“Have you seen my glasses?”
“They’re in your room. We just found them there.”
“No, they’re not. I’ve looked everywhere.”
“But we just found them a few minutes ago. Don’t you remember? I put them on your dresser.”
“I can’t find them anywhere. They’re lost...”
Scenes like this play out in my household multiple times a day.
For the past three years, I’ve been living with a loved one who has dementia. In that time, I’ve watched her steadily deteriorate, though not in any particularly predictable way. If anything, dementia seems determined to keep us guessing.
Every day, we have little idea what to expect. Will she be happy? Sad? Angry? Scared? Sometimes we cycle through all four before lunchtime.
As a self-proclaimed (but recovering) control freak, I’ve struggled with this unpredictability. I like things orderly. I like knowing what’s coming next. Dementia has been quite effective at dismantling these preferences.
But my suffering pales in comparison to hers.
I can only imagine how terrifying dementia must be. To live with so much confusion, disorientation, and fear, with so little that anyone can do to reassure you. Even the best intentions of loving family members can provide only temporary comfort.
And those family members suffer too. There’s the heartbreak of watching someone you love gradually lose their independence and familiar personality. Relationships that were once warm and intimate can become strained or contentious. Then there’s the exhaustion of caregiving. The doctor’s appointments, the disrupted routines, the countless little dramas that materialize out of nowhere.
We’ve experienced all of this in our household. Dementia is a heavy burden to carry.
But it’s also taught me an extraordinary amount about how to live and invest.
My Unlikely Guru
My loved one, in many respects, has become my Buddhist guru. Nobody has taught me more about impermanence, uncertainty, and groundlessness.
Groundlessness is a Buddhist idea I’ve been grappling with for years. It’s the recognition that the seemingly solid ground beneath our feet isn’t nearly as solid as we imagine. We construct a sense of security around our health, relationships, careers, and finances. We convince ourselves that our lives are reasonably stable and predictable.
Then something happens. A loved one dies. We lose our job. The stock market tumbles. Or someone develops dementia. Suddenly, the ground we thought we were standing on doesn’t seem so solid anymore.
I’ve read about groundlessness in Buddhist books and reflected on it during meditation. I’ve written about it too. But living with dementia has been a crash course in the real thing.
Our household is constantly changing. Strange, challenging, and occasionally joyous things happen out of the blue. Just when we think we’ve figured something out, the situation changes again. For someone who likes to keep a tidy house, both literally and figuratively, this has been particularly difficult.
But over time, I’ve become a little more comfortable with things being outside my control. The illusion that I can keep everything neatly arranged has diminished somewhat. And I think this has spilled over into my investing life.
I’ve become remarkably unfazed by the daily fluctuations of the stock market. As I write this, the NASDAQ is down almost 4% on the day. I couldn’t be bothered. I’m not sure I could have said the same three years ago.
Of course, a bad day in the stock market is nothing compared with watching someone you love struggle with dementia. But perhaps becoming more accustomed to uncertainty in one part of life makes it easier to tolerate it elsewhere.
I’ve got my own health struggles and losses waiting for me down the road. Who knows? Perhaps even dementia. I’m trying to get better acquainted with groundlessness, because there’s only more of it waiting for me.
The Retirement That Never Was
Living with dementia has also changed how I think about retirement.
My loved one worked hard her entire life. She accumulated a tidy nest egg and looked forward to spending her golden years travelling, enjoying time with family, and reaping the rewards of decades of hard work.
Dementia wasn’t part of the plan.
Instead of the retirement she’d imagined, much of her time is now spent being cared for, having meals prepared for her, and being accompanied to doctor’s appointments. She still spends plenty of time with family, but not in the way she’d envisioned.
Watching her retirement plans go completely belly up has made me reconsider my own.
I have a vague idea of how I’d like retirement to look. I’d love to travel, perhaps live abroad for a while, spend lots of time with my family and friends. Ideally, I’d be healthy, active, and not particularly worried about money.
Sounds lovely, doesn’t it? But there’s no guarantee that’s how things will turn out.
I could develop dementia myself. My circumstances could change in ways I can’t begin to imagine. Scratch that: my circumstances will change in ways I can’t imagine.
This doesn’t mean I’ve stopped saving for retirement. Far from it. Seeing the enormous financial demands of dementia care has reinforced the importance of having money set aside for an uncertain future. But it’s also reminded me of the dangers of spending too much of the present preparing for some imagined future.
The old idea of working hard now so you can play later assumes that the later will actually happen, and that we’ll be in a position to enjoy it when it does. That’s a pretty big assumption.
Being Okay With Things Not Being Okay
Dementia is a cruel disease. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Watching someone you love gradually lose their independence and abilities is heartbreaking. I’d gladly do without these lessons if it meant my loved one didn’t have to endure this illness.
But I can’t deny that the experience has changed me.
It’s made me more aware of the fragility of life, the limits of my control, and the folly of taking the future for granted. Most importantly, it’s taught me to be a little more okay with things not being okay.
I still get frustrated. I still wish I could tidy up the chaos around me. But perhaps I’m becoming a little more comfortable with the uncertainty of it all.
The future will unfold however it unfolds, regardless of how carefully I try to arrange it. In the meantime, I’d rather make the most of the life that’s right in front of me than spend it waiting on a brighter future.
- The Buddh-i$h Investor
The Bottom Line
Unpredictability is the rule. Things happen in life and investing that we never see coming.
Save for tomorrow, but live today. The future is never guaranteed.
If You’re Looking For More
Give this a listen if the dark fall days are getting you down - “I’m a-lookin’ for the future today, today, today…”
Jonathan Clements’ brave example of living life in the face of uncertainty:
