An important part of our success as a society over these last three or so hundred years is agency. One way to look at our story as a country: “I want religious and economic freedom. To have a chance at that, I will take an incredibly dangerous trip, to place I have never seen, and start over. I will fight a war against a powerful nation. I start with no job, no savings, no family business, no employer and W2 paycheck, no unemployment compensation, no tax preference items, nothing at all except what I bring on this tiny vessel. I have me, my physical and mental capabilities, and my optimism and courage.”
Thus was the founding of the United States.
Yet we seem quite negative regarding our country. We have close to 60 years of declining trust in our government.
Our government does more and more, spends more and more, grows more and more. We ask it to do more things on local, state, and federal levels. At the same time, we don’t like what our government is doing. We argue about which president and party presided over the best or worst or most changes. The important thing to observe is the “more”. Virtually nothing is stopped, dropped, or otherwise eliminated.
Over the last century, the federal tax code has expanded dramatically in size and scope. In 1955, the Internal Revenue Code stood at 409,000 words. Since then, it has grown to a total of 2.4 million words: almost six times as long as it was in 1955 and almost twice as long as in 1985. However, the tax statutes passed by Congress are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to tax complexity. There are roughly 7.7 million words of tax regulations, promulgated by the IRS over the last century, which clarify how the U.S. tax statutes work in practice. On top of that, there are almost 60,000 pages of tax-related case law, which are indispensable for accountants and tax lawyers trying to figure out how much their clients actually owe.
Source: https://taxfoundation.org/research/all/federal/compliance-costs-irs-regulations/
We express dissatisfaction with our representatives, yet we reelect them with regularity.
This does not appear to me to be taking agency over the direction of our country.
Escape
Part of this escape from agency is the result of complexity.
Current research shows that, as the number of options increases, so does the level of complexity of the decision itself. Although people are inherently attracted to having lots of choices, when it comes to actually choosing from among a large number of options, people often find themselves paralyzed and unable to make a decision.
Source: https://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2010/12/abundance-of-choice-and-its-effect-on-decision-making.php
Our society has megatons of regulations and laws. We incent our politicians to make this society more complex, to design more rules and regulations, and most every one of us wants something that is for the most part unique to a small segment of society. In a country of 380 million, something I want, even it benefits the entire city where I live (Richmond, Virginia, metro area population of about 1.34 million), represents but 35 one hundredths of a percent of the US population (.35%). While the city may seem big and representative of our country to me, it is not. While I may believe that I am “normal”, my ideas are great for all, and those who do not agree with me are wrong, none of these assumptions are likely to be accurate. Yet we have laws created to help a single entity or profession. We have a complex operating architecture. Nearly all of us want some level of customization that is, for the most part, unique to us.
Part of it is the desire to keep what we have. We do not want to lose what we have, so to appease those who make noise when something is “lost”, we add on instead. There are nearly no trade-offs we make. We appear to be on a road to little or no compromise, whereby whoever has a majority “wins” and those not in the majority “lose”.
The net result? We escape and make no decisions. We leave the choices to others. We all lose in various ways. We either don’t vote or vote automatically. Our highest voter turnout in recent memory is 66%, which we seem to be proud of when a full third of our voting population did not vote. What result would we have had if these people voted? Many have given away their agency. We become victims of the Democrats or of the Republicans or of the media or of the billionaires or of the “powerful corporations” when, instead, we are victims of ourselves. We complain and do not act.
Do the wealthy, corporate or otherwise, have an advantage? I think they do. Should that stop us from acting on our own behalf? I think not. No one can take your education, attitude, or agency. But you can give them away. When you do, you give away your power, too.
Certainly, there are those who cannot see the choices they may have, or the system (of gerrymandered districts, of poverty, of overt or covert racism, of male dominance, or the design of our “Great Society” welfare system, to choose a few examples) may make it extraordinarily difficult to exert agency. There are many things I think we can and should do to alleviate these systemic issues. The power of our country is in leveraging all humans. No coal mines anymore? Let’s retrain these folks so they work in electric vehicle plants, or put them to work rebuilding our highways, bridges, sewers, and electric lines. However, you might need to move to take advantage of an opportunity (and I recognize that you might need help to make that move. I’m not saying we don’t help people). You might need to take action to join a program. That is your agency. We can change all of these things, but only through our own agency. Also, part of your agency is taking the time to understand others and to give them the space (insofar as their agency does not harm you and yours does not harm them) to exercise their own agency.
Can we fix a three million word tax code? Not in a conventional way. We have proven that tax code simplification is a nice phrase and not behaviorally achievable. I would design a completely new one and eliminate the current code altogether. It is the only way we can possibly get rid of no longer useful provisions. Would that gore someone’s ox? No doubt. What is the replacement? I say we have no tax deductions, exemptions - no tax preferences for anyone or any organization. Design an increasing tax rate that is sufficient to fund, let’s say, $6 trillion of expenditures. Then, like any financially successful successful family, we spend less than we bring in (because we have debt to repay). You think we need to subsidize something? Fine. Get that through Congress as an explicit expenditure, where we can all see it, and not have it buried somewhere in the tax code, never to be discussed again. Take agency. This is an example, of course, and no doubt it’s not this simple, although maybe we need to make it this simple in order to create change and stop the madness.
You want change? Take agency.
If we give away our agency as a culture and society, we lose the fundamental thing that has made our country, culture, and society great.
The stoics taught us, thousands of years ago, that agency is the key to a good life.
Nothing is more pathetic than people who run around in circles, “delving into the things that lie beneath” and conducting investigations into the souls of the people around them, never realizing that all you have to do is be attentive to the power inside you and worship it sincerely. To worship it is to keep it from becoming muddied with turmoil and becoming aimless and dissatisfied. Marcus Aurelius, Mediations
Sundry:
I have been thinking about writing this for a long time. There are a couple of times I’ve taken agency in my lifetime. Like the road less traveled, they have made all the difference:
I was about 22 when I decided to start college, going the community college route to get started. I dropped out or flunked out three times in that process, and with a ton of help I ended up with an accounting degree.
At graduation (age 29 - three weeks before I turned 30 - let’s say I’m a slow learner), I decided I did not want to be a CPA. I chose technology consulting and joined a unit of Arthur Andersen - the Management Information Consulting Division. While it was not a small business - it had about 3,500 employees at the time - it was far from the 500,000 plus employee business it is today. You know it as Accenture.
At roughly age 31, I stopped drinking alcohol. I quit using recreational drugs way before this, at about age 21. I had some health issues and a choice to make. I’ve never had a drink since. I quit smoking when our son was born 32 years ago.
After 14 years at Accenture, I quit the firm (it had about 87,000 employees at this time, and I had a wonderful set of experiences with the firm). I had no idea what I would do next. I just knew it was no longer right for me. I tried a couple of different things over a five year period. None of them were satisfying.
Inside, I had a gnawing sensation. My hobby had always been investing and financial advice. I remember thinking: “Do you want to be 65, asking yourself what if?” So I started a financial advice/planning business. I chose potential failure over wondering what if. That was in 2005.
In October of last year, we merged our firm with Journey Strategic Wealth. I will not live forever. I do not want to die at my desk. My clients can be well served by others, and they need a firm and advisors who will be around for 40 or more years. This life has other things for me - or at least I have other things for it, perhaps.
Have I had help along the way? Damn right I have. I am incredibly appreciative of it:
My first real relationship, who encouraged me to go to college and helped me understand that I have some talent.
My wife and in-laws, who refused to let me quit college and who always support me no matter what.
John Sperry at VCU, who helped me get my MICD first job.
Several Accenture partners, in particular, Scott Hesaltine, Pat Mullaney, Andy Glassberg, Tom Butcher, Yale Pats, and Terry Adams, who helped me get much much much better at working with and through people.
Stan Goldman and Alan Kleinkopf, the physicians who diagnosed and developed the treatment plan for my ADHD and helped me learn how to use it to my advantage as well as what to do when it gets in the way.
Sarah Dale, my business coach.
Don Creech, a long-time financial advisor and one of my associates when my firm was affiliated with Northwestern Mutual.
My team at Newfield Financial Solutions and JSW. They prefer privacy (well, not Penny Phillips and Damian LoBasso!) so I am not naming them.
Brian Portnoy, Joy Lere, and Neil Bage of Shaping Wealth.
No doubt I’ve left out multiple parties. I have needed a lot of help over the years, and it ain’t over yet.
We all have our views of ourself. I do not see myself as exceptional in any way except:
For some reason, I have been willing and able to change when I found myself unhappy. Call these inflection points epiphanies or whatever you want.
I have been called a relentless self-improver.
It seems to me that willingness to change and self-improve, if these are indeed two of the many keys to success for the broader population, are teachable, both drivers of and resulting from attitude, and can be learned. They may be genetic disposition here - I have no idea - and at the same time these seem learnable to me.
I hope this helps at least one person. If so, it was worth publishing.
Your comments and feedback are gifts to me and always welcome.