Taxes aren't your fault, but they are your problem. You better muscle up, butter cup.
I've struggled my whole life to not gain more weight and to lose about 30 pounds that I shouldn't be carrying. When you look at the Body Mass Index tables that insurance underwriters use, I rank as borderline obese for my height. If I were a manatee, I'd be a runway model to them.
Over the last 3 years, I've lost about 180 pounds. Unfortunately, it the same 10 pounds every other month. Lose it this month, gain it back next month. At this point, I’m an expert on what works and what doesn't work for me. Unsurprisingly, much of the diet and exercise advice out there is either ineffective, harmful or both.
It's not fair. It's genetic. I'm simply allergic to carbohydrates. When I eat them I break out in fat. And I’m surrounded by people forcing me to celebrate life or pass the social hours with delicate French pastries or pizza or something awesome yet terrible. Poor me.
Being fat isn't my fault, but it is my problem. Time to play the hand I'm dealt and take extreme ownership of the situation.
Rich Me
Taxes and obesity are the same. Being an ignorant victim gets you nowhere:
Being angry about the means testing applied to Social Security through the Provisional Income calculation doesn't make it go away.
Complaining about the revocation of the Roth conversion re-characterization won't bring it back.
Mourning the imminent demise of the lifetime stretch IRA when the Secure Act of 2019 passes is just whistling past the graveyard.
Truth is most of you reading this don’t even realize how mad you should be and why. You don't know what I am talking about. At our Taxes in Retirement Workshops we dive deep into these and other infuriating setups where the government tries to eat the rich. We provide coffee and French pastries to help keep serotonin levels up. Ironically.
Frenchman Jean-Jacques Rousseau once said "Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains." But Rousseau was wrong. In the United States you are born owing your portion of over $21 trillion in debt. You are born in chains and you have to plot your freedom. Is that fair?
No, it's genetics.
If you'd like to curl into the fetal position and whimper at the thought, ignore the next sentence. If you'd like to muscle up, buttercup, click here.