Date with My Daughter: Part Deux!

Date with My Daughter: Part Deux!

I have to remind myself that any time I am short on blog material to simply take my oldest daughter to dinner and let her rip.  This most recent date night did not disappoint.  Let me set the scene… we were having a lovely dinner at one of my favorite little joints Sovano Bistro.  Wife was shuttling the other rugrats around, and so the opportunity to have my 14-year-old daughter all to myself presented itself.  Me, being the ultimate opportunist, boldly decided to ask this young lady to dinner, and to my pleasant surprise, she said yes (believe all 82 of her other options were busy). 

Fast forward, there we were having a lovely meal together at Sovano Bistro, my daughter Aviva, ordering a margarita pizza (yum), and me the duck confit (double yum).  So, there we were deep in convo, and the topic of her future came up again.  If you recall from part one of my daddy-daughter dates, she shared she wanted to be an orthodontist when she gets older, as they make really good money, clearly not because she has any affinity for straight teeth.  Back to our dinner… now the topic comes up again about her future and being successful; however, this time I took a different tack.

For starters, I reiterated my previous dinner conversation that it is more important to love what you do than do something simply for financial rewards, especially in medicine, which takes so many extra years of schooling (and daddy’s money).  However, then I decided to get even more philosophical (sure you can imagine how that went, talking to a 14-year-old young lady about philosophy, but I’m a glutton for punishment). 

Money Doesn’t Equal Happiness

Anyway, I went deep and told her that it is entirely ok to want to be successful in life, and I totally respect that.  She should work hard, find her passion, and if being comfortable in life is of importance then I see nothing wrong with that, as there are much worse goals to aspire to.  That said, I want her to listen to me very carefully.  I told her that what you have to realize along your journey is that it’s a dangerous thing to associate happiness with an external thing like money or wealth.  It is a fine thing to aspire to or work toward, but you must learn to decouple happiness with a physical thing, such as money.  You see, you can’t control everything in life, and the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray, as they say.  If you couple happiness with something you have no control over, you are destined to be unhappy.  What I’ve learned both personally and in my 2 decades of being a financial coach is that people get sick, job markets change, and fortunes can change on a dime.  If you associate happiness with any external physical thing, you are leaving yourself vulnerable to not being happy.

I went on to tell her that my challenge for her is to find happiness through something real, something bigger than money or success.  Tie your happiness to a higher calling and something she can control.  That, to me, is the key to living a long and truly happy life.  There are nice-to-haves, and then there is aligning your happiness with things you can control, like living a good life, faith, and surrounding yourself with meaningful people/relationships.  Those are the type of things not only you can control, but also don’t fade and bring true joy in people’s lives.

A few eye rolls later, I could tell either it really resonated with her, or she really was enjoying that margarita pizza.  My job is far from done with this one, but I’m hoping a few dozen more daddy-daughter date nights, and perhaps I’ll really break through.  For now, I’ll take any excuse to spend alone time with this special lady and listen to her view of the world. 

Thanks for listening as always, and stay wealthy, healthy, and happy.