Tell Yourself The Right Story

We tell ourselves the stories about our life that make it bearable. Or better yet, magical. Mystical. When my father died when I was eight years old, there were no stories that made sense. How could this kind, loving father leave his devoted wife and three boys behind. I spent a good deal of my younger years puzzled by this contradiction. But happiness, I found, is not something that is guaranteed. Sometimes to make sense of the horrendous things that happen to us, you have to tell yourself the right story.

These stories, these myths, define our origins. They become our elevator pitch speech. Will we travel the hero’s journey or devolve into yet another Shakespearian tragedy.

The choice is ours.

But first, let me share one of my stories.

Home Is Where The Heart Is

Shortly after I was born, my mother and father decided that our small apartment was getting crowded with three young boys. They began an extensive search which landed in a sprawling Chicago suburb. They visited house after house to no avail. Until they found the perfect one.

Four bedrooms, one and a half baths, a lovely neighborhood, and a back yard with a large sprawling elm tree. My father always joked that it was the elm that sold him. If anything ever happened to it, we would have to leave.

Years after my father died, this home had burrowed itself into the heart of it’s owners. It had become more than just brick and mortar. Safety. Comfort, familiarity. A stalwart reminder that in a world where everything can change, fathers can die, there is structure and foundation. Roots that wend their way into the ground and stubbornly refuse to budge.

Life, however, was changing. My mother met a wonderful man who had two children of his own. Our little house could never accommodate five teenagers.

My mother struggled for months with the decision. To get married, pull her children out of the school system, and move them out of the only house that they could remember. The house in which around every corner, within each nook and cranny, the fading memories of our father still lived.

A prolonged impasse followed.

Tell yourself the right story.

A Resolution

Upon arriving home one evening, my mother glimpsed a notice from the city hanging half way out of our mailbox. Upon lowering her briefcase to the ground in the front foyer, she unfolded the flimsy paper and started to read.

Our tree. Our wonderful backyard tree. The emblem of my father’s love for this particular house, had been tested. The tree had Dutch Elm Disease. The city would be removing it the next week. There was no means of appeal. No measure of prevention.

The tree had to come down.

And it was time for us to move.

So What The Heck Does This Have To Do With Personal Finance?

At some point you will look back at your own financial history, and all you will see is misery. You will scold yourself for having so much debt. You will curse that stupid financial advisor that you blindly entrusted. Or you will castigate for that real estate deal that went south.

Whether you end up happy or sad, accomplished or a failure, has little to do with all those missteps. We all stumble. But if you tell yourself the right story. If you look at your life as an epic battle between good and evil in which good prevails, you will end up on the right side of contentment.

Your financial mistakes can be either fuel or fodder.

Be the protagonist.

Be the hero.

Tell yourself the right story.

What are the stories, and myths that you tell about your financial journey? Please share them with us in the comments!