“Nothing in excess.”
-Inscription upon Apollo’s Temple in Delphi, Greece
PARADIGM SHIFT
Ancient Greek Wisdom for a Balanced Life
One thing I encountered quite often as a financial advisor was an extraordinary fear of loss.
Understandably, risk aversion tends to increase as we get older. Going back to work at 70 or 80 years old isn’t exactly what everyone longs to do. But that’s why we manage risk the long-term way through allocation rather than knee-jerk reactions and guessing games.
Ironically, the greatest risk we face may not actually be market losses, but a life spent avoiding risk so thoroughly that we miss the chance to do something meaningful.
Regardless of age or career stage, here’s something that never goes away: a desire for purpose and significance.
Many of us, if given the choice, would trade some degree of comfort and ease for a life filled with meaning, purpose and personal growth — in pursuit of achieving something bigger than ourselves.
I was reminded of the timelessness of this inclination when reading The Culturalist.
In Homer’s Odyssey, he describes Odysseus’s sojourn on Calypso’s island paradise, filled with every ease and pleasure and comfort known to mankind. In the words of The Culturalist, “There’s no work to be done, no sickness, and no fear of death — just comfort, peace, and pleasure.”
When we’re in the midst of busy life, it’s so easy to get caught up in an idealistic vision of what we think would make us happy: comfort, peace and pleasure…all of the time.
But to our amazement, Odysseus eventually rejects such a life. He leaves Calypso’s island to once again become a mortal, participating in human events that involve difficulty, effort, risk and loss.
I think something similar also happens to those of us who either retire early or take a long sabbatical (like a gap year) where we do everything we ever wanted to do with our time.
Just like Odysseus realized paradise without purpose was a prison, many retirees discover that freedom without direction feels strangely empty.
As we fulfill one ideal, we suddenly see another ideal with fresh perspective. And maybe it’s an ideal we could have achieved far sooner if we’d properly identified it.
So many people are working hard to retire as soon as possible. Once they retire, they will need to find a new direction that achieves purpose and fulfillment. But we don’t have to wait until retirement to strike this balance.
True wealth isn’t just financial. It’s the harmony of four currencies: purpose, time, flexibility and money. And all of these can be achieved far sooner than retirement with the proper knowledge, direction and objectives.