I can still remember it to this day.  I was in my tenth grade English class which was taught by a guy named Mr. Corchran.  Now Mr. Corchran was not your run-of-the-mill, stuffy high school teacher.  Certainly nothing like the nerdy Mr. Lorensax (aka Ben Stein) in the movie Ferris Bueller’s day off. 

Instead, the best way I can describe Mr. Corchran is as a middle-aged, guitar-playing, hippy that enjoyed pop culture, marijuana and Chinese philosophy. 

And it was on that particular day during tenth grade English that Mr. Corchran introduced me, and the rest of the class, to one of the many ornate things he taught us that year… which was the concept of the Yin Yang. 

I am not sure why I can remember that first introduction to this very day.  But something about it stuck with me for all these years.

As memorable as the introduction was, at the time, the Yin Yang really had no significance to me.  Being relatively young, I don’t think I had lived enough to give it any context.  Really the Yin Yang was just a cool looking symbol that I could doodle on my notebook during my third period trigonometry class.  And given that it came from ancient Chinese philosophy, it had an aura of sophistication and intrigue that made it cool.  And the chicks in my class seemed to really dig it…

Now you may be familiar with it, but in case not, the Yin Yang, according to Wikipedia is “a concept of dualism, describing how seemingly opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another.”

A good example is day and night.  You cannot have the concept of the day, without it eventually passing to become night.  Same thing with Good and Evil.  The existence of one is dependent on the existence of the other.  Good can only be relative to something “not good” or bad.

And maybe that does not mean much to you.  It certainly did not mean much to me back when I was 16 years old.  In fact, it wasn’t until I was older and had more experiences that the significance of the Yin Yang really started to have meaning for me.  I really needed to experience more of life’s successes and failures.  I needed to witness more positive situations and negative ones.  I needed to truly experience good times and bad.  Once I had lived through enough of the usual ups and downs of life, then I was finally able to appreciate what the Yin Yang truly represented and how it was really a symbol for how to live.

So what does all this have to do with being successful and living a “rich” life?

What I have found is that the Yin Yang provides a framework from which to view overall life, including your financial life.  What I mean by that is it is human nature to want to avoid pain, failure, work, stress, loss and similar negative emotions.  In fact, most of us spend our lives seeking ways to avoid these negative experiences. 

We all have the tendency to shy away from new things that we might fail at.  Like meeting new people, or starting a new career.  We seek out ways to reduce the amount of work we have to do.  Like buying a riding lawn mowers or hiring someone to cut or style our hair.  Ultimately we look to make our lives as cushy and stress free as possible.  It is simply human nature.

But one of the most important things I have learned in life is that any negative events in life give rise to things that are better.  We cannot truly have a good life, or enjoy a “rich” financial situation without experiencing the contrast to those things.  Such as the sacrifices and the failures. 

Our lives, especially our financial lives, are all about balance.  We need to have both the good times and bad.  If our lives were only filled with easy, enjoyable tasks and experiences, we would not appreciate them.  And life would be incredibly dull.  And we would not appreciate what we have.

Take dessert as a simple example.  Both of my two young daughters, Brooke and Kate love dessert.  I think they must have inherited that love from their dad who has the biggest sweet tooth in the family.  And so we like to partake in a sugary treat now and again.  The problem is that our dessert habit has gotten out of control.  This situation started off small.  We used to have dessert just Friday and Saturday night, at the end of a long week.  But we enjoyed those dessert nights so much, that we decided to add a third night as well, Monday.  After all, Mondays are pretty drab days that need some dessert…. am I right?

But unfortunately it grew from there.  Any time one of our girls got a good grade, or learned a new skill in their gymnastics class, it called for a celebration of dessert.  Eventually, dessert became… expected.  Every night was worth celebrating.  And we hardly appreciated it any more.  We ended arguing about what to have and who got the biggest portion (and that was just me and the wife J).  We would even complain about repeating the same type of dessert too frequently.  Brownies again?  We just had that two nights ago!!!

The point is that dessert can be an enjoyable and decedent part of life.  But it must be done in moderation.  If it is not contrasted with no dessert, then it becomes ordinary and not very exciting.  So eventually we figured out that we needed a new rule in our house.  Dessert is only twice a week… period.  And it is a fun family activity that we do together.  This makes it special, and scarce enough that we always appreciate it.

I think of work, and relaxation, in the same way.  Most people view their chores around the house as nuisances.  Something that is dreaded and avoided if possible.  “Do we really need to make our bed?”  Or they procrastinate and put off their chores until some other time.  “The lawn is not that long.  I think it can wait another week.”  Or perhaps they even look to outsource their chores to someone else.  “There is a neighborhood kid that we can pay to walk the dog, call him.” 

So why do we do this? 

Because we value our time to relax.  We appreciate getting to do what we want to do.  Perhaps we have hobbies like reading or listening to music.  Or we just appreciate doing nothing at all.  Relaxation, or doing the things you want, is wonderful. 

But do you see the problem here?  If some relaxation is good, then nothing but relaxation is even better, right?  Let’s say that you are successful getting rid of all your chores.  You outsource cleaning the gutters.  Get someone else to walk the dog.  Hire a cleaning lady to make the beds.  That would surely free you up to do… well whatever you want, including nothing.  And that would be wonderful.  At least…. for a while.

However, if you are like most people, doing only things you enjoy would get old after a while.  You would enjoy sitting around and reading.  But how many hours of reading before your eye hurt?  Or you could listen to music, or sleep or play video games or whatever else that tickles your fancy.

But I am willing to bet that whatever thing you love to do with your free time, would get old if you had nothing to do but that thing.  In fact, my guess is that you appreciate that thing because it is a limited resource in your life.  In other words, you value your free time… your relaxation because you have earned it by doing the things you have to do.  Those unpleasant tasks that you try to avoid in the first place.  Like chores, or work, or exercise or anything else you view as a chore.

So what may not be obvious, is that you need those unpleasant experiences.  Those annoyances of life that we try to avoid.  They provide the contrast to our enjoyment.  And without them, life becomes too easy, and perhaps a bit boring.

For me, I try to structure each day with a balance between the things that I consider work and those that I consider pleasure.  It is a great way to motivate myself.  I try to complete a handful of things that I consider “productive” or necessary but unpleasant tasks.  And in exchange, I get to goof off by doing something gluttonous.  As an example, I try to work out most days of the week.  Somedays it may be a pretty strenuous work out like running 3-4 miles.  Other days it can be some simple stretching.  But I need to do something just about every day.  If I don’t, I feel guilty.  And I don’t feel like I deserve any goofing off.

But once I do complete a good, productive workout.  I can indulge guilt free.  Perhaps I will sit lazily on the couch and watch some TV.  Perhaps I will take a long hot shower.  Or perhaps I will partake in a sugary treat.  It is really my choice.  But the point is that I need to EARN the right to slack off.  Only by working hard, sacrificing, or generally being productive in some way, do I permit myself a reward. 

And trust me when I tell you that the reward tastes much sweeter when it is earned.  Kicking back on the couch to watch an episode of Game of Thrones is so much better when it is preempted by fixing the broken facet that your wife has been complaining about all week.  Eating your favorite blizzard flavor from Dairy Queen is so much more satisfying after doing 100 push-ups.  And having a glass of your favorite red wine at the end of long day of cleaning out the garage gives you a much better high.

I have found the opposite to be true as well.  In other words, the positive things in life are nowhere near as enjoyable when they are not contrasted with the negatives.  Take, for example, the situation of sitting around the house and doing nothing.  If you did that day in and day out, how much enjoyment would you get out of it?  Maybe the first couple days of it would be great.  Watching the Price is Right or the Young and the Restless might be interesting for a few episodes.  But it would get old pretty quick.

Soon, with no challenges in your day, each day looks like all the rest.  And life becomes very boring and unsatisfying.  You would likely lose your self-esteem and drive.  Soon you just become lazy, depressed and ornery.  Mr. Money Mustache is a famous personal finance blogger.  He describes this situation where someone seeks only the easiest path in life.  A person who simply wants to lay in bed all day doing nothing.  This person can become so lazy over time that he seeks out a catheter so that he does not even need to get up to relieve himself. 

This situation would be complete hell.  I cannot think of anything worse than having no purpose in life or challenges to overcome.  Even the smallest of challenges like getting out of bed to relieve yourself.  Living like that would feel like not even living at all.

And that brings me to my real point in all of this.  Which is the purpose of life.  I realize that sounds a bit dramatic, but if you have read any of my other posts, you know that is exactly how I am…. A bit over the top.  But I mean it.  Life is about overcoming challenges.  It is about meeting, and beating adversity.  It is about failing, and failing some more, only to finally succeed.  And success is only meaningful if it is preceded by failure.

Consider the following.  Which of these situations would you prefer?  Being born in a lower middle class family where money was scarce, and you had to grind and bust your ass over many years to achieve any level of financial success.  Or would you like to be born into rich family where you are given everything you could possibly want from a very young age?

I think if you asked that question to 100 people, at least half of them would pick the rich family.  Which is a surprisingly stupid choice.  These people may live a nice cushy life, but they would not appreciate it.  Since they never experienced how life can be without money, they would never understand the contrast to their good fortune.  So it would feel mundane, and even worse, deserved.  We all know or have seen those rich kids whose parents spoil them.  They never learned any discipline, or sacrifice.  These kids tend to be the ones who act out in school, or end up abusing drugs.  They are artificially trying to create some balance in their lives.

So for me, I would pick the poor family every day of the week and twice on Sunday.  It’s not even a close. 

This concept of maintaining balance in one’s life is so simple, but such an important lesson.  And it is particularly important in our financial lives.  I made a conscience decision in my early adult hood that I would work hard now, so that I could enjoy the fruits of those labors later.  It is the classic Yin Yang tradeoff.  I would live a disciplined life.  Save as much money as I could.  Learn to live with less leisure and ease in my financial life.  I would strengthen my financial “muscles”, and in doing so, I would be financially free at a young age and be able to “goof off”, at least from a financial standpoint, for the rest of my life.

Only one rather unexpected outcome occurred along the way.  I changed.  I had started with the goal of being financially free.  And once I obtained that goal, I could ease the habits and discipline that got me there.  But now that I am here, I realized something important and unexpected.  That it was not the goal, or the pleasure that I was really after.  It was the journey to get there.  It was the forming and living the disciplined life that really made me happy.

So no matter how much money, fun, leisure or whatever that I ultimately find.  Living a balanced life will always be the real goal.  I don’t seek to avoid challenges and obstacles.  But rather seek them out, and appreciate them for making life worth living.