The Financial Philosopher

The Story of Chapman's 'Giving Tree'

This story begins 10 years ago when my wife and I were looking at a house that would become our home. The real estate agent was on vacation so the owners showed us the house. We knew we liked it upon entering but our decision to buy it was sealed by what we saw when we stepped out onto a second level porch with a view of the yard and vacant lot next to it.

The owner pointed out two large trees, one of which was a beautiful, mature Bradford Pear tree. The branches of this kind of tree form a bell shape, which makes for wonderful shade -- an important feature for the hot and humid southern coastal Summers. Also, the leaves go through a brilliant metamorphasis throughout the year, from white flowers in Spring to green leaves in the Summer, to a bright red in Autumn, to leaves on the ground in Winter for our children to play in.

After taking in the scenery from the porch, my wife noticed a cat wandering through the yard and immediately inquired about it. The owner said, "That's Chapman. She is our cat but we can't take her with us. Our neighbor said she would feed her after we leave." My wife turned to me and I immediately recognized the look, which said three things without words: "This person is a fool to abandon such a beautiful creature; we're buying this house; and Chapman will be our cat." All three things were realized.

For 9 years we enjoyed that home, during which time the tree grew even bigger and more beautiful as did our family and our love for Chapman the cat. For a few years, we allowed her to freely go outdoors, where she used the Bradford Pear tree's shade to relax and its trunk to sharpen her claws. When she grew older, we convinced her that she belonged inside the house with us.

Around the time we decided to move from that home to our current one, we noticed construction workers preparing the vacant lot for building. Our longtime suspicion and fear was now realized -- the tree was positioned in such a way that it would need to be removed (destroyed) to make room for a new home to be built on the vacant lot.

Saddened by our discovery, we walked under and around the Bradford Pear to see if there was any way that the home could be built without taking down that tree. The property lines drawn made it appear impossible not to remove the tree. But suddenly and amazingly we discovered a small sprout coming out of the ground nearby. It was a baby tree growing from the root of the Bradford Pear! My two young boys and I carefully dug around the tiny sprout, cut the mother tree's root on each side of the baby tree, and placed it in a pot. The next day, the construction workers tore down the mother Bradford Pear.

Not long after that sad day, we put our home on the market, sold it, and moved to Hilton Head Island with our family, which of course included Chapman, our other cats, our dog... and the baby Bradford Pear.

We who choose to surround ourselves with lives even more temporary than our own, live within a fragile circle, easily and often breached.  Unable to accept its awful gaps, we still would live no other way. ~ Irving Townsend

One week ago, as of this writing, our dear old cat and treasured family member, Chapman, died. Fortunately my wife and I were with Chapman, comforting her, the moment she took her last breath. Meanwhile, out in the yard of our new home was our young Bradford Pear, which had outgrown its pot.

It must have been less than a few minutes after Chapman died we decided that she should be buried that day -- on the same day the young tree would find its new home in the earth... directly above Chapman. 

The photograph of the young Bradford Pear (right) was taken the day it was placed into the ground, along with our beloved cat.

The mother Bradford Pear tree and Chapman both gave us many years of life and love that can continue growing for many more years with the young tree, which will no doubt grow just as big and beautiful as her mother, thanks in part to Chapman's nourishing body laying in the earth just beneath the tree.

To end this story, I should mention one of our family's favorite books, The Giving Tree, by Shel Silverstein. It's a story of a tree that loves a boy who used the tree as shade, a place to play, to eat the tree's apples, and eventually to use as wood to build a home when the boy becomes a man. After he loses his livelihood and family to his selfish ways, he returns as an old man to the Giving Tree, which happily offers all that it has remaining to give, a stump, for the old man to sit and be comfortable. The tree had never stopped giving, never expecting anything in return.

Our story is a bit different. Our young tree will undoubtedly give to us like its mother did but we will also give back to it, as will Chapman.

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Related:

Ode to a Friend: On Life, Death and Perspective

To Embrace Death is to Embrace Life

Where I've Been (and What I've Learned) in the Past 2 Months

"I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them." ~ Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Hopefully you have been too busy enjoying your Summer to notice I haven't published a blog post here at TFP in more than two months, which is the longest stretch of time without creative writing in all of my 7 years of blogging. I plan to return to a more robust publishing schedule by later this month.

The past two months actually begins two years ago when my wife and I decided to relocate our family and my investment advisory firm to Hilton Head Island, SC. Fortunately I'm self-employed and Hilton Head is only 100 miles from our previous home in the Charleston, SC area. Additionally, I have clients all over the US and my "local" clients still receive the same level of service as before the move. Therefore the relocation was enabled by these circumstances. But this in no way means the transition was easy!

For a quick summary, my wife and I prepared our house to sell in 2011, sold our house ourselves (no offense to my Realtor friends) and moved into a rental on the island almost exactly one year ago. To make a long story less long, we have lived in four houses in the past 12 months. That in itself explains a bit of preoccupation with things other than creative writing, to say the least!

Now back to where I've been for two months: I've been renovating our new home. Our budget did not quite cover all that we wanted to do to make this house a "dream home" so we needed to do a large amount of the renovation ourselves.  This includes (but is not limited to) ripping out flooring, tearing down walls, painting, caulking, drilling, sweating, bruising, bleeding, making mistakes, swearing, getting frustrated and getting excited. I only semi-joke when I say that a new form of torture for terrorists should be to make them renovate a home!

Now for some of what I've learned:

• Routine is not mindless; it's brainless, which is good: I've said many times how routine can be negative because of its mindless aspect. However, I now retract that teaching. Routine is more brain than mind; it is a function of the brain automating an activity, which actually allows the mind more freedom to think creatively. For example, if you are removed from a familiar environment, one where you can find everything you need, such as a spoon, a light switch, a screwdriver, or your underwear, even if the room is pitch dark, this removal disallows the ease and comfort that keeps the mind free of stress. In different words, the brain finds patterns, creates maps, and automates activities, which makes for a ripe environment for the mind to grow; the mind is happy when the brain is not being used up, when it is not on auto-pilot, so to speak. Over the past two months, my brain has been completely "used up", which has disabled my mind from its most basic of functions. In summary, routine can help the mind grow because the brain is not in its way. Therefore I look forward to more routine soon!


• Patience is among the greatest of virtues: I already knew this but it is strongly confirmed now. Trying to accomplish a large goal in a short period of time increases the odds of failure. Try painting a room (and making it look good) in less than one hour. To put it simply, it doesn't work! This is like trying to fry an egg on high heat in less than one minute rather than at medium for three minutes. You don't get a good result but you could have accomplished something great if you only waited a little longer. The carpenter's rule, "measure twice, cut once," applies here a well. I'll put it this way: By the time the project was well under way, I was measuring two or three times before cutting!


• Perfection is the enemy of the good: This is similar to my point on patience. As Plato taught, ideas can be perfect but the world is not perfect. The imagination can and must be used to accomplish something wonderful; however, having the expectation of matching what has been imagined is not wise. Our philosophy in this process was "strive for perfection but accept excellence." Our work is not perfect but we have achieved excellence (and saved a significant amount of money doing things ourselves)! By the way, keeping expectations reasonable allowed for many positive surprises and outstanding discoveries along the way. One cannot be surprised if expectation is there.

In total, and upon reflection, our experience has been quite positive and I now look forward to being back in full force, making more observations and making some sense of the contradictions of mankind, here at TFP by month's end.  I also dare venture to say that I will finish my book project before the end of the year!

Enjoy the remainder of your Summer...

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Related: No Man Is An Island (But He Can Live On One)

No Man Is An Island (But He Can Live On One)

"Have you ever looked back and thought, 'If I had done this or that five years ago I'd be better off now?' But the opportunity was there; why didn't you see it? Are you sure that you are not closing your eyes at this moment to one which you will see later in retrospect?" ~ Dorothea Brande

My family and I just moved to Hilton Head Island, SC.  The featured image is a private beach--our favorite place in the world, Dolphin Head--inside the gated community where we live. Why move to Hilton Head?

First, I'll tell you that we did not move for financial or career reasons.  That would be contrary to the themes of this blog (and the philosophies that lead my family's collective life direction)!  We moved to Hilton Head because it's where we want to live and raise our children. 

From a philosophical perspective, we try to live our lives in such a way that the future and the present do not have competing interests and quality of life is much higher on our priority list than financial, material or social pursuits.

"Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy." ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

This move has also prompted me to share with readers some truth and myth about happiness and its pursuit.  My readers know that philosophers have been teaching for centuries that happiness is a choice; it is enabled by the conscious effort to learn new perspectives, which eventually become habit, and to transform dreams into reality. 

In the modern book, The Happiness Advantage, author Shawn Achor reveals scientific studies that illustrate what philosophers have intuitively known for 2500 years: 10% of happiness derives from environment and 90% derives from conscious choice; most happy people are happy because they have chosen to be happy.  This speaks indirectly to the idea of the law of attraction: You get what you think about; your thoughts determine your experience.

In fact, financial and career goals are not often the sources of happiness, as most people think; it is the opposite: Happiness leads to success.  As I have said in the past, happiness cannot be manufactured by will but it can be enabled through mindful and healthy perspectives on life.  Therefore, and in different words, the happy person purposely and easily finds contentment with life; they are consciously thankful every day; and if their path leads to something that causes suffering, they either change course or embrace the suffering if change is not possible or productive.

"I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them." ~ Henry David Thoreau, Walden

As I drove over the bridge to Hilton Head Island, with a moving truck and family following closely behind, one of many thoughts that entered my mind was Henry David Thoreau's "castle in the air" metaphor:  Life perspective is "top-down," where the life one desires is lived first and the items beneath it follow as an incidental result of one's contentment and authenticity; the journey is given precedence to the destination; success follows happiness.

However the conventional business and personal finance approach is "bottom-up," where the bottom line desired is planned first and the items above it are planned second; the "bottom line" is the goal; the destination dictates the journey; happiness is pursued but pushed into the future (and sometimes never reached).

I will admit that the castles-in-the-air approach can be risky in financial terms but which is more risky--decreasing one's financial health or decreasing one's mental, spiritual and physical health? 

"Challenging the meaning of life is the truest expression of the state of being human." ~ Viktor Frankl

This is not a promotion of whimsical career moves or of changes in physical location.  However, it is an urging to reach deeper inside and ask yourself existential questions for the purpose of living a life of meaning and self-actualization:  Why do I live?  What is my purpose?  What if I had 5 years to live?  What do I want people to say about me at my funeral?

It's time to get busy livin' or to get busy dyin'!

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Related:

Thoughts on the Law of Attraction

Get Busy Livin' or Get Busy Dyin'

Questions for You

Kent Thune, CFP is an investment advisor located on Hilton Head Island, SC.  His firm, Atlantic Capital Investments, LLC serves clients throughout the United States.