“[All men] are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
— Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. There is a resonance in those words that seems to reverberate throughout the ages. It is perhaps not only an American ideal, but the ideal of all humanity. We must, however, admit, in honesty, that although the aspiration is a great one, it is a reality that very few of us actually achieve.
Let us start by stating that it has been proven without a shadow of a doubt that the key to a long-lasting and happy life is the quality of our relationships, not only that which we have with others but also that which we have with ourselves. A Harvard Study conducted over 80 years found that the quality of our relationships was the greatest component to lasting happiness.¹
One of the greatest impediments to having good relationships and therefore happiness in life, we must further admit, is the staggering amount of time we spend on thinking about, worrying about, and acquiring money. We can see how utterly enmeshed we are by this worry by looking at our relationship with our work. Millions of us are thinking about our money and our bills on weekends and while we are on vacation. Nearly half of U.S. employees consider themselves overworked according to a 2004 study done by the Families and Work Institute.² 1 out of every 3 workers don’t use their full vacation time and about 1 out of 2 workers who consider themselves overworked actually work on their vacation.²
Our entire life energy is consumed by the incessant cycle of making money to pay our bills. Working from 9 to 5 till 65 has become an inexorable way of life. We toil away in the Cube Farm, waiting anxiously for the final respite to come. But we cannot walk away. The responsibilities are too consuming, the bills are too great, and every Sunday we feel a knot in our stomach for the work-week ahead. It has gotten to the point where the constant toil is actually detrimental to our health. In 1999, The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) stepped forward to report that because the nature of work is changing at whirlwind speed, perhaps now, more than ever, job stress poses a threat to the health of workers, and in turn to the health of organizations.²
We are so drained from the workplace due to our pursuit of money, that we hardly have any time to real leisure and relaxation once we get home. A 2017 study done by the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that “socializing and communicating, such as visiting with friends or attending or hosting social events, accounted for an average of 39 minutes per day.”³ Let’s look at that again — we have put aside a paltry 39 minutes per day for enjoying and investing in relationships, which has been scientifically proven to be the primary key to lasting happiness. It should, therefore, come as no surprise that Americans are not happy. A Harris Poll done in 2011 found that only 1 out of 3 Americans consider themselves “very happy”.⁴
As there is no Life in our life, how can we, therefore, expect to have the Liberty to Pursue our Happiness? Do we, then, as Thoreau once said, continue “leading lives of quiet desperation?” We must admit, that if we continue on as we have, we cannot expect a different result. As the great Greek philosophers of antiquity once asked, so we too will ask: Is this way of life actually good for us?
If we are spending the vast majority of our time working to pay our bills, and then spending the twilight of our life in a retirement, and with considerable psychological expense incurred, is this life actually good for us?
Does it serve a person well to start their life making all sorts of financial mistakes in their 20s and 30s so that they are left with very little at retirement? Does it make us happier slave away to our bills, when exercising some discipline and implementing guidance from a financial advisor could allow us to be the master of them? Is it correct for us to expect to work until we are 65 when with the right guidance it may very well be possible to retire sooner?
Introducing The ConCap Way
To recap, we believe that the science is enough to prove to us that this way of life that we have chosen is truly deleterious for our health and overall well-being and that we must choose different choices if we are to have a different result. We can safely come to the conclusion that money issues strike at the very core of our well-being. If we can dramatically reduce or even eliminate some of those worries, then it stands to reason that we can improve our general well-being.
So why do we as a society choose this way of life, which leads to general unhappiness for the vast majority of the population? We believe the answer is because we do not know any better because we have not been shown a better way. It is truly a matter of education and not one of ability. We must learn a new way of managing our finances that allows us to be far more intentional about them than before. This intentionality is so far-reaching that we liken it to a way of life. We call this way of life, The ConCap Way.
This blog channel is dedicated to educate the public of The ConCap Way. And given that human beings are creatures of habit we expect that this process will be a long and laborious one that will take a considerable amount of time. In these articles, readers will find concepts that are entirely foreign to them, but are fundamental to understand if we are to make improvements in this area. The result will hopefully be a populus that has a much greater propensity to financial literacy and greater financial well-being.
ConCap is a financial services firm with a focus in helping its clients attain financial well-being relatively early in life. This is the revolutionary approach that we are offering for the next generation and we are taking the lead in this movement.
Our approach is not so much to hit home runs in the stock market for their investment portfolio, but rather to help our clients exercise their emotional intelligence to avoid the costly mistakes that set them back financially by several decades. And this avoidance of costly mistakes requires an education, a certain mindset, that they can attain here, reading one article after the next, about the ConCap way of life.
It is, admittedly, a very hands-on approach but once we have our clients’ trust and they have bought into The ConCap Way, then we can begin to entertain the far-fetched possibility of a man or woman coming to us in his or her twenties becoming a millionaire by their thirties. Or we can imagine a new couple deliberately buying less home so they can pay off their mortgage in 10 years instead of 30, saving themselves hundreds of thousands in interest expense and having the satisfaction of living a debt-free life.
It is possible that, generations from now, people may look back in disbelief at how we struggled with our financial well-being. We believe that following some common sense financial guidance from your advisor implemented early on in life, can lead to a lifetime of amazing possibilities, along with the Liberty to pursue your own Happiness.
To schedule a consultation with an advisor, go to ConCapAdvisory.com
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Sources:
¹Mineo, L. (2017). Good Genes Are Nice, But Joy Is Better. The Harvard Gazette. Retrieved from https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/04/over-nearly-80-years-harvard-study-has-been-showing-how-to-live-a-healthy-and-happy-life/)
²Galinsky, E., Bond, J. T., Kim, S., Backon, L., Brownfield, E., & Sakai, K. (2004). Over Work In America. Families and Work Institute. Retrieved from http://familiesandwork.org/downloads/OverworkinAmerica.pdf
³Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2018, June 28). American Time Use Survey — 2017 Results. Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/atus.pdf
⁴Annual Happiness Index Again Finds One-Third of Americans Very Happy. (2011). The Harris Poll. Retrieved June 22, 2011, from https://theharrispoll.com/although-one-of-the-simplest-emotions-happiness-can-be-hard-to-explain-the-harris-polls-annual-happiness-index-is-therefore-useful-as-it-uses-standard-and-timeless-questions-to-calculate-americans/
