Liam upon finding a positive pregnancy test tube in the trash can says this to his friend, Sean;
It's like anyone's world can turn on a dime, bro. You just gotta be ready when it does. The Movie - What If
And it struck me. Liam did not just talk about uncertainties right there, but he also offered up a solution. Uncertainties. Emergencies. Whatever you like to call it will always be part of life no matter how hard we try to avoid them, they will always show up unannounced.
They are like uninvited guests that wouldn't take a blow to their ego so they have to show up and make trouble for everyone else. Or almost like the lady who lost her child and dared King Solomon to cut the other woman's baby in half. In other words, she meant, "if I can't have a live baby, then, she doesn't deserve one either".
That's how life is, it must always try to reel its head out to disrupt whatever happy moments you seem to have had. But sometimes this is our fault. As a result of the numerous things that we desire and the levels that we wish to attend, we tend to make trouble for ourselves. Or maybe not, I could be strolling too far off the point but I'll return to the right setting, stay with me.
Liam is excited about the possibility of having a baby after seeing the test results. And he's willing to give whatever it is to make sure it works out. It seems they had a history around bearing children that I can't seem to lay my fingers on but right now that's not the most important thing.
Did you see that Liam understood that there will always be uninvited guests in our lives and that's not the most important thing but the way we handle those guests are what matters? And that Liam adviced us to be prepared for whatever this guest has planned for the rest of the folks in our lives or maybe us alone?.
Pay attention, being prepared for life's uncertainties cut across every facade of our lives. It could be a baby that you did not plan for. It could be a fire. Or a broken bathtub. Whatever it is that life throws at you, you will be better off being ready; than sitting back to see if it will happen before you start getting ready. You will be reactive instead of proactive which certainly leaves you at the mercy of life itself.
Morgan Housel says the reason we should save a shit ton of money is not necessarily to buy, things but to be prepared for the days when everything we used to think we couldn't do without would change. Yes, he dedicated a chapter to the topic, "You'll Change".
And a subsection that explains why long-term planning is hard because people's goals and desires change as they move along the path that they thought is their calling and they were prepared to stay on it for the rest of their lives.
Just like Liam, a little individual will come along, and if you are a lady, you might be forced to leave the corporate ladder and return home to cater to the young and beautiful creature that is breeding in your belly. And if you are a man in this picture, you'll realize that there's more to life than just you and your wife. You'll start making decisions that take cognizant of three people instead of two.
And when all of these scenarios happen, money will be needed to soften the strain that those changes are going to bring. Truthfully, if you haven't known it yet, then you should know now that change brings a lot of strain and you will need a little more energy adjusting to those changes. If this is something you were not prepared for, you could feel fucked up and even think the entire world is against you.
So there's no way you will be able to predict what you will be using your savings for. This is why Housel advised that we save hard but necessarily to buy something. So, every financial plan that you make should make room for error in the sense that your plan might not go according to plan. And of course, as you journey through the process of wealth building, a lot of things you did not expect will show up and you have to be ready.
Your partner might lose their job or become incapacitated or your business may not fall through as expected. You wouldn't know exactly what you will want in the near future. A few things will change about you, and even around you. In any case, you should be ready just like Liam said.
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