The tricky art of doing nothing

By Michael Haubrich, CFP®

There’s been a lot written about blue zones and the happiest regions on earth.  In these places, people find ways to downshift every day and to let go of at least some daily work and life stressors. This intentional relaxing of the brain allows for increased feelings of calm, creativity, and general happiness. In these turbulent times, we can all use a bit more of that.

I’ve recently been compelled by the idea of niksen, or the practice of mindless relaxation, the art of doing nothing. What I think I find so compelling about this is that it seems so impractical on its face, especially to a type A personality like me with a mind and body that is constantly in motion. The mere thought of giving it a rest and taking time off to indulge in…well…mindless nothingness…seems downright wasteful. But I’ll come back to this in a minute.

Let’s admit that lately it’s been particularly challenging to have an easy mind about much. The news, regardless of outlet, is on a scale from somewhat alarming to downright scary more often than not. We have clients all along the political spectrum, and we are proud of our professional stance to do our very best to be politically agnostic and respectful of everyone, regardless of our own diverse personal opinions or biases. So this article is not meant to be supportive or critical of past, current, future political policy. The intent is to provide an alternative to an often-overwhelming desire to do something when things feel like they’re spiraling beyond our control, as they certainly do right now.

That alternative is to do nothing even if it’s only for a little while.

Doing Nothing Isn’t Giving Up

Doing nothing is a conscious choice. It’s not surrendering, giving up or giving in. It’s simply allowing a clearing space in the mind, a place of less fret and anxiety. I believe it’s part of human nature, particularly in our not-blue-zone culture, to be proactive or reactive generally provides at least temporary relief from uncertainty-induced stressors. Kind of like “well… what I’m doing right now isn’t working, and this doesn’t feel good, so let’s try something to feel better.” The problem is that feeling better in the moment might happen, but it could also lead to feeling a whole lot worse later on when things change again….

Like it or not, we’re in this economic and political deal and it’s going to play itself out without our intervention at least for now. The best thing we can individually do is take care not to harm ourselves by being reactive to any singular piece of what is transpiring in the economic, political, or geopolitical spheres. In terms of your financial well-being, here’s what I can tell you.

How FSG Helps You Stay Steady – By What We’re Doing (and Not Doing)

FSG remains committed to our mission and is looking out for your great life. You pay us to help you do that, and at times like this, we’ll do the doing for you so you can actually experience some peace of mind and do nothing at least in this regard. Some of the doing we’re doing on your behalf is in the form of tax loss harvesting for non-IRA taxable accounts. We are rebalancing your accounts as asset classes perform differently based on the changing landscape and policies. And when appropriate in the case of IRAs, we look at partial ROTH conversions.

What we’re not doing is making any attempts at market timing. It’s fundamentally against our investment philosophy as a rule, and particularly inconsistent with our approach when there is market volatility, as in our current environment. Market timing rarely works since it is completely reliant on being precisely accurate not once but twice—once on the sell end and again on the buy end. Getting that lightning to strike once could happen, but getting it to strike twice falls into the realm of gambling. We also do not do any individual stock purchases or other speculative activities.

For clients who are retired and collecting distributions from your investments, your investment plans have a safety net in place consisting of bonds and cash representing six to ten years of income distribution. For clients who are not retired and still accumulating, volatile market conditions, while disruptive and uncomfortable, also present the opportunity for dollar cost averaging as a means to build assets for your future.

One of the biggest advantages you have, and in fact pay for, in working with us is to experience greater peace of mind around your personal financial well-being. That’s easier to feel when the markets are performing well, when there is economic stability and everything is firing on all pistons. However, when the daily news and disruptive change causes fear, uncertainty, and doubt it becomes harder to blindly practice a little niksen while we firmly grip the wheel and keep your great life on the course your set for it. We’ve been through a lot of these bendy roads, and while the causes for them differ, the rules for navigating them rarely change drastically.

We’re here if you need us for anything, even if it’s just to help remind you that doing nothing right now may be our best and most sound advice.