Time: Is Your Financial Future in Focus?
“The trouble is you think you have time”. Buddha
“Wow, I can’t believe it’s 2023, I have no idea where this year (2022) went!”; so exclaimed a friend recently, somewhat perplexed at the speed of the passage of time. “Time flies when you’re having fun!”, is another whimsical retort that muses about the speed with which time passes.
According to Wikipedia, today’s digital version of Encyclopedia Britannica: “Time is the indefinite continued progress of existence and events that occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future.”
Time, and themes related to it, is the subject of much coverage by poets and songwriters, philosophers and theologians, and business and professional people. At least the former groups only write or render theories about time, whereas professional people in many walks of life need to convert time to money to make a living. For example, attorneys, CPA’s and construction contractors commonly state their services in terms of “hourly, or billable rates”. Of course, we also frequently hear a familiar refrain: “time is money”.
Yet, for all the popularity of this topic, no one seems to have unraveled the secret to “managing time”. Many folks spend time training, reading, or writing about “managing time”, as if it were possible to do. Time will pass no matter what you do. Think about it.
No matter what these so-called experts claim, you can’t manage time. But, you can manage decisions impacted by time. In fact, understanding time horizons, and how they impact how your assets should behave, as well as the required liquidity, growth and stability of the underlying investments, is a big part of what financial planners do every day.
The symbolic turning of the page into the new year often prompts people to renew previously abandoned ambitions. If your financial future is not in focus, make this the year that you do something about it. Doing a financial plan sounds like such a huge undertaking that it can be daunting; I get it. Here is a novel idea: make a phone call and talk to us. That is a lot easier. We can guide you from there.
After all, as The Steve Miller Band’s song goes: “Time keeps on tickin’, tickin’, tickin’ into the future…”.
