Good morning,
We are still hanging out in the financial district of your town and while we have been enjoying ourselves a question struck me.
“What is the most valuable thing you can buy?”
Visions of shiny cars and luxury houses may flood your mind at this thought but I wanted a second opinion. I headed to the bank manager in my town to pose this question. The moment of silence between my question and the response could have been cut with a knife.
“You won’t like the answer I fear. It’s not something physical you can parade around in front of your other Mayoral friends”
Hmm, interesting. Please continue wise sage.
“We have found, the most valuable thing one can obtain with money is…. opportunity.”
What a vague answer… I know. What exactly is meant by opportunity? Well more precisely, its the freedom to take advantage of opportunities that come your way. We will all get a number of opportunities throughout our life. Our perception of the ones we can take advantage of can vary on our situation and how much money we have in reserve.
If you are one of those people who have been reading my letters for a while, you may anticipate me to boringly drone on about saving money for a rainy day now. Firstly, a rainy day fund is badass and I don’t care what anyone else says about it. Secondly, this is not saving, its the best kind of retail therapy. With savings, you are going to be able to buy yourself a fat chunk of financial margin, and amazingly you are going to buy it from yourself! You don’t have to pay any taxes on goods brought from this shop!
When you have phat stacks of cash tucked away, you get more choices. You can be more financial agile. Your ability to react to what life throws at you increases enormously. Having some money set aside allows you to not accept being treated like rubbish by that company you hate. Want to take that job you’d love but pays a bit less, having some cash in reserve would help with that. Feel like pulling the trigger on that business idea? With a bit of your own financial backing, you can do that. You can take that chance.
Without the money to protect yourself, taking advantage of opportunities can feel a lot more difficult. Sure, they’re not impossible, but you are exposing yourself to a larger amount of risk. History is scattered with people overcoming great odds and just smashing it regardless. You know what’s more common though, people who had money enough to absorb defeats, take advantage of the luck that came their way and capitalise when everyone else was faltering. That’s what I like to call life lubrication, and it is truly one of the most valuable things you can purchase.
I will probably write more on valuable intangibles in the future. Other things popped up in my mind while writing this and they are begging for their own letter.
Yours sincerely,
Ryan Rose-Blanc
Rose-Blanc Town management
Atowncalledme 