A while back, we watched Kung Fu Panda for my son to watch, and he enjoyed watching it a great (unfortunately afterward he wanted to punch and kick everything in the house, but that is not part of this story) deal. The story is quite silly, the animation is nice and all in all, it is a fun movie to watch with your kids, mostly because there are a lot of in jokes during the movie that you laugh at (especially when you think of the actors who are actually saying these lines).
How does a Big Fat Panda become a Kung Fu Panda the master? I won’t ruin it for you but this movie actually carries a fair amount of deep spiritual (or philosophical) statements about life that you can easily lend to your Personal Finance philosophies, let’s just run through a few of these interesting quotes (taken from the IMDB.com site).
Master Oogway: There are no Accidents
Very true in life, there are no accidents in Personal Finance either, it all happens for reasons that we can see, or figure out as part of our work on our finances. No one accidentally got into debt, and no one usually accidentally gets out of debt either. There are reasons for most things that happen in life, typically the things we call accidents are things which we don’t understand the reasons why they happened.
Understand your personal finances and what is going on, and there will be No Accidents. If accidents seem to happen, find out why, and then they are no longer an accident, they are a learning moment.
Master Oogway: Ah, yes. But no matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
No matter what you do, if you plant a peach tree pit, you will get a peach tree, and in personal finance, if you continue to spend without thinking about what you are doing, you will end up with debt (big debt). The only way not to get your debt, is to not spend without thinking. Sounds simple doesn’t it?
You can hope things will change, you can think you can influence things, but unless you plant something different you will have a peach tree.
Mr. Ping: Don’t have to. To make something special you just have to believe it’s special.
A fun little statement about having the confidence to stick with your convictions, and if it is something that you think is special, it is somethign special. With Personal Finance, there is no secret ingredient (even though there is a multi-million dollar industry out there to convince you otherwise), none of it is a secret, it’s all there, choose what you think is special, and go with it (but maybe choose carefully what you think is special, to be safe).
Just goes to show that personal finance and how you deal with your money is a very Personal thing (hence the name Personal Finance). Learn, read, and find out what works best for you, and even though you might be a Big Fast Personal Finance Panda, you might end up being The Big Fat Personal Finance Panda. Skadoosh!
What if all I wanted was a Peach Tree? Should I just be happy with my Peach Tree, or must I now plant an orchard?
Thus ends todays lesson, Grasshopper.