I'm pretty lucky in the grand scheme of things, but I'm going to share some pretty major issues that I'm dealing with (lots of navel-gazing ahead). Let's get to it.
1. I work at a wealth management firm, but I would never actually recommend for anyone to put their money with us.
It's not like we're straight-up stealing from these people, a lot of them are probably better off working with us than on their own, but still, it bothers me that I could take five minutes to set them up at Vanguard/one of the robo's and they'd be better off than engaging with us. To me, investment management should be a commodity service, at least for the vast majority of people. No one should be paying the 1% fee to have their assets managed, yet we continue to get new clients (even a couple people that have the job title of "portfolio manager", seriously). This industry is going to change with time, but RIGHT NOW the way it works is kind of eating me up. I spend 60+ hours a week at this place, and for what?
We play up the "planning" angle, and there probably is something to having a person to talk to about your finances, but I really cannot get past the cost. I know not everyone thinks like me, but there is just no way I would ever agree to these terms- that's a problem.
I don't even know why I care because most of our clients have plenty of money, so the fee really doesn't effect their lives in any way- if they want to pay it, who am I to tell them not to. I guess the whole thing just seems wasteful, and I'd rather not be a part of it.
I'm not quitting tomorrow because I'm young, new, and lack credibility/network/clear plan to fall back on, but I do know it is going to happen eventually.
Ok, next topic.
2. One of the most important things to me is my relationships with other people, yet I have no one that I'd feel comfortable sharing the contents of this message with.
It starts with religion- using the word heretic in the subject line wasn't an accident. I'm not looking to start a debate/flame-war, but I'm of the viewpoint that religion is bunk. The problem is that my family disagrees. The even bigger problem is that they don't know that I don't believe, and I don't ever want to tell them. I should tell them, but I don't want to.... I'm pretty much in the religion closet, and I'm not sure how I'm going to navigate out, if ever.
This shouldn't be as big of a deal as I'm making it, but it just is! It might not come up directly in conversation all that much, but when people's number one thing in their life (like it is with my family) is blindly believing/following some deity, I cannot relate to them on that level. Yeah, I can just talk about something else, but I cannot ignore this very important question/topic.
I know there are like 7 billion people on this planet, and my family is only 6 of them, so the answer is probably just to get out more, meet different people. I'll focus on doing that.
We're making progress, LAST TOPIC!
3. What are my priorities (how do I spend my time and my money)?
I'm running out of juice so I'll keep this quick. Like most people here, I save money now, so I have more options/freedom in the future.
The bigger question I think about is what does that future look like. More specifically, how much to focus on myself and doing things I enjoy vs. trying to actually help people- trying to "make the world a better place."
This topic shouldn't be buried at the end of this post, but has anyone ever heard of
http://www.effectivealtruism.org/? The short version is that they apply reason and evidence to try and make the biggest difference that they can. I'm not going to get into it in any depth, but to me, their message resonates. I admire the people who are truly sacrificing because they want to help.
As for me, I know this is the admirable way to go, but I'm still working on actually getting to the point where I take action. I think I care about my pile of money too much...
I'll end it there- this has been long enough. Kind of therapeutic for me. Thanks for reading.