The Risk of Waiting
A few weeks ago I was listening to a podcast discussing health optimization.
The conversation covered everything you would expect: sleep tracking, glucose monitoring, recovery scores, supplements, cold plunges, and the growing list of technologies designed to help us live longer, healthier lives.
Much of it was fascinating. Some of it was probably useful. A small portion of it sounded exhausting.
As I listened, however, I found myself thinking less about health and more about something I encounter regularly in my work with clients.
Risk.
More specifically, our growing tendency to treat risk as a problem that can be eliminated rather than a reality that must be managed.
It’s understandable. Nobody wants to make a bad decision. Whether we’re talking about our health, finances, careers, or families, most people are simply trying to avoid unnecessary mistakes.
The challenge is that life rarely presents us with a risk-free option. More often, it presents us with competing risks and asks us to decide which one we’re willing to accept.
After years of helping people navigate retirement and major life transitions, I’ve become convinced that many of us spend too much time worrying about the risks we can see and not enough time thinking about the risks we can’t.
The Risks We Don’t See
One of the advantages of this profession is that you get a front-row seat to how people make decisions.
The details change from family to family, but the underlying concerns are remarkably consistent.
A client worries about retiring because the market could decline.
Someone delays investing because they’re concerned about volatility.
A business owner hesitates to make a change because the current path feels safer than the unknown.
A family postpones a trip they’ve talked about for years because the timing doesn’t feel quite right.
The specifics are different, but the question underneath is almost always the same:
“What if this goes wrong?”
It’s a smart question.
The problem is that most people stop there.
What I’ve found is that we spend an enormous amount of energy evaluating the risks of taking action while giving very little thought to the risks of doing nothing.
Years ago, I worked with a client who still comes to mind from time to time. Financially, he was ready to retire. Not almost ready. Not “a few more years and we’ll get there.” Ready.
His investments were in good shape. His income plan worked. His spending was reasonable. His wife was looking forward to the next chapter of their lives together. If you had handed his situation to ten different advisors, I suspect all ten would have reached the same conclusion.
Yet year after year, he continued working.
Every annual review brought a new reason. There was an upcoming bonus he didn’t want to miss. A project he wanted to finish. Concerns about the economy. A desire for just a little more cushion.
To be fair, every one of those reasons was understandable.
What struck me was that we spent so much time discussing the risks of retirement that we rarely discussed the risks of postponing it.
What was another year of income worth compared to another year of health?
What experiences were being delayed?
What opportunities were being pushed into the future?
What assumptions were being made about time that none of us could actually guarantee?
Those questions are harder because they don’t fit neatly into a spreadsheet.
A retirement projection can estimate future income. It can model spending. It can stress-test a portfolio.
It cannot tell you how many healthy years remain.
It cannot tell you whether your priorities will change.
It cannot tell you whether the trip you’ve been postponing will still be possible five years from now.
Those risks exist too. They simply don’t show up on a statement.
Money Is Really About Time
Perhaps that’s why this topic has been on my mind lately.
Maybe it’s because I’m approaching 40.
Maybe it’s because my children seem to age at a rate that feels completely unreasonable.
One minute you’re trying to figure out what you want to do with your life after college. The next, you’re watching your kids become independent people with schedules, opinions, and plans of their own.
Time is funny that way.
It moves slowly until it doesn’t.
As financial planners, we spend a great deal of time helping clients manage money. The older I get, however, the more I realize that money is often just a tool for managing something else.
Time.
After all, what is retirement really about?
It’s not a portfolio balance.
It’s not a Monte Carlo score.
It’s not reaching some magical number that suddenly makes everything okay.
Those things matter, but they aren’t the destination.
The destination is freedom.
The ability to spend your time in a way that reflects your values, priorities, relationships, and interests.
Ironically, some people become so focused on protecting that future freedom that they sacrifice years of it in the present.
The same pattern shows up everywhere.
People avoid investing because they fear market declines while overlooking the long-term impact of inflation.
People stay in careers they no longer enjoy because change feels risky while underestimating the cost of another decade spent unhappy.
People postpone experiences because they are waiting for certainty, unaware that certainty rarely arrives.
In each case, the visible risk receives all the attention while the invisible risk quietly grows in the background.
The Goal Isn’t Eliminating Risk
Early in my career, I probably thought about risk the same way many people do today.
Something to minimize.
Something to avoid.
Something to eliminate wherever possible.
Over time, I’ve come to see it differently.
Risk is not a problem to be solved. It is a reality to be managed.
Every meaningful decision carries uncertainty.
Marriage carries uncertainty.
Parenthood carries uncertainty.
Starting a business carries uncertainty.
Retirement carries uncertainty.
Investing carries uncertainty.
Even choosing not to act carries uncertainty.
The objective is not to eliminate risk. The objective is to choose risks that are aligned with the life you want to build.
That’s a very different conversation.
Because when you look at life through that lens, you realize there is no perfectly safe path.
There never was.
There are simply different tradeoffs and different outcomes.
The question becomes less about avoiding risk and more about deciding which risks are worth taking.
The Question Worth Asking
When I meet with retirees, they often tell me about the worries they had before retirement.
Running out of money.
Healthcare costs.
Market declines.
Long-term care expenses.
Those concerns are real and deserve thoughtful planning.
What I find interesting is what I hear afterward.
Rarely do people tell me they wish they had worried more.
Rarely do they tell me they wish they had delayed every decision until uncertainty disappeared.
Far more often, they talk about experiences they wish they had pursued sooner, places they wish they had visited earlier, and time they wish they had spent differently.
In other words, they reflect less on the risks they took and more on the opportunities they postponed.
Perhaps that’s the risk we don’t talk about enough.
Not the risk of making a thoughtful decision that doesn’t unfold exactly as planned.
Not the risk of temporary discomfort.
Not even the risk of failure.
But the risk of spending so much time waiting for certainty that life quietly moves forward without you.
The next time you’re facing a major decision, ask yourself two questions.
The first comes naturally.
What could go wrong if I do this?
Then ask the second.
What could go wrong if I don’t?
In my experience, the answer to that second question is often the one that deserves the most attention.
Robert Gershkowitz is Co-Founder and Financial Planner with Allwealth Planning in Phoenix, Arizona helping pre-retirees, retirees, business owners, and families with their estate planning and wealth management needs across the country. His firm is an independent firm of experienced financial professionals dedicated to prioritizing client needs above all else. You can learn more about the company on their website http://www.allwealthplanning.com
robert@allwealthplanning.com | (623) 227-4271 | 1430 E. Missouri Ave, Ste B111, Phoenix, AZ 85014
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