Retirement lessons from ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’

I totally enjoyed the movie X-Men: Days of Future Past.

Ever since the early ’90s (Friday nights on a local channel), I was amazed by the characters and their powers, battling evil forces or robots programmed to wipe out the mutant race.

But X-Men: Days of Future Past is unique as one character travelled back in time, believing that the key to saving the future and countless lives – including their race – is by changing a single, pivotal event in their past. The past which is the present of their younger selves. And they eventually succeeded.

Imagine: one single event can change an entire future. But how much of it would be changed? Or overhaul a course of action? How much can it change the future?

I am sure that the answer would be a definitive: A LOT. This would be an understatement, and it cannot be truer. For a lot of people I talk with – retirees and those retirees-to-be, after I have shown them the power of compounding and investing early in life, wished that they should have done it earlier.

They wish they could have changed something in their lives – that they could have saved earlier, invested earlier, prepared earlier.

And now that they are already a few steps into retirement, with limited sources of income and a limited retirement fund, they feel unsure about their future.

“Had I known …” is their buzz phrase.

Surreal, but it is like the movie: change their past so they can alter their future.

Past and Future Selves

And like also in X-Men: Days of Future Past, we too, have our own 2 selves: the Present and Future Selves.

The Present Self lives for the day. Its motto is carpe diem. It wants instant gratification. The Present Self wants indulgence, pampering – the best in life. The Present Self works hard to travel, to eat, to party, and to have the finer things in life. The Present Self only looks a few years ahead – for the future is still far, far away – and would just give it a thought when all present cravings and satisfactions are filled. Carpe diem. Why worry now about the future?

The Future Self, on the other hand, is still far away: it is decades ahead. It is like a hovering mirage over the horizon: unnoticeable, silent, an abstraction. Yet it is ever bearing as it only waits for the Present Self to come toward it, however prepared or unprepared.

But unlike the latter, it is ever more fragile: it needs constant medical attention, physical care, and has to be rushed to the hospital every so often. The Future Self lives on pension, a decreasing retirement fund, and a bit of social security. It is old and grows more susceptible by the day.

But does not our Future Self deserves comfort too?

Does not it also deserve to enjoy the best that retirement life has to offer?

Does not it deserve to have the finer things in life?

Yes, our Future Self does.

And it does not need to travel back in time to change the future.

We only have to start preparing for it – NOW. – Rappler.com

 

 

 

 

Rienzie P. Biolena is registered financial planner of RFP Philippines, a professional group of financial planners in the country. To learn more about RFP, you may email info@rfp.ph.

Rienzie is also an accredited investment fiduciary of Pennsylvania-based fi360 and an international member of the Financial Planning Association, the largest association of financial planners in the US. You may reach Rienzie at rienzie.biolena@gmail.com, his Facebook account or Twitter @rbiolena.