We live in a world where we think we have lots of choices.
You go to a restaurant and you want a drink.
The server tells you: “Sir, you can have any drink you want. Here is the menu.”
As soon as a person gives us one set of choices, he/she is taking away many other choices we could have. That menu the server gave you, only have 10 different drinks. What about all the other thousands of possibilities?
Would you like Pepsi or Coke?
Would you like coffee or tea?
Would you like to pay with Visa or MasterCard?
A parent asks her child: What do you want to be when you grow up? A doctor or a lawyer.
And so we make the choices presented to us, and we assume that we have free will, we assume that we are making decisions. But those decisions are from a narrow set of choices, imposed by someone else.
In personal finance, we are confronted with this set of choices every day.
Would you like to buy or rent a house? Is that it? Is that all there is?
Do you invest in stocks or bonds?
And so we follow all these choices presented to us, all these choices which bring us to consumerism, to wanting to have more than the man next to us. But we don’t see what the man next to us is saving, we can only see what he’s spending, so we consume, we want to outdo him, and we fall into debt.
One of my friends wants the latest iPhone. Another friend wants to always look good in her clothing.
I feel proud to say it:
- I don’t like to spend money
- I don’t like to have a regular job
- I don’t like iPhones
- I don’t like TVs
- I don’t like big cars
- I don’t like big houses
- I don’t like brand named clothes
- I don’t like to follow the social script.
What about you. You have all the choices in the world:
- Would you like a Pepsi or a Coke?
- Would you like coffee or tea?
- Would you like to be a doctor or an attorney?
This is a free world, you can be anything you want. Don’t narrow your world by the few selections presented to you. There’s always more out there for you. There are many choices that are not offered to you. You have to find them and consider them.
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