The good uncle says that if there are life principles he wants to teach young people, they are two: Buy insurance and back up your files.
They are not bad principles to go by. The back-up-your-files part is straightforward. No possible counterarguments there. No need for examples. Murphy’s law: If something can go wrong, it will. The computer does not live forever. It is always good to have a copy of what’s in it in another place: be it disc, hard drive or another computer entirely. Backing up is a good life principle.
And, of course, it is not exactly easy. One must make it a habit if it is going to work at all. One must work it into the more structured aspects of one’s lifestyle. Whether you do it daily, weekly or even monthly, the idea is to do it at regular intervals, on a specific schedule. No ifs or buts. Thankfully, there are hard drives now that back up your files with even the slightest personal intervention. You simply plug it in.
Buying insurance is another matter entirely. It is clearly the more difficult of the two admonitions. There are, of course, good insurance salesmen everywhere. They can study your lifestyle, financial position, guide you and walk you through the whole process. But in the end, insurance requires an appropriate amount of personal resolve and the application of rational human will, the capacity to sacrifice.
One, after all, never has enough money at any given point in time. And insurance requires one to take a percentage of one’s income and put it into the coffers of an insurance company. The point being, to do this for future use. And, of course, there are all sorts of insurance for all variety of future uses and needs: education, health, life, etc. And immediately the question is: Will I be able to afford it?
And to this, the good uncle will only reply: Can you afford not to? The thing with insurance is that you never feel the need for it until you have grown old enough to understand. It is a bit of a paradox.
As a young person, one would rather use all of one’s resources for immediate needs. Earning something from working can be such a magical stage in a person’s life. And all these occur at such a stage when there is still the innocent if false sense of immortality that every young person feels. It will be awhile before they feel themselves slowing down, running out of time and energy, plagued finally by the creeping acceptance they have gone along in years.
It is only at that time when one fully realizes the value of good insurance, not just one but preferably many. Insurance is never a hedge against death but it is a good thing to know you have a backup plan if you should ever get sick. It helps that you will not overburden those you leave behind when you pass away.
But young people think what every old person once thought: Life is forever. And so, the last thing they want to buy at a young age is insurance. That is why they need the advice of a good uncle. One who would explain to them what the future has in store when they get older or at least as old as the good uncle himself.
The idea of insurance is not at all different from having religion. Young kids always rebel against it when they are young. It seems like only so much obligation. Until one gets married. In which case, the young person finally realizes the pragmatic value of a priest to officiate the ceremonies of their lives. And when one has children, his value is realized even more. There will be confirmations, communions, services to go to. Young people require an appropriate amount of structure in their lives to balance their inevitable need for the sense of freedom and rebellion, their need to learn new ways to improve the world and their lives. Religion, like insurance, is always good for this, even if it is not inexorably rooted to the most fundamental issues of faith and loving God. Whatever, it is always a good thing for young people to know where the temple is and what they might find there.
Religion, insurance and backing up your files, are not things that can be imposed on you. At best they can only be self-imposed. You can always argue against them. Indeed, experience is the only final proof that they ever really help. Still, no one can of really predict the future. Not even the good uncle. There are only a few things quite as inevitable as life and death. So let’s hear it once again from the good uncle: Buy insurance and back up your files!