As I was out for my once per week grocery shopping trip over the weekend, I was still surprised to see the shelves where antiseptic soaps should have been located were virtually bare. Signs indicated one per family, per day. Yet, as I turned the corner and went down the adjacent isle, there was plenty of regular bathroom bar soap stacked on the store shelves.
I laughed when I think to myself about all the news from the CDC saying just wash your hands folks, with simple soap and water.....just do it, for at least 20 seconds.
Today, I would like to speak with you about hand-soap and my e-mail box. These actually have a lot in common since the outbreak of the pandemic. People have decided to load up on the most precious of antiseptic soaps and my business e-mail box is overflowing with new and improved financial products being offered by venders and brokerage houses along with countless webinars, call-ins, business Zoom meetings and portfolio management web-ex’s, that I could be online from dawn to dusk learning about the newest and fanciful products available for these ‘uncertain’ times. It’s as if times have just become ‘uncertain’ for the very first time ever.
Times, in my opinion have always been uncertain. Life has never been a straight line. The past ten years, for many people, has been an unusual period of growth, opportunity and prosperity; or as I like to say, a straight line which has always seemed to focus upward.
Until recently, ‘knowledge’ has implied that good times were always ahead of us.
A lifetime of ‘wisdom’ though, has taught me to always be prepare for the uncertain.
Wisdom tells me the following:
Uncertainty requires having an emergency fund established before an emergency.
Uncertainty requires the proper management of debt, so it’s not a burden during lean times.
Uncertainty requires a disability and life insurance portfolio for the things that happen but we don’t want to verbalize, because it only happens to others, right?
Uncertainty requires documents like wills and trust, so my family understands that I won’t leave them in confusion when I die, not if I die.
Uncertainty requires that I begin preparation today and not wait until times get better; because when it does get better; and it will, we will forget that uncertainty ever exists.
Uncertainty doesn’t require special soap, but instead just the plain old soap and water; yet here’s the key – will you stop washing your hands after this pandemic? Some, if not many will stop.
Plan for life to get better. Plan for uncertainty and always wash your hands.
