Alexander Green - AARP the Secret of Shelter Island. Money and What Matters

Maybe youre thinking its time to review your investment strategy and make the most of the money you have today. Maybe youve already built a financially successful retirement egg and want to protect what youve built. Or maybe you need to bulk up your earnings to ensure your familys future.

Dedicated to helping you protect your assets, stretch your dollars, and bolster your longterm security, AARP can offer you powerful solutions. Whatever your strategy for managing money, weve got suggestions that will help from saving money on that next big purchase to planning your charitable giving. If youre taking your job to the next level or building up a second career, weve got strategies that will help you make your mark.

You may think your money or your financial advisor should be working harder for you. You may be watching market trends and seeing new opportunities. And, of course, you want to protect yourself and your loved ones from scams and data breaches. We can give you the support you need.

And turn to us for fun, too. (Is it time for that car, that trip, that weekend home youve always wanted?) Because that, too, is what this time of your life is about.

AARP is a nonprofit, nonpartisan membership organization that helps people
50 and older improve their lives. For more than 50 years, AARP has been serving
our members and society by creating positive social change. AARPs mission
is to enhance the quality of life for all as we age; lead positive social change;
and deliver value to members through information, service and advocacy. This
information in this book is for educational purposes and does not constitute
financial advice.

Table of Contents

For Hannah and David

Money has yet to make anyone rich.

Seneca

PREFACE

After more than 25 years of virtually uninterrupted prosperity, the U.S. economy has hit a rough patch.

As I write, jobless claims are at a 27-year high. Consumer confidence is at an all-time low. Credit is tight. Business investment and personal spending have plunged. Housing is in a death spiral. The U.S. auto industry is on the verge of collapse. And the stock market just experienced its worst year since 1931.

Welcome to The Great Recession.

Theres nothing funny, of course, about losing your job, getting evicted, or watching your net worth plummet. Economic downturns bring pain and suffering. There will be plenty of belt-tighteningand sober reflectionin the months ahead.

But to the extent recessions shake up the status quo and force us to examine our goals and priorities, they also offer enormous opportunities.

This book is meant to aid in that process. The Secret of Shelter Island is partly about money. But it is also about putting itand the rest of your lifein perspective.

There has rarely been a better time to do so. We are experiencing a financial slump unlike any in modern times. Virtually every investor has seen his net worth get a serious haircut.

How did we get here? There is plenty of blame to go around, starting with reckless lenders, overly ambitious borrowers, unethical CEOs, feckless investors, and shortsighted policy makers.

Too many were chasing the fast buck, took momentary leave of their senses, or abandoned their basic values. This is especially true on Wall Street. Vanguard Founder John Bogle hits the nail on the head in his book Enough:

Not knowing what enough is subverts our professional values. It makes salespersons of those who should be fiduciaries of the investments entrusted to them. It turns a system that should be built on trust into one with counting as its foundation. Worse, this confusion about enough leads us astray in our larger lives. We chase the false rabbits of success; we too often bow down at the altar of the transitory and finally meaningless and fail to cherish what is beyond calculation, indeed eternal.

In many ways, enough is a central message of this book. Even during this historic downturn, most Americans have ample material wealth. (Covering our basic needs just doesnt take that much.) But how about the immaterial?

What is your animating purpose? How are you spending your time? What are you living for?

Many of usperhaps especially those with a newfound hole in their retirement account, financial plan, or tuition fundare reap-praising these questions now.

This book may help you seeor considerthings differently. It consists primarily of essays I wrote for Spiritual Wealth, a weekly e-letter that seeks The Road Map to a Rich Life. If youre a new reader, welcome. If youre a regular reader, welcome back.

The Secret of Shelter Island is arranged around four central themes: A Rich Mind, What Matters Most, Attitudes and Gratitude, and The Search for Meaning. My objective here is to share some insights about the big questionsand perhaps provide a bit of inspiration, something we could all use in a world that bombards us with sad and tragic news.

If youre like me, youre tired of hearing about wild-eyed terrorists, drug-addled celebrities, ethically challenged businessmen and crooked politicians. The national media delivers a daily dose of heartbreak, misery, and cynicism. Much of what we watch and read each day is depressing, even rattling.

I wrote these essays as an antidote. They consist solely of ideas Ive found particularly inspiring, elevating, or ennobling.

Over the last thirty years, Ive spent a great deal of time studying history, philosophy, psychology, science and religion, saving and highlighting virtually everything I read. This project gave me the opportunity to revisit those classic works and cite some of the best minds and ideas of all time.

Youll notice that these pages lean heavily on quotes and sources from antiquity. Why? When it comes to wisdom about how to live your life, the best ideas are not new. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients.

Second, authoritative historical sources give more heft to anyones point of view. Ive found you dont get much opposition to ideas attributed to Cicero, Aristotle, or Epictetus. (Who really wants to argue with Marcus Aurelius?)

Judging by my mailbag, there is a great thirst out there for this kind of knowledge. Writers are always hearing from their readers, of course. But even in the glory days of the last bull marketor the depths of the previous bearI never received an avalanche like this.

Readers told me these essays inspired them, motivated them, caused them to end a bad relationship, start a new career, forgive an old grudge, or spend a moment appreciating their incredible good fortune, whatever their current financial status.

They sent me books, poems, photographs, speaking invitations, and handwritten letters, some several pages long.