You’ve been duped.
They told you that safety is the most important thing in life, and you believed them.
So you took the safe choice in everything. You followed the advice of the college career counselor, you invested according to what some washed-up Northwestern Mutual advisor said, you passed on some risky opportunities, you bought the cheapest car, you used software to create your budget, you sent your kids to a mediocre school because it was free, you stayed home for a year because someone told you to.
And look at you now.
You drive a depreciating, dangerous new minivan. Your slim 401(k) can’t be withdrawn for another thirty years. You work a boring, stable, dead-end job with a mediocre salary. You didn’t start the business. Your kids are now spending 8 hours a day staring into an iPad, learning nothing, socially decaying. And you’ve gotten so little work done, the company is downsizing, and you don’t have a career network to rely on for your next job.
That’s because safety is an illusion.
You thought it was safer to buy a 2020 Kia minivan for $25k, instead of a 2012 Volvo for $10k. You’re down $15k and drive a worse vehicle.
You didn’t think it makes sense to spend money on private education, but now your kids aren’t going to school at all, and your neighbor’s kids still see their private school friends in real life.
You thought it was safer to work in a corporation’s cubicle instead of starting your own thing or joining a small company, but you get fired anyway and have nothing to fall back on.
You thought it made more sense to deposit $6,000 a year into your Roth IRA, but then you realize if you’d just saved that as cash, you could have paid the mortgage this month.
Safety creates good citizens.
Safety does not create thriving, independent citizens.
Safety creates good, obedient, subservient cattle.
You will be ok. But you will never be great.