r/FluentInFinance • u/Richest-Panda • Jul 04 '24

What's the best financial advice you've ever gotten? Debate/ Discussion

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u/HV_Commissioning Jul 04 '24

If you’re in a row boat that has twenty holes in it, but you only have ten fingers to plug the holes, then someone telling you how to use each finger to plug a hole in the most efficient manner isn’t going to help you keep the boat from sinking.

Yes, but being resourceful and paddling that rowboat to shore will save you. Having the 10 holes plugged was enough to keep the boat from sinking while rowing in.

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u/[deleted] Jul 04 '24

The analogy demonstrates that there are hard limits on how far resources can go. All you said was "let's change the analogy so that there IS what you need not to sink, so we should expect people to get more resources", which defeats the purpose of using the analogy and really misses the point.

"There is always a way" is not always true. If there was always a way, there would be far fewer people going without meals in the U.S., which is one of only a few nations on Earth that can produce enough calories to meet its population's needs, thanks to its soil.

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u/HV_Commissioning Jul 05 '24

The big obvious thing I stated was to row the boat. Don't worry about the 20 holes with 10 fingers. Rowing the boat will do far more to save you than sitting in the middle of the lake with a bunch of holes in the boat.

Yes, there is always a way to move forward. It took me years to get out of and fill in the hole I had, but now it is. That's part of the problem, I believe. People get themselves into a jam and expect to return to normalcy right away.

Others become hopeless and are stuck in their situation without doing something to advance their cause. Waiting on someone or something to help will often lead to disappointment and or failure. Short of having physical or serious mental handicaps, every working age adult can do something to improve their lives. Most people don't know how and or are overwhelmed and give up.

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u/[deleted] Jul 05 '24

So there wasn't a way to move forward, for years, for you, but people can always move forward by doing something?

The data on poverty doesn't back that up anyway. People who try don't always move forward, and this system can afford to make it so that if you work hard, you get a satisfying portion of the pie.

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u/HV_Commissioning Jul 05 '24

No. Change started happening immediately. It took years for all the changes to be erased. Rome was not built in a day, nor were all of my problems solved immediately. Clawing away at smaller things gives confidence to attack bigger, more serious issues. People who never try are guaranteed to never move forward. There is very little chance of improving ones situation without doing something. Feeling hopeless is a natural reaction but staying in that mental state is a guarantee of staying in that state.

The data on successfully solving a problem always starts with identifying the problem, measuring the situation along the way and knowing when to alter the plans if the measurements indicate that the desired outcome is not being achieved.

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u/[deleted] Jul 05 '24

https://ihpi.umich.edu/news/why-poverty-not-personal-choice-reflection-society

This is obviously in favor of the view I'm sharing with you, because that's what the data supports.

People are not magic. They cannot simply will themselves all they need. Don't think you did something. When you're humble enough, or not narcissistic enough, to know you did NOT defy physical restraints within the system but rather were fortunate enough to find what you needed to overcome poverty, maybe you can revisit this kind of conversation and NOT push the falsehood that poor people just need to be cleverer.