I recently finished Morgan Housel’s latest book, Same As Ever, a recommended read that I found full of impactful insights. One of my favorites: “To make progress, it requires optimism and pessimism to coexist.”

Pessimism is vital for survival, as it helps us be hyper alert for danger and to prepare for risks. Optimism is essential for believing that the future will bring improvement. While we fixate on whether we are one or the other, the beauty is in the balance. Housel: “The best financial plan is to save like a pessimist and invest like an optimist. That idea –the belief that things will get better mixed with the reality that the path between now and then will be a continuous chain of setback, disappointment, surprise, and shock— shows up all over history, in all areas of life.”

Your outlook affects how you make choices, which influences your planning and your decision-making. For those who lean heavily to pessimism, there is the thought that things aren’t going well and the outlook is dismal. But for those ardent optimists, they can live in a detached reality. There’s a time and place for both.

In creating a life of vitality, my belief is that one must take good care of the now, as well as the future. If you care only about your now, you’ll leave yourself in a tough position. However, if you only live for the future, you could lose out on living your best quality life. Planning for your now is ideally a combination of creating a strong base of “what-if” money to best weather short-term needs, coupled with the ability to participate actively in life. Now add planning for your future, which is caring for yourself for a later time. If we take care of our short-term financial needs, we have more ability to let the assets for our future thrive, because there will be less need to tap into them. And yet, there is the additional balance of participating actively in the present. For each person, the balance of now and future depends on their specific situation. It’s quite personal.

Healthy and thoughtful financial advising should provide this guidance. It’s a personal deep dive, caring about risk and opportunity, with a true emphasis on how to live life well along the way.

This is my approach as I meet with each client. My aim is how to effectively help people maximize and plan the needs of today, with the needs that will happen in the future. The reward for people is an intentional approach knowing they are actively engaged in embracing their now, soon and later, so they can live one’s best life. Because truly, the beauty is in the balance.

Karalyn Carlton