HUMAN beings — whether in Malaysia, Asia, or across the world — are facing a weirdly unfolding reality. As our species' average lifespan creeps higher with each passing year, humanity's median age is rising at an even faster rate.
Why is that?
Before I give you my answer, may I suggest you flex your cerebral math-and-logic "muscles" to figure out why? Think…
Right, here's the reason our median age is going up at an alarming rate:
Taking the planetary human population, which now stands a little over 8.1 billion people, we are, on average, having fewer babies than ever before. A major driver of this phenomenon in a growing number of countries is the rational decision by educated women of childbearing age to delay — or altogether avoid — having kids.
Note: I'm not saying being educated is bad; on the contrary, all of us — male and female — should aspire to be as well-educated as possible as we wend our way through primary, secondary and tertiary institutions of learning.
(Our fast-evolving 21st century environment requires us all to proactively grab the reins of our own education, each passing decade, to implement self-directed lifelong learning initiatives like serious reading, deep thinking, thoughtful experimenting, and consistent workshop/seminar/conference/symposium attending.)
For each of us to age gracefully even as we ratchet up our innate reserves of culture, class, and cash we must know what's happening around us and intelligently harness our stores of energy, talent, skill, and knowledge to make Earth better because — naturally speaking — it's all we have in the here-and-now.
With college and university inflation rates outstripping every country's average consumer price index (CPI), the total cost — of educating even a single boy or girl all the way through kindergarten, primary, secondary and tertiary levels — causes many economically productive well-educated couples to either delay parenthood, or dodge it altogether.
The flip side of this trend is that in all countries, the poorer, less educated slices of society choose to have more children.
BRIGHTER FUTURE
Now, track along with me:
Given the way democracies work, the snowballing effects of the smart set having fewer kids and the generally less educated masses having more, suggest an incrementally diminishing capacity for any electorate to think rationally and critically about the choices presented to them at the ballot box.
I suspect this dumbing down of electorates is at least partially responsible for the staggering number of incompetent or unsavoury leaders we see rising to power worldwide today. Admittedly, it's just a personal pet theory; yet the worsening geopolitical state of our world suggests I am at least partly correct.
Against that bleak societal backdrop, what are we to do if we crave a brighter future for our families and for ourselves?
Well, my top suggestions are:
1. Retain and nurture a sense of gratitude for what we have and the good experiences in our lives;
2. Plan our actions to raise the likelihood of enjoying more positive experiences than negative ones;
3. In our planning, we should spend more time envisioning a brighter tomorrow than looking backward and giving in to despair.
After all, when we make time for rejuvenating play, for rich relationships, for joy, for love, and for the myriad other experiences that make life worth living, we begin to "glow" (for want of a better word) with an aura of charisma, character and charm that draws in respect from others around us.
This will help us enlarge our sphere of influence.
MONEY PERSONALITY
If we do so as we age, our standing in society will rise. And if we can simultaneously grow richer, then at the risk of sounding crass, we will accelerate up the superhighway of gravitas, respect, and class.
A useful form of self-knowledge that can make us more comfortable in our own skin and better long-term managers of our own money is knowing our personal money-personality.
In Taylor and Megan Kovar's book The Five Money Personalities, they advocate greater self-knowledge as a way to manage our personal finances better in the years ahead.
These are the five money-related personalities they have identified, followed by my brief elaboration on each:
1. Security Seeker — focuses more on economic safety than huge potential returns;
2. Saver — derives great joy from the slow, stable accumulation of cash reserves;
3. Spender — wants more than anything else to feel the sharp thrill of retail purchases;
4. Risk-Taker — seeks out volatile ventures for both their visceral thrill and potential large blowout profits; and
5. Flyer — focuses on life's experiences and is not interested in the accumulation of wealth.
Most of us possess all five traits, yet tend to exhibit two much more than the others.
Using my descriptions of them, identify your top two. Then take time over the coming months to identify licensed financial planners and other financial intermediaries who may best suit your unique money-personality combination and, thus, be suited to giving you tangible guidance on growing old in style.
What I've outlined above as a course of action is a tall order. Understandably, most readers won't act on my advice.
The few who do, though, should prosper.
© 2024 Rajen Devadason
Rajen Devadason, CFP, is a securities commission-licensed Financial Planner, professional speaker and author. Read his free articles at www.FreeCoolArticles.com; he may be connected with on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/rajendevadason, or via rajen@RajenDevadason.com. You may also follow him on Twitter @Rajen Devadason and on YouTube (Rajen Devadason).