The movie illustrates, in painful and beautiful detail, the problems that we humans bring upon ourselves over and over, like addicts. We want to quit, but we can't. Part inherited, part self-inflicted, the story rings true because I think, most of us have a story like that. The thing we want to quit; the way we need to improve, and we try, but we can't seem to make happen. We viewers identify with the poor characters, because we, too, try hard, and fail, and wonder to ourselves lying in bed at night, what is wrong with us?
I have a friend who'd fit right in the plot of that movie. He drinks too much, dates strippers much younger than him who keep borrowing and wrecking his cars because they're, you know, addicted to heroin, and regularly gives them handfuls of cash, just because. As you might imagine, he is not great with his money.
He lives beyond his means, and did so even back when he was earning a six figure salary. He underpays his taxes throughout the year and, every April, has to raid his 401k to pay the five figure tax bill. He'll take loans against his 401k for other things, too, like to put a down payment on a rental property that couldn't cash-flow, putting himself into a higher tax bracket in the process.
When he was laid off last year, the loans from the 401k became due immediately and financial & tax disasters ensued. Now the two mortgages are killing his cash flow, and he's drawing his retirement accounts to cover the difference, paying too much in tax all along the way.
As a true sucker, my hope for him springs eternal. I want him to succeed financially, and I trick myself into thinking he will. We talk about money sometimes, come up with strategies, build spreadsheets to track spending, and chat about ways to invest more and to spend less. Nothing sticks.
The healthy thing would be to understand the key lesson from every RomCom I've ever seen: that I can't really change him. But I can't help myself: I keep trying to get the dude to do the things I think are best for him. Maybe the next time, something will work. Of course, nothing ever changes, and I get frustrated that nothing ever changes.
Unaware of the irony, I keep myself in this unhealthy cycle...of trying to force others to break their unhealthy cycles.
I hear all the time that personal finance is more about changing behavior than it is about acquiring more knowledge. It's true, of course. (And this is one reason I'm so pessimistic about the chances that financial literacy is the answer to our nation's money problems.) But simply calling our deep seeded financial habits "behaviors" is a bit misleading.
If you find yourself habitually and compulsively shopping, pushing your credit cards to the limit and getting deep into consumer debt, might we better off discussing the possibility of a spending addiction, rather than simply talking about the problem as a behavior that can be improved with some new knowledge and hard work?
If the root causes of our money problems are clouded by denial (say, being in denial about having no retirement savings whatsoever), ought we focus on the psychological aspects rather than the behavior...which might be a symptom?
If our financial behavior is habitual and we keep finding ourselves in the same situations over and over again, even though they are bringing us negative consequences, would we be better off considering them addictions instead of habits?
On some level, I'm getting caught up in semantics. But the way we categorize our problems, and the words we use, change the kinds of approaches we choose. A bad habit is something I might tackle with a little willpower, or maybe a self-help book. An addiction is something that I'm powerless against: something I can't defeat on my own, and can't begin to address until I realize it's an addiction.
And if I'm trying to help someone else with their addiction, even if it's a friend or family member I love, then there's really nothing I can do. I'm just fooling myself.
I know this sounds defeatist, but it's not meant to be. Change is possible. But no amount of well-intentioned advice or financial assistance is going to do a lick of good until the person admits he has an addiction.
And if that's what my friend is dealing with, the thing for me to do is...to give up. I need to give up on trying to help someone who doesn't understand the problems he's dealing with. For now, and maybe forever, he's just going to keep doing what he's doing.
Like Aimee Mann tells us, it's not going to stop, until you wise up.
As always, thanks for reading.
*Photo is from shelleys1 @ Flickr Creative Commons
OK, I'm waiting for the frogs to start falling from the sky. Seriously though, you've pretty much summed up my beef with the whole self-help movement. It's like we've all latched onto the idea that self-destructive behaviors are really just "bad habits," and that we somehow just need to make better choices.
ReplyDeleteBut what that model completely ignores is that even self-destructive behaviors are, on some level, adaptive. In other words, the behavior actually serves us in some way that we aren't fully able to either understand or accept. Usually it helps us to avoid emotions that we are uncomfortable with or don't want to face.
CatMan used to work in the mental health field, and he has a saying: The self-destructive behavior both expresses and defends against the suppressed emotion.
For example, a person who is uncomfortable with their own feelings of homosexuality might act like a gay-bashing homophobe. The behavior allows them to both immerse themselves in fantasies and thoughts of forbidden gay sex, while simultaneously distancing themselves from the intolerable emotion.
So basically, we're all just little kids who are acting out. And nothing will ever change unless and until we embrace the underlying emotions. That's my take anyhow.
That's a perfect example (and one that PT Anderson actually examines in Boogie Nights, where the closeted homosexual pays Dirk Diggler to, um, touch himself in front of him, and then participates in beating him up with his homophobic friends.)
DeleteAs you said, our habits are complicated. Self-help approaches (and this applies to a lot of the very good blogs I read, too) don't always deal with that complexity. It's usually about "get out of debt like your hair is on fire" or "cut up those credit cards" or "start investing in your retirement now!". It's all motivational...which is certainly part of the equation.
But I see the repeated stumbling that we have with money, along with a whole host of other things, and I think, dude, this is just not working. I mean, it works for some of us: some of us are obviously getting some good money habits out of all of this. But we're probably not spending addicts, you know?
I feel your frustration brother! I have friends, one in particular who are not only blowing their money, but living an incredibly dangerous lifestyle. And there is not a fricken thing I can do. And hey, it's their life, however, when they talk about the huge party they went to where they were out till 3am, then drove 4 hours, I get pissed. Now you are endangering someone else's life.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the consequences of our actions often spill over onto others, and we have to draw the line there, obviously.
DeleteBut as for the lion's share of the destruction, that only hurts the actor, I think the healthiest thing is just to acknowledge that we can't really help.
And driving four hours after a party? Sheesh, just crash out and drive back the next day.
I think motivation and confidence are two big factors that determine whether we will take the steps to change or stay the same. If you don't have the motivation, you think"why would I bother saving money? It's too hard and I don't see the point". If you don't have the confidence, you think "I've always been bad with money and I always have been. It's too hard. I'll never get out of this mess.".
ReplyDeleteSo motivation would need to be there to change the behaviour, and gaining more knowledge and budgeting/investing skills over time would build confidence.
Easier said than done, but that's how I like too think of it.
I hear you. Motivation is often the key ingredient...for someone who's healthy and dealing with a typical problem. That's why you'll see so many similar stories regarding FIRE: someone was just trudging along in their typical job, found MMM or some other early retirement blogger, and bam, they're FI less than a decade later.
DeleteFor a lot of people, maybe most, their financial problems aren't necessarily unhealthy and what they need is motivation, maybe a little knowledge to guide them.
With addiction though, the common story is that people try and try hard, they just keep failing. Motivation doesn't seem to be the missing ingredient when you talk to people in rehab or 12 step programs. They need something above and beyond simple motivation. At least that's my take.
I think it was Dr. Phil who would always say when discussing his guests' addictions to bad behavior, "You've got to figure out what the payoff is." People at first would think he was ludicrous for suggesting that they actually benefited somehow from the bad behavior, but when they dug deeper they'd start to get it.
ReplyDeleteIt was this way when we started analyzing why we spent beyond our means. We eventually learned that the answer rested in the fact that it was a bandaid for self-esteem issues. Once we fixed the self-esteem issues, the overspending stopped.
I think the problem is this is a hard concept to want to face, dealing with deep-seeded emotional issues. We too have ppl in our lives who spend the living crap out of their money and then lay in despair when they can no longer handle the debt loads. After years of trying to help we simply dropped the subject. They're not ready to face up to the causes behind the overspending, so the spending, as you say, is not going to stop. :-(
Your friend is obviously dealing with LOTS of pain from some past experiences. Pray for him and love him. Give him truth as God leads you to. That's about all you can do. Stories like his happen all too often.
I wonder if part of the reason Dr. Phil asks the question is to shine light on the fact that, yes, the addict is getting some benefit out of the behavior. It's a net loss but it's hard to break the cycle if you don't understand the psychological salve the bad behavior is causing (like self-esteem, as you noted).
DeleteI, too, have that sort of stinking thinking going on in my life. At first, I spent to impress people. Now, I suspect that I save (and maybe blog) for a lot of the same reasons. Early retirement is, among many other good things, a way to show others you've achieved something really cool. It gives you status...and it doesn't hurt if you happen to blog about your successes either.
Point is, there's some of that same esteem crap mixed in with behavior that, generally, is very good.
And you're right: I need to just love on my friend and draw the line there. Not my problem to fix.
It's a conundrum for sure. You want to help your friends and family, but a lot of time they just aren't ready to accept that helping hand. I think a lot of it has to do with childhood environment. My brothers are also relatively frugal and they are working toward FI.
ReplyDeleteI guess you just have to let your friends know that you're available if they need help. No lending money, of course...
Thankfully, no money has exchanged hands yet. He asked me one year if I would lend him eighteen grand (yikes) to pay for that year's tax bill. Ultimately I did not (he took the money out of his 401k and paid some ridiculous taxes on it) but it was still the right thing for me to say no.
DeleteGood call on the childhood environment. I think that's the place a lot of our problems start (or are avoided).
Yikes, yeah, this is a really good point: "simply calling our deep seeded financial habits 'behaviors' is a bit misleading." On some level, I do think it helps to acknowledge habits as well, habits, because it gives you a sense of control. On the other hand, you make a really valid point about sweeping the problem under the rug. I mean, I think it very much depends on the situation, but this is why, I think, it's hard to teach financial literacy: a lot of the problems people have with money are representative of much larger issues.
ReplyDeleteI was really hesitant to hit publish on this post because it's not the sort of thing I'm supposed to write as a personal finance blogger. Our approach is pretty standard: teach good money habits, spread good information, and the readers' lives improve.
DeleteBut then in my personal life, I see the opposite happen. So few people I talk to about money make meaningful improvement. Some do...and these are probably the kinds of folks who, you know, read personal finance blogs and see their money situation improve dramatically. They get out of debt. They save for retirement.
I get the feeling there are two types of money people...and none of the advice we're giving works on the other half. Nothing I write is going to work for all the people who are, perhaps, actually dealing with a spending addiction. I get the feeling that we might have more serious problems in America when people have five and six figure credit card debt that they can't seem to shake.
I guess that's okay: the fact that I'm not in a position to help by writing some words down. I'm no psychologist and my role isn't to help people with addictions, anyway. I think the post is more for me: for helping me understand that I need to give up.
Anyway, a very long way of saying: thanks for reading.
I think we have all been here at some point or another. I always want to help people improve their situation, and that usually means their finances...but there's only so much you can do or say, and they have to take it from there. I definitely agree with your comment that some people are being proactive and learning, and those are the people we're speaking to, but the other half...just doesn't care enough (yet).
ReplyDeleteI'm guilty of being the "other person" though. There are times I gave friends dating or freelancing advice that I should have taken myself, but for whatever reason, couldn't (or didn't), until it got to a breaking point. Unfortunately, it seems like a lot of people need to hit rock bottom before they fully take stock of their situation. Although, it sounds like your friend is certainly near that with everything happening!
Interesting that you bring up the financial literacy argument. I'm usually all for knowledge, because I think it would have been beneficial to have after graduating HS (especially on student loans), but it can definitely fall on deaf (or uninterested) ears, as younger folks tend to care less about "adulting."
Overall, however, I do think habits play a part in it, but those are often attached to a mindset or perspective that needs to be shifted. So many elements at play! This is why finance and psychology are so interesting. =)
Erin! How have you been? So glad to see you comment again. Looked at your blog again and saw a new post, so welcome back to the blogroll!
DeleteI hear you on financial literacy, and the importance of habits. I think the problem I am wrestling with is that certain people will take it to heart and improve, but they're typically not the people who really need the help. And we have a bad habit of saying that "anyone can do it" sometimes, when we find we are able to succeed with a little hard work and knowledge.
I don't have any friends that spend their money quite so recklessly, but I do have friends who make the same mistakes over and over again. I wish I could change them, too. My biggest wish for them is just to have savings in the bank and the ability to retire one day. At this point, I'm not sure they'll ever be able to. We're only late 30s, but the clock is ticking , you know?
ReplyDeleteIt absolutely is ticking, especially since the longer you wait, the less compounding is going to be able to help you. Trying to save a million when you start in your 50's is really, really difficult due to the short runway.
DeleteThis is a really great post (I agree btw, magnolia is a great movie too). I'm pretty sure everyone can relate to the whole wanting to help a friend fix his or her ways for the better.. But you're right, there's absolutely nothing you can do. Unless someone asks you for your help (which shows they're at least willing to listen), they generally won't be receptive to anything you have to say. It sucks. Thanks for sharing this -- very pertinent.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the nice comment, Andre. I was hoping the readers would also have some experience with this: with a friend who needs some help but nothing seems to stick.
DeleteI took a look at your blog and noticed you wrote about that CGP Grey automation video as well! It's a scary topic but one I think isn't being discussed enough.
Definitely agree about the CGP Grey Automation video -- it needs to be discussed before it's too late. But like anything in the market, it's impossible to predict. Thanks for visiting :)
DeleteIt's going to be a wake up call for a lot of Americans, for sure. We're all somewhat at risk.
DeleteI suspect the changes might even benefit early retirees though: companies figure to turn out better profits as a result of this automation. The investor class will benefit, while everyone else suffers.