Man, It Would be Great to be 13 Right Now

If I had the power, I would make myself thirteen right now.  I know, awkward year with constant zits and trying to fit in as a freshman where we fear the big seniors getting ready to serve us french fries next year, but it would totally be worth it!

To get a somewhat lousy part of the way, let’s talk about parents.  We can assume they are early 40s, which means they are fearing layoffs, or their privately owned business may not be getting the marks it did only three years back.  This means not as many new clothes, maybe a small allowance cut, more leftovers for dinner the next day, and frightfully no help when it is time to purchase your first car in a few years.  Tough!  That may seem like the world now, but in the long run that 1986 Tercel will be just as gone as that 2007 Civic.  What you would get out of having to rough it a bit more than preferred during those years is knowledge.  You will know what a dollar is worth, and how big of a bitch it could be to earn it.  As your parents struggle, you will see what you don’t want to happen to you when that time occurs again.  To have one dollar and some intelligence beats the hell out of having thousands and no idea what to do with it.  You’ll become resourceful, wiser, and a better person from this experience.

In ten years, when you are finishing up your Bachelor degree in whateverthehell study, the job market will be more open.  I may be wrong of course, but a decade would be one hell of a depression that I find unfeasible.  The people that are hanging on to their jobs at the age of 65 right now will most certainly have left the workplace by then, which makes your timing just gravy.  Houses will be affordable and plentiful, investments won’t come with a broker ready to buy a 6 foot rope, and the opportunities to succeed will be wide open. 

40 years after that, when it comes time to retire, you will have seen what this market can do, and invest wiser than your parents have.  If social security is still around, which it probably will be, you won’t even need it, right?  I’d like to think that each generation is getting smarter than the previous, unless Darwin was wrong.  When we hit another recession between those year, because you know we will, you will be better prepared.  Since you had to be frugal during your teen years, you will have learned to live within your means as an adult.  

So my message to all you youngins out there, be wise.  Be wiser than your parents, be wiser than me, and be wiser than you are right now.  When you are going to retire, you will be in better shape than anyone else, and then you can really wnjoy your life.  However, if you think we are going to blow ourselves up armageddon style before that, then live up your life to the maximum now.  Date the cheerleader, drive way over the speed limit, and do lots of drugs.