Life decisions we’re most satisfied with...
Bottom Line: I’ve never been a believer in regrets. Regrets don’t really accomplish anything other than potentially making you feel worse. Instead I’m a believer in living and learning. Plus, in my own life experience, I’ve learned that even my biggest mistakes, once learned from, became necessary for what’s become most important in my life. For example, had it not been for decisions I made due to my first wife, I’d have never met the love of my life and true soul-mate Ashley. How’s that for ironic adversity. Ditto some other negative life events. Anyway, with that bit of philosophy and antidote out of the way – this was recently studied collectively by Wells Fargo and Gallup. In this story I want to focus on the life decisions we’re most satisfied with having made (often through the prism of financial well-being)
Percentage who feel it’s been a positive decision:
- 84% buying a home
- 77% getting married
- 62% having a child
- 53% retirement
Those are the ones where a majority of people are happy with their decisions. You can clearly see that buying a home is overwhelmingly viewed as a good choice for most who’ve purchased. Only 7% regret having purchased their home. There are two points that can be illustrated with those numbers. First, while it’s only been a decade since the housing crisis took hold, those wounds have completely healed for the overwhelming majority of homeowners. Second, a recent study demonstrated that 83% of the average American’s net worth was derived from home equity. In other words, minus home equity the average person only has about 17% of what they otherwise would. It’s also encouraging to see that over three-quarters of married couples view it positively. We’ve actually seen divorce rates in a steady decline over the past decade. These numbers point to that likely continuing.