I can always tell when I’m feeling a bit, shall we say, hemmed in. Typical tip-off: I run across a picture of a koala bear in a zoo munching on eucalyptus leaves and my first thought is, Well, she’s got it good. I mean, sure, she’s a wild animal caged in an acrylic enclosure for our viewing pleasure, but … someone brings her those leaves, right?
It’s summer, y’all, the season that, from all the available evidence, hates parents. Or is that vice versa?
July 4th celebrates our nation’s founding principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But how many of us are truly free? I value freedom. A lot. Case in point—I’m not wearing a bra! Or attending the neighborhood 4th of July festivities! See? That’s how much I love freedom … or hate being outside. That, and I always so appreciate the irony of spending Independence Day with my very dependent dependents.
I wouldn’t be stretching the truth too much to say that much of what I write about and teach here at LBYM centers around building awareness of how our choices—financial and otherwise—impact our freedom, our ability to do what we want to do, go where we want to go, and be who we want or, rather more accurately, who we need to be. I think about what happens when I feel trapped—it’s not pretty—and I look around and wonder how many of my fellow humans are similarly shackled.
We aren’t fettered only by our financial obligations either. Bonds, visible or not, come in all forms. Golden handcuffs are still handcuffs. Worst are the ones we have little to no control over, yet carry outsize influence—the circumstances of our birth and upbringing, what we look like, who we love, the weight of history, society’s expectations. Our individual and collective struggles and rebellions against these constraints—am I supposed to be inspired by the ending of Thelma & Louise?—can seem Sisyphean.
When I was in college, our men’s basketball team had a 7’1” center. I can still remember watching him play and wondering if he really wanted to be out there. I got the sense his heart wasn’t always fully in the game. The prospect made me a little sad. Did he really live-breathe-dream basketball? Or did his height put him on a predetermined path that got harder and harder to veer off as time went on? Did he, an English major, just want to be a tall … poet?
Sometimes, I’m amazed any of us manage to get up every day, put on our undergarments, and turn a cheerful face to the world. Well, two one out of three isn’t terrible.
Is it any surprise, then, that I maniacally evaluate all decisions, no matter how seemingly inconsequential, through a lens of freedom? Will doing this increase or imperil my freedom? Even better, will it increase my freedom and someone else’s? This is why we at LBYM champion insurance—freedom from fate, happenstance, and our own blundering!—and avoid debt, as much as anything a form of servitude. It’s why I keep nine months of living expenses in liquid accounts, my gas tank topped up, and my passport current. You. Just. Never. Know. It’s also why we’re never getting a dog, despite all teary-eyed pleas to the contrary.
I suppose eight or so years ago I should’ve considered my freedom from teary-eyed pleas, but … hey, I’m working on that freedom from regret!
So, today, as you’re grilling hot dogs, marching in parades, and watching fireworks—appreciating all the freedoms of our ever-flawed-ever-beautiful U.S. of A.—think about what you can do to make sturdier those lofty notions of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
For you. For us. For koalas.