My unfair advantage

I feel like I’ve been given an unfair advantage in life.

I’ve been very fortunate to experience:

1. Going to rehab and being 8.5 years sober
2. Getting defrauded on my first home purchase
3. Having a daughter with a severe disability

In the moment, I didn’t want to be going through any of those things. But now? I wouldn’t go back and change them if I could.

Why? Because thanks to these things:

• I’m aware the world can kick me in the nuts
• I understand randomness can happen to “people like me”
• I don’t care about stupid stuff
• I’m grateful for the little things
• I (try to) take little for granted

It’s funny–by teaching me that I’m not bulletproof, these experiences have made me nearly bulletproof mentally. They’ve given me a perspective that I couldn’t have learned from a book.

I now try to control so little, and I stress even less.
Even though my job is to be a “planner,” I expect (and plan for) nothing to go as planned.

So yeah, people have told me it’s unfair these things happened. They’re absolutely right.

This article was originally published as a LinkedIn post.

Taylor Stewart, CFP®
I'm a financial planner in McKinney, TX and founder of Ataroke Wealth, where I provide fee-only financial planning and investment management on an hourly, short-term, and ongoing basis. I work with clients locally and across the country. I also build financial planning software for advisors at Kerdora.