Participating in your own rescue
Effort, grace, and the ovarian lottery
In JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, the hero Frodo finally reaches Mount Doom to destroy the One Ring. Once at the edge, he finds himself, in the end, unable to cast down the Ring. Seduced by its (false) promise of ultimate power and influence, he surrenders to temptation.
The Ring is ultimately destroyed by the intervention of another of the Ring’s victims, Gollum. As the two wrest for control of the Ring (symbolizing the temptations of the ego: pride, conceit, arrogance), Gollum falls into the molten lava, taking the Ring with him.
Tolkien coined the term “eucatastrophe,” when a seemingly unconquerable situation becomes an unforeseen victory, not from heroic effort, but through grace. The climactic scene at the Crack of Doom is eucatastrophe, evil vanquished not from Frodo’s will, but from an intervention beyond his power.
So it is with all of us. We believe in merit. Our actions (working hard, getting degrees, staying disciplined, saving money, investing) create our destiny.1 As a belief, it’s very useful, certainly more useful than believing the opposite. Financial Freedom 1 has a fair bit on cultivating this attitude:
“Exceptional people tend to have habits that help them achieve what they want. People who are struggling tend to have habits that undermine them.” - Bob Rotella (from FF1)
It’s in FF1 because it’s true: without good habits, you can’t have any control of your finances, or your life. And it’s not the whole picture; so many factors are involved in our financial liberation.
The ovarian lottery
There’s a Christian saying, usually attributed to Saint Francis:2 “But for the grace of God, I go.” It’s an expression of humility that “I didn’t deserve anything I received; without grace, none of the good things in life would have happened to me.”
Berkshire Hathaway chairman Warren Buffett, the most successful investor of all time, is worth around $123 billion. Yet he always credits winning the “ovarian lottery, being born male in America in the 20th century:
“You don’t know whether you’re going to be born black or white. You don’t know whether you’re going to be born male or female. You don’t know whether you’re going to be born infirm or able-bodied. You don’t know whether you’re going to be born in the United States or Afghanistan. [The ovarian lottery is] the most important event in which you’ll ever participate.
Just in my own case: I was born in 1930, I had two sisters that have every bit the intelligence that I had, have every bit the drive, but they didn’t have the same opportunities… [If] I had been a female, my life would have been entirely different.” — Warren Buffett
In modern language, he’s talking about privilege. Warren Buffett did a lot of things right to be worth $123 billion. He also acknowledges he didn’t deserve it. But for the grace of God he went.
And one of the reactions I get from teaching Financial Freedom is that financial independence is only for the privileged. But I believe that everyone who reads this newsletter likely has won enough in the ovarian lottery to achieve FF. Whether you are a woman or a person of color, or grew up in poverty, if you live in America, you currently live in the period of greatest personal freedom, intellectual resources, and material sufficiency in human history. The eucatastrophe has already happened.
Participating in grace
I’ve mentioned this in an earlier post: when I interviewed for the Franciscan spiritual director training program, Sister Mary Jo told me that there are only two things to know about Franciscan theology:
God loves you extravagantly.
God’s extravagant love manifests as your daily life.
In other words, grace.
Grace surrounds you and hides in plain sight in every moment you live. But how you respond to it matters. One of the beautiful things of the Lord of the Rings is that yes, Frodo failed the final test of casting the Ring into the fire. Had Gollum not been there, the Ring would have been recaptured by Sauron and the world would have succumbed to evil. Eucatastrophe. But before the final turn: Frodo himself spared Gollum earlier in the story. Samwise wanted to kill Gollum for an earlier treachery, but Frodo said no. Without Frodo’s decency, goodness, and yes forgiveness, grace would never had its final victory. Without Frodo getting the Ring to the mountain, the Ring would have never been able to be cast down.
Eucatastrophe needed Frodo just as much as Frodo needed eucatastrophe.
Grace surrounds you. Sister Mary Jo would say you’re drenched in it. But grace needs you to respond too. One can refuse grace in any number of ways.
I mean that for your personal finances, for your relationships with others, and the inner blossoming that awaits us in the second half of our lives: grace is there, waiting. Waiting for us to participate in our final victory.
Education and liberation
Each of you is perfect the way you are, and you can use a little improvement. — Shunryu Suzuki
Yes, I believe financial independence is available to most anyone in this audience. It takes your participation too: caring about your personal finances, your life energy, your future self. You have to be willing to learn to be liberated. I recently heard a great phrase from the rafting community. They tell it to everyone: from world class athletes to the physically disabled: when you get tossed over (and if you raft long enough, inevitably you will), you have to participate in your own rescue. No matter how strong or weak you are, you have to actively help in your own salvation.
A recent FF1 alumni was listening to one of her friends stressing about her deep money issues. Her friend makes good money, like $150,000 a year, but was divorced, was raising two children, and was really struggling with making ends meet. The alumni suggested to her friend that she consider taking FF1, which really antagonized her. “I need empathy, not solutions!” the woman said and has since broke off the friendship.
Don’t get me wrong: empathy is necessary. Being acknowledged and seen is the goal of another of my projects, The Appreciation Effect. But after empathy, then what? Is empathy enough? Or do you want something to change? And that’s a deceptively difficult question, because although most people want things to change, they don’t want to change themselves.
You have to participate in your own rescue. This is true in personal finance or any personal growth. It’s your own desire to go on the journey and change yourself, not ask for things to change, that allows for grace to make difference.
The potential to be free
Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan University, wrote an opinion in the NY Times about the promises of education, anyone with the willingness to learn has the potential for freedom and the ability to flourish into who they were meant to be:
For the 18th-century philosopher Immanuel Kant, the student in pursuit of enlightenment was someone in the process of leaving behind “self-imposed immaturity” and learning to think for oneself. Some people, however, were said to exist outside the realm of learning altogether — at least the kind of learning meant to allow one to stand on one’s own feet. With intellectual contortions fueled by racism and economic self-interest, many supposedly enlightened Enlightenment thinkers and writers argued that enslaved people could not be students, that they did not have the potential to be free. States passed laws forbidding the education of enslaved people. Learning became an act of resistance.
Slave owners did not want slaves to be educated, they deeply feared it. Education not only created the potential to be free but the desire for it too. After Nat Turner’s slave revolt in 1831, southern states made it illegal to teach slaves how to read or write. Any enslaved person and any person who taught them undertook a profound risk. It is a testament to humanity’s unquenchable desire for liberation. Once you know something different is possible, it becomes intolerable to accept subjugation.
“The alphabet is an abolitionist. If you would keep a people enslaved refuse to teach them to read.” — Harper’s Weekly
““Knowledge is the pathway from slavery to freedom.” — Frederick Douglass
While financial empowerment is so lower stakes, it’s similar. You can’t just complain about the problems of capitalism, and ask for empathy. You have to participate in your own salvation. Because financial freedom is not about having enough money to stop working. It’s bound up with a deeper liberation: an act of resistance to capitalism, a rejection of the endless working and superficial materialism that defines our lives. I know people who only made $36k a year and achieved financial independence. I also know people who make $450k a year and don’t have a penny at the end of the year. Living unconsciously, they’re fully caught in the work-spend cycle. They don’t want anything to be different, other than to have more money. But more money will never solve the issue because they’ll find a way to spend that too. Their problem is not about money, but a fundamental lack of direction in their life.3
The problem is not desire. It's that your desires are too small. - Sri Nisargadatta
That’s why I believe no matter how much or how little you make, financial independence is possible for everybody. Whether you make $36k a year or $450k a year, it’s the willingness to learn and a willingness to change that makes a difference. Trust me, I was that person making $36k a year. And the point of financial independence is not financial independence. The point of financial independence is the ability to give unconditional yes to the particulars of your dharma, not to prove yourself, but lose yourself into.
Eucatastrophe has already happened. Whether its money, relationships, or spiritual growth, grace is waiting. But for the grace of God, yes. But you still have to go.
Financial Freedom 1: October-November
Again, I’m teaching FF1 October and November. You’d be in a cohort of other students going through the course with you, with their own money experiences, money traumas, and dreams for what their lives could be.
Frodo doesn’t get to Mount Doom by himself. He’s first accompanied by a Fellowship, and then carried the final mile by his faithful friend Samwise. Other people are necessary. If the idea of financial independence calls to you, come join us.
The dark side of it is that when we don’t get something we wanted and worked for, something is wrong. If we don’t get what we want and worked for, we blame ourselves, or others.
Vicki Robin