Spending Your Savings

I hesitate to be whimsically anecdotal here, since it might signal that my more serious pieces are for light amusement rather than thoughtful consideration. But I’m hoping I’ve earned the rare indulgence. In fact, this posting itself is about spending hoarded capital.


A month ago I shared the bashful, mild, awkward, thin-sliced prayer I sent out to oblivion and parts unknown, and, weirdly, it actually seems to have worked.

There's been markedly less gratuitous friction and adversity in my life—including, I just realized, an endoscopy revealing a perfect stomach no doctor could have deemed possible. And per my intuition about how my prayer was received ("Oh, sure, ok; I thought you liked it like that!"), things have indeed been a little boring. But that's ok!

Human nature being what it is, I'm back for more after a mere four weeks, and it's embarrassingly puny.

For the past several years, every month or so I get surprisingly severe pain in one or the other nostril. There's inflammation, there's sneezing, and there's pain so intense that it's uncomfortable to touch my forehead or cheek. It always lasts about five days, just long enough to feel baked-in. Two or three day pain is a much easier thing, while a week is an ordeal.

I also have a sensitive tooth that screams from time to time. Like now, by coincidence. And I juggle a host of other issues. It's all manageable, and (if there weren't quite so many of them, and if I were ten years older) might even be chalked up to normal aging. And, once again, my stomach recovery was remarkable. Also: my calcified, arthritic shoulders, which are unanimously considered unmanageable without heavy pain pills or surgery, have been nicely managed without either. Not so much as a Tylenol for 18 months.

So it's all going well! But give a human being a responsive hotline to heaven, and he'll wind up using it for anything and everything. Hence yesterday's prayer:

"Uh, hi again. Me. Sorry. So you've been toning things down, which I appreciate greatly. Belated thanks for that. And I'll try not to pull your coat for every remaining malady, symptom, or karmic play-out. But since you intervened once, I'm wondering if I'm annoying you by popping in again just to say that if my nostril could possible hurt a little less, and for fewer days, I'd be grateful.

If anyone right this moment is requesting relief from, like, cancer pain, please stop listening and go attend to that. Don't ignore misery to work on my nostril. And if I'm using up freebies with these requests, then leave my damned nostril as-is.

But if this is something you can just kind of flick away, and the pain could be relieved without unintended consequences, or depriving anyone, or using up all the remaining freebies I might have stockpiled, I submit the request for your consideration. No hard feelings if not.

Also: I'm not sure how to thank you for reducing my oppression level. I'm already doing everything I can think of to be of service down here. Would a bit of fear feel nice for you? I'm told people fear you, so I can try to muster some of that [dramatic shuddering sound]. Or anything else that occurs to you, just send me a sign. Ok, enough. This is idiotic, ugh."

The nostril problem has never subsided in less than five days. But I woke up today with zero pain at day two. So I'm just sayin'....

It doesn't escape me that I addressed my ghost roomate with this same tone. I suppose this is my stupidly-shouting-into-oblivion-with-just-enough-self-awareness-to-feel-ridiculous voice. Honestly, aside from these three instances (my non-oppression prayer; my ghost roommate welcome statement, and my nostril plea) I never realized I even had this voice.

Anyhoo, this isn't about spooky stuff. It's about spending credit. Two other examples:

1. I once explained how advancing age brings less desire to spend. It's smart to loosen up and have some extra fun about a decade prior to that point. Like I said, "You will absolutely want clean clothes and healthy food and a roof over your head when you're 85, but there will be vastly less interest in gadgets and vacations and fine copper cookware."

I see loads of 60-somethings desperately clutching their savings just out of lifelong habit. They live tight-assed lives to preserve savings at all costs. Then, at 70, they wind up sitting gloomily in a chair, realizing they should have enjoyed while they still had the strength.

Draw-downs—when you really need them—are, after all, what you've been bankrolling for this whole time! Was I wasting my stored cred (I never really asked for anything before) on this stupid nostril thingee? It depends on your perspective. For me, after severe health issues, a bit of fingersnap pain relief feels as gleeful as a junket to Maui.

2. If you find yourself in a group discussion with intimidating people, and have the sense that it would be futile to force in your opinion, the trick is to wait, wait, and wait some more. Choose your battle and only chime in when you have something essential and fresh. Insert it quietly, calmly, confidently, and surgically, and you'll be surprised at the weight you carry by virtue of having stored up your capital.