When I was in high school, I went back to China to visit my grandmother for the first time since we were separated. During the visit, one of my cousins had bought me a new T-shirt for about 50 yen, which is a huge sum of money for the average chinese worker. The T-shirt had mini flags of all the countries in the world on the front and the back. As I was about to put on my cool new shirt, denoting my status as a traveler and citizen of the world, my grandmother instinctively stopped me.
“Don’t wear it now,” she simply said.
“What? Why?” I whined.
“You’ll get it dirty. Save it for later,” she responded.
“Um, when?”
“Maybe when you go back to America.”
At the time, it made no sense to me why I should “save wearing a T-shirt.” Aren’t new clothes meant to be worn?
When I was six, my grandmother was escorting me to America for the first time. I had not seen my parents since I was two and had never left China. On the Delta flight over, my grandmother saved portions of every meal that we were served, even the bones from my chicken wings which still had a few pieces of flesh. There were also times when I was still feeling hungry after finishing a meal. Instead of asking the flight attendant for more food, she’d say “no you’re not” and take away my Jello! But then when I wokeup from a nap, she’d conjure food from nowhere.
“I saved my meal from earlier because I knew you’d be hungry later,” she said.
That same evening, during a layover, my grandmother realized that we were missing one of the chicken dinner she had saved. I tried to reassure her that it was no big deal. But the look of pain on her face was as if she had been told a loved one was a dying. It was unbearable. She was angry with herself for being slightly careless.
That day, I learned two important lessons. The first was of the uselessness of delayed gratification. The second, and more important lesson, was about being honest with myself.
Everybody loves to place blame. We blame society, wall street, the media, the government and each other for our collective inability to save. But looking at what’s wrong with the world is the wrong approach to personal finance. Now there’s nothing wrong with taking an interest in the economy. And in this global environment, it may very well be a necessity to educate oneself on macroeconomics.
But when people focus most of their mental energy on things they can’t control, they are inherently paralyzing themselves. Because what else is paralysis?
Instead of developing habits based around saving or investing, people focus on the things that they can’t fix. So they do nothing but lie to themselves. This is why when people buy something they can’t afford, they might feel anxious, but then quickly reassure themselves that “they’ve been good and deserve it” or that “it’s on sale so it’s a deal.”
To face ourselves, that’s the hardest thing to do. To learn how to do it at an early age, that’s God’s gift to make the act of self-examination bearable.
