Future Nostalgia Fund

A new way I'm looking at cherished memories

There’s a quote after this past weekend I’ve been coming back to repeatedly. 

“The purpose of life is to experience things for which you will later experience nostalgia.”

– FedSpeak

After 3 of the more fun days of my life at my twin brother’s bachelor party in Scottsdale, I felt this quote more intensely than ever.

I also felt firsthand that nostalgia’s initial phase is mostly a gigantic emotional hangover. 

I’d pay stupid amounts of money to bottle up some of the moments and laughs over the weekend in order to relive them again at any moment.

But isn’t that sorta the point of nostalgia? Enjoying moments that are so incredible that they couldn’t possibly be repeated twice? 

It’s a double-edged sword. The joy of the moment followed by the realization of that exact moment never happening again. 

But I’ll tell you one thing. Experiencing something incredible once and longing to relive it forever sure as hell beats never experiencing it and not knowing what I was ever missing.

And sure, you can try your best to replicate experiences. That's why I love annual trips. But still, each one has its’ own unique moments. Its’ own unique theme song. Its’ own unique file in the storage space within our heads.

In order to experience these things where you later experience nostalgia, two forms of currency are required. 

The first is arguably the easier of the two to achieve. It’s the financial currency and means. 

Money isn’t a prerequisite for experiencing that beautiful nostalgic feeling, but it sure helps. 

I’ve always been a believer in a healthy savings rate being the means for going on fun trips. But now I want to get much more specific. So after this trip, I went into my savings account and created a separate account within my savings and called it my “Future Nostalgia Fund” which I will be adding to on a monthly basis. 

One of the main reasons I love Ramit Sethi so much is because he asks people to get detailed with defining their “Rich Life”. To me, having an account labeled “Future Nostalgia Fund” hits much harder and keeps me much more motivated compared to “Rainy Day” or “Travel” fund. 

The second form of currency required is people currency. I think we can all agree this one takes way more time than it takes to stockpile money for a nice trip.

This type of currency is a bunch of guys willing to grow out their mustaches even though they’re hideous (hand up). To wear ridiculous shirts. To spend frivolously for a weekend even if their financial situation is rather tight. To fly across the country. To make it happen even if vacations from the weekend before or work conferences the week after make it difficult. 

If you’ve got people currency like that, you’re filthy rich.