I pulled a shirt out of the wash the other day. It was one I’d bought for Junior ThreeYear, many years ago, from our elementary school in New Hampshire. You could have the shirt personalized, so on the back I’d had our last name printed.
Now Little ThreeYear is wearing the shirt, and because I’d put our last name on the back, it doesn’t feel as much like a hand-me-down from his brother.
I realized, while looking at the shirt, that I’ve gotten in the habit of thinking very long term in my life. For example, I put our last name on the back of the shirt because I knew it would be used by both boys. When I buy clothes I think about if they’ll last for both my kids, because I’ve always played the long game with the kids’ clothing.
The long game.
According to my highly-unscientific Google search, the term is British, and comes from whist , a card game popular in the 1800s that, because of its length, was shortened. Therefore, you had the original long game and the shortened, or short game. Americans will claim the term comes from American football and the idea of advancing by throwing the ball down the field.
The term has now changed, of course, to mean a strategy of considering the longer-term consequences of your actions. For example, had I played the short game with the boys’ tee-shirt, it would inevitably be relegated to the back of the drawer since my younger son would not wear a shirt with his brother’s name on the back. His last name is much cooler.
Playing the short game isn’t all bad, of course. Sometimes, we need to make decisions for our short-term health or wealth. There are times when driving through the McDonald’s line stopped a melt-down with my kids. Not thinking about long-term health consequences in that moment, let me tell you. I could argue that Mr. ThreeYear and I made a short-term decision when we bought our house. We needed a place to live and work and didn’t take the time to think through the long-term ramifications of our home purchase.
Still, in our fast-paced world, financial bloggers are known for being long-term thinkers. Especially in our money lives, we plan for years in advance.
Continue reading “The Long Game”
