Shortly after I had arrived home from work the other day, my two year old daughter was bawling her eyes out. She wanted to watch her favourite TV shows on Netflix.
I had a very long day at work and all I wanted to do was to sit down and relax for a bit. The easiest solution for both of us would have been to sit down together and watch her TV shows. Problem solved. Dad gets to rest and daughter stops crying. Sounds like a big win.
Because of work I hadn’t seen her since the night before, about 24 hours ago. I decided instead to not give both of us what we wanted and make the hard call to leave the TV off and play with her.
Initially she was having none of it. The wailing getting louder and louder. You know the kid cry where they are crying so hard but they go silent for a bit to build up steam for the next onslaught? Yea it was that type.
Nothing I did worked. She wasn’t going for my funny faces. She wasn’t interested in listening to me read her favourite books. She wasn’t interested in our usual go to of tea parties with her teddies. She wasn’t even interested in me bribing her with favourite food – blueberries.
It was a nice evening and the sun was still out. Still crying I took her outside to ride her bike. She wasn’t interested but the intensity of the crying was dying a bit. Finally, the crying stopped.
What had happened? She saw a beetle on the deck.
That’s all.
Something that I wouldn’t think twice about and she was entertained. She was talking to the beetle asking if it had a good day and what it was doing. It was pretty cute I must say. I took great joy in the interaction. Far more than I would have gained from sitting down and watching kids TV.
And my daughter got to learn some more about beetles and have an interaction with nature. From there, we could then read some books and play tea parties since she had well and truly calmed down.
She even forgot what she was crying about just an hour earlier.
I write this as it draws parallels with life and our finances. Often the easiest thing to do is not the best for us over the long term.
If I had given in to the demands for TV, then in future the demands would become more frequent and she would come to expect us to succumb to her demands. I don’t want that.
Hungry? Easy to buy some take out, much harder to wait and cook and healthy meal.
Got money? Easy to spend it, much harder to save and invest it.
Tired? Easy to jump on the couch, much harder to go for some exercise.
Falling into debt? Easy to ignore it, much harder to make the necessary changes.
On my path towards financial independence I have had to make a bunch of these harder choices. So much now that it isn’t even hard anymore. It is normal.
Look, I’m not a robot. Of course I take the easy option sometimes. But it is much fewer and far between than typical.
These collective harder decisions are what will allow me to live a much more fulfilling life of health, wealth and happiness. The easy path will get me nowhere but unhealthy, unhappy and poor.
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