it’s really only a lot of $5 dollar coffees or we don’t see eye to eye on every single spending decision or we’ve had a flurry of necessary, but large purchases recently.

“We are bad investors” is the story in our head when the story on paper is that we got a little unlucky with the precise timing of investing that $10,000 or we struggle to keep track of all our accounts or we forgot about the 7 years of gains that preceded the most recent dip.

“If only we had more income” is the story in our head when the story on paper is that if we saved a little bit more or spent a little bit more intentionally or paid off that debt or boosted our cash on hand then we could feel the peace of mind or relief that we desperately desire.

More than any innocent naïveté or technical oversight, I think most financial stress or frustration can be chalked up to the story in our head diverging from the story on paper.

The good news is that just because we can’t say “this dollar paid for that thing” doesn’t mean that we can’t bring the stories back together.