Nothing New Under The Sun

On my school platform, we recently discussed January being a long month. This is something that I grew up knowing about due to a number of reasons. Many people dread January because they are financially stretched.

Many employers pay December salary earlier, most people’s expenses are higher in December and January due to travelling for the holidays, and food, gifts and entertainment costs. Also many events are held at year end which all add up.

The 31 days in January seem to take on an extended life of their own with people ticking down each day of the month until pay day when they can finally breath a sigh of relief.

Many times the pressures from December stretch into February or even March depending on the depth of the financial holes dug in December.

This reminds me of a story I was told, in Sunday school as a child, about a king of Egypt who had two dreams that he was puzzled about. A young prisoner, Joseph, interpreted the dreams as having the same meaning pointing to a period of lean years coming after bountiful years. The number of years was 7, so the nation had advance warning and had 7 bountiful years to prepare for 7 lean years.

It is said there is nothing new under the sun because what has been will be again and what has been done will be done again. Regardless of what we believe about the story, the lessons of planning and preparation are universal and we can all learn from the story.

The plan that the king of Egypt put in place after getting the warning and advice from Joseph saved many nations. His relevance to a wider world was dependent on him heeding the advance warning that he got.

Back to my story of the long month, how many years of warning do we get to prepare for the long month? How long is a rope? It depends on how old you are.

It also depends on how attentive you are to scenarios that are staring us in the face. No one needs a dream to be interpreted to understand that life is full of ups and downs.

If you have lived and worked for any length of time, you recognise the patterns in the years, you know the trends if you are a parent with school children with consequent bills to pay.

And over decades of living, you also know the trends of aging which takes everyone through the bountiful years of youth, vitality and energy to earn a decent income to retiring and sometimes having to downsize to match a lower ability to earn. Of course, there are some exceptions.

Not only do we have many long ‘Januarys’ over our lifetime, we also have a long twilight period which can span decades. Whether those decades will go fast or appear to be dragged out is dependent on what we do during the pre-twilight years.

The king of Egypt had the gift of two dreams to prepare him. We have generations of people – great grand parents, grand parents and parents and we see them or have seen them live out the lessons from the dream.

What more do we need to help us prepare not just for the long month but for the long years and decades ahead? This post is not to advice you to only spend what you can afford or give you reasons why you should be money smart because that is equivalent of teaching grannies to suck eggs.

December is a great time of reflection, re-purposing and re-planning so that is what I am asking us to do.

Think about your age, your earning capacity, investments and savings and consider what you are doing in your bountiful years to prepare for the unavoidable lean years that are ahead. Consider this post to be the gift of your ‘Warning Dream’ to make plans for a great year and a great life.

Merry Christmas in advance and thanks for reading my post.