Why I Love Tourists

Most people who live someplace even moderately interesting are likely to say they hate tourists. Tourists can be slow, plodding, don’t know where they are going. They drive too slowly and walk erratically. They gawk, mouths agape, and point at things.

That they do these things is exactly why I love them.

This past week I was back from a business trip to New York City and I was walking over the Fourth Street Bridge in my neighborhood. The bridge is a World War I relic, a working drawbridge rebuilt in 2006, which spans Mission Creek. From the bridge there is a view of houseboats, Potrero Hill, cormorants, herons, cranes, and occasionally seals, manta rays and starfish.

But to see these things, you have to be paying attention. I was walking across the bridge, my head down, looking at the wooden slats of the pedestrian walkway, thinking of the 12 million things I needed to do now that I was back from my trip. I was halfway across when I thought to look up. To notice the light on the water, the brown gull crying out, the fog beginning its morning retreat to out to sea. I cross the bridge every day, I was taking it for granted, and I was missing my life.

Tourists remind us of what we often miss.

What does this have to do with financial planning? Because it’s true what they say about life happening while you’re making other plans. These little things, these minutiae, so easy to miss, are critical to happiness. It is important to have a portfolio that meets your needs. It is important to know that you have a complement of insurance coverage that protects you from catastrophic loss. It is important to have plans in place to help you break down and tackle the Big Goals. But it is the small things that make up our lives and bring us happiness.

Planning doesn’t guarantee you certain outcomes. But it starts a process of clarifying what is important to you, and putting your attention there. When you can be confident you’re taking care of your financial business, you can allow yourself to focus on the rest of life. Take the time to look up, notice what’s happening around you. Slow down. Put the museum exhibit you want to see on your calendar. Stop in at that café that you pass by every day, though it looks so inviting. Our days turn into months, the months turn into years. Add up those years, and that’s your life.

This may be a long weekend for some of you. Even if it isn’t, take a minute this morning before you get swept away in your daily routine and look around. At the kids playing with their breakfast, at the garden bed you planted this spring, at the other passengers on the bus or train. Gawk, point, be in awe of something new. Even something mundane. Be a tourist in your own life.

We can lay out plans for a good financial life, but the good life, truly, is in the day-to-day.