Do you have to work all your life?

Saving a day in future at the cost of a day in present is undoubtedly a bad investment.

The Traditional thought:

Have you ever asked your father or elder relatives whether you should work and enjoy or work and save for future?  If you did, you would most probably get the same answer i.e. you should work, earn and save for the future. When a person does not save enough of earnings for future, he is rebuked by the elders to spend only a little and save for the future otherwise everything would be spent and he would be left with nothing in future.

Our childhood would have been incomplete if we had not studied the story of the ant and the grasshopper. The moral of the story is “Save for the future otherwise you will be left with nothing in future”. That is indeed a good policy as you will not be able to work for your whole life and have to retire one day. Warren Buffet has said, “Do not save what is left after spending but spend what is left after saving”.

The Value of Time in Life:

Saving a day in future at the cost of a day in present is undoubtedly a bad investment. The value of time needs to be considered. There is a slok in Sanskrit:

“लोकाः समस्ताः सुखिनो भवन्तु “

The above slok states, “Let the entire world be happy”. And to spread happiness, you should understand the happiness inside you. An unhappy person cannot spread happiness and a person with a guilt of sacrificing the present happiness cannot be happy either. All such earnings and investment are waste if the person is unhappy in true sense.

What’s actually wrong?

One should be able to differentiate between live to work and work to live. People are so busy in their work schedule that they have forgot the fact that life has other important aspects as well. Where the problem lies is the thought that you should work and only work to earn for the present and secure the future as well. There are many aspects of life- love, work, family, enjoyment, and others and, what’s wrong is we tend to ignore the aspects of life other than work either willingly or unknowingly.

A person tries his best to work for the most time in order to earn as much as he can so that he will be able to fulfill the present needs of his own and his family as well and also to save for future. A normal person sets all the plan let us call it a financial plan. If anything goes contrary to his plan, he gets demotivated and starts blaming himself that he could not save enough for the future despite working so hard and sacrificing all other aspects in past and present. And this guilt can never solve the problem and let him be happy.

The Life:

You should be ready to accept and live all such aspects of life. It impacts the human psychology the most. If you do so, you will not have such guilt and will be energized even if situation does not go as per your plans. It does not mean that you need not save for the future. Since, the day will surely come when you need to get retired from your work, you need to think for the day as well but not at the cost of the present. It is just that you need to understand the components of your portfolio of the life and respect and enjoy all those components including work, earnings, savings, investment, family, love, enjoyment etc.

Think smartly as well. Work is not limited to physical one rather you can earn income even after you retire from your work, or profession. Thus, the plan should be inclusive of the necessary aspects such as saving, investing, and others accompanied by the spirit of optimism. And when you analyze yourself after so many years, you will know that your life was full of work but not as per traditional thought, happiness, enjoyment and others, a complete package actually.

Kamlesh K Sah, kamlesh@suvodassociates.com.np

The views expressed in this piece are of the Author solely. UHY Suvod Associates does not guarantee the accuracy of the technical content or material provided on the information if any.