Most people underestimate how much they’ll evolve. They treat today’s preferences as permanent and then lock themselves into decisions that assume future-you will agree.
But tastes shift. Ambitions shrink or expand. Families form or dissolve. Health changes. Values mature. The person who wanted prestige at twenty might want peace at forty. The person who wanted stability might later crave freedom.
This creates a quiet trap: you can “achieve your goals” and still feel misaligned if the goal was chosen by an earlier version of you. That’s not failure; it’s normal development.
The practical move is flexibility. Avoid building a life that requires you to keep wanting the same thing forever. Avoid choices that punish you for changing your mind.
A good financial life is not one where you never change plans. It’s one where changing plans doesn’t destroy you.