Life is way too short not to have dreams, but we need to ensure these dreams happen says Ian Child
The iconic ‘North Coast 500’, a 500-mile road trip around Scotland’s incredible coastline had been on my bucket list for years. As the author of a book about time management, my family take great pleasure in pointing out when I fail to take my own medicine, so, earlier this year, I made plans to reduce that bucket list.
To share the driving, I invited a good friend of mine along with me whose approach to motoring is more-or-less an entirely practical one. For him, it’s more about getting from A to B, and, as an electric car enthusiast, this was something of an unfamiliar trip for him, one where he didn’t have to perpetually worry about running out of juice. On our return journey back down South, he’d admitted that he’d thoroughly enjoyed the experience and would love to do it again.
This then sparked a further conversation about cars, and my friend confessed that he’d long held a schoolboy crush on one particular sports car and that this would be his car of choice for another road trip. At which point, I said, ‘Why don’t you go out and buy a second-hand one, and we can use it next time?.’ And the argument he put forward is what I can only describe as the antithesis of ‘man-maths.’ Whereas I can use man-maths to justify any luxury purchase under the sun, I was instead subjected to a torrent of pragmatism and common sense. Apparently, if one factors in the finance costs, running costs, depreciation and insurance, it becomes impossible to justify such an extravagant purchase based on price alone. And, if money was your yardstick, it was an argument with which I had to agree wholeheartedly. The numbers simply didn’t add up.
A Happiness Pocket
But that’s where we all rather tend to lose the plot. Because, while such arguments may make sense financially, it doesn’t mean that it’s the right course of action to take. Let me give you an example at the other end of the scale. Imagine you were to pop into your local coffee shop for a flat white, and you spied a cheeky maple pecan Danish nestling in the display cabinet, winking at you. There are probably dozens of very reasonable arguments you could put forward for NOT indulging. Your expanding waistline, the additional expense, ruining your appetite, and clogging your arteries are just a few. But then you think, what the heck, I just want it. So, you buy it, consume it, and it marks a happiness high point in your day, even though it went against all that good reasoning. Were there some pretty sound reasons not to do it? Yes. But you did it anyway because you enjoyed it, and it made you feel better. It was one of the day’s high points.
This is an example of what I call a ‘happiness pocket,’ and your days will be full of them. Little pockets of happiness that make each day bearable. It could be a snack, a chat with a friend, a glass of Rioja, a meal out or a takeaway, or a trip to the cinema or the local pub. You won’t recall them individually in years to come, but they’re essential for making your day-to-day life enjoyable. These happiness pockets also happen on a yearly basis as well as a daily one. Nice holidays, family parties, and luxury purchases all serve to make the year bearable, and they also give us something not only to look forward to but also to remember.
Admittedly, buying a sports car to take on a road trip sits at the more expensive end of the spectrum, but in the end, everything is relative. We always need enough funds to cover the basics, so we can only fund our bucket list requirements out of our disposable income. But, whatever the dream, we often use unjustifiable cost as an excuse for not doing it, even if that cost is a lot more modest than buying a car.
Given that I had my friend’s exclusive attention for the duration of the twelve-hour drive back home, I took the opportunity to share a different perspective on his potential purchase. I asked him how much money it would cost to own his ideal road trip car for three years. He worked out a rough number, which sounded reasonable. It wasn’t cheap, but neither was it ruinous. Then I asked him to imagine sitting out in the garden on a summer afternoon someday in the future when he was in his dotage, looking back on his life as the sunlight faded. Now imagine that sum of money sitting in the bank account along with many other monies accrued during his lifetime. Would he really be so grateful that he hadn’t spent the money, given that he could see it there in his account? Or would he rather be able to recount the memories and say that, during his lifetime, he HAD owned his dream car and used it to go on exciting road trips with his friends?
Life is too short
Exactly what is the point am I trying to make here? Well, simply put, it’s this. Life is way too short not to have dreams, but we need to ensure these dreams happen. And while long-term goals are great, we must also enjoy the journey. If you only settle for a cheeky Danish now and again, you’re selling yourself short. But saving every penny and dying with millions in the bank isn’t a great ambition either. Instead, I would urge you to make sure you have a bucket list item on your agenda for EVERY year of your life and do whatever is necessary to make it happen. It can be big, or it can be small, expensive or cheap. Will you always be able to justify it financially? Nope. Luckily, some items on the bucket list can be very inexpensive. Either way, in years to come, when you sit in your garden in the fading sunshine on that same summer’s afternoon, reminiscing on a life well-lived, the value you ascribe to money not spent could be very different. To be blunt, you won’t be able to spend it where you’re going next.
Whatever form your own ‘road trip’ takes, I urge you to put it in your diary during the coming year. It may seem like an indulgence or even an extravagance. But all too often, we never do it. And while our coffers may consequently be all the richer for it, our lives may be immeasurably poorer.
