Finding a New World Order
My 401K account and pension have lost 40 percent of their value in the past six months – yours too, probably.
Don't you hate it when that happens?
Most of us are not particularly sophisticated about investing, but we know how to ask for advice, to check in regularly with different experts and to act on their recommendations by judiciously diversifying our portfolios.
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Jessie
Gruman
President
Center for the
Advancement of Health |
So the sting of this loss feels especially sharp. If we had ignored the rules, someone could say "I told you so," and we would agree. We would have an explanation for our misfortune. But we followed the rules, and the sense of loss is magnified by our bewilderment about what we can do to prevent further loss.
These are familiar feelings to me. I generally follow the science-based recommendations about health: diet, exercise, screening tests. So each of the three times I have been diagnosed with cancer, I have felt like a healthy person who has been drop-kicked into a foreign country. I don't understand the language. I don't have a map. And I am desperate to find my way home.
Alas, much of life is random. Despite our best efforts, disasters occur and chance misfortune only illuminates the insignificance of our efforts to control them. Bad luck is particularly infuriating -- and disorienting -- to those whose prudent rule-following is not rewarded.
So how do we meet the new reality, whether with regard to our health or our investments?
We’ve been urged to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and get to work. But what does that mean when the road ahead feels so uncertain due to a new diagnosis or changes in financial status? For most of us, it means modifying old habits. Whether new diets, new disease treatments or new budgets are in order, it is unlikely that we can make informed decisions or develop new patterns of behavior without some combination of introspection, personal responsibility and expert guidance
Despite glitzy promises, you can’t simply go to a Web site and grab a quick, personalized reliable answer about the physician, procedure or prescription that can best respond to your recurring chest pains. Rather, what is needed is an understanding that health care varies in quality -- just as all investments are not alike -- and that it requires the same sort of due diligence employed by savvy investors to find the doctor, treatment or hospital that are right for you.
Unfortunately, the Web-based tools to smooth the search are still crude and it isn’t easy to separate the good from the mediocre or the science from commercial chaff. Every hospital – like every mutual fund – can find ways to claim to be above average. It's up to us to determine what really counts. Picking a hospital because it serves good meals is akin to selecting a mutual fund because it brags of an award-winning Web site.
A crisis doesn't signal the end of order. You can't suspend your due diligence. You still have to ask questions, look for good answers and apply your best judgment. You still have to break a sweat and pass on that cupcake. Those old rules are here to stay. |
