AMELIE – LIFE IN A SNAP

TODAY’S BLOG

AMELIE -LIFE IN A SNAP

I wonder if you were charmed by the Audrey Tautou in the 2001 movie “Amelie”. A charming and original love story. The story was reconstructed as a musical and had a run on Broadway in 2017, it has now arrived and touring Britain and is playing at Wimbledon where I saw it play to a full house the other evening. By the time, you read this it will have moved on with its tour (details here).

It was an enjoyable evening, the warmth and joy of the original film were very much present and also offering some creative originality of its own within the stage format. In its current form, it lacks any big numbers, you probably would struggle to recall any of the tunes within a few hours. Some of the higher notes left me wincing as the discord of the storyline was reflected in the music. The performances were all strong and make a great opportunity for actors that are also musicians, or vice versa.

AMELIE THE MUSICAL - PAMELA RAITH PHOTOGRAPHY - SOLOMONS IFA BLOG

Life in a box

So, to the financial planning angle. Amelie’s world view is interrupted by the discovery of a small tin box which is full of a childhood collection of mementos. These have been carefully hidden for years and she makes it her mission to return these to the owner. The impact of reuniting the two and the insight attained provide the motivation for her to engage more within the lives of those around her. She finds charming ways to reimagine or even re-see what is before her. There is a segment where she takes the hand of a blind man and leads him along the streets of Paris, describing the sights before them.

Eyes to see

Financial planning can sometimes be a little like this. In the process of planning well for the future, we need to be able to discuss and visualise it to some extent. Your future, like mine and everyone else’s is not written yet, you have some degree of choice about how it looks. You bring your baggage from the past and this will shape your outlook for the future. Amelie reminds us not to judge, to see people not as the sum of their frustrations, anxieties and losses but as essentially good dreamers that have lost touch with some or all of their hope about the future.

The risk of living

We are all made differently and want for different things. I have yet to meet anyone that does not want to retain their dignity and independence. We know that when life is compressed to a footnote, the memory is that of relationships – how we lived, not what we earned, bought or when or where we lived. Amelie’s world view enables her to see things differently, to bring the joy to the mundane and to nudge people out of the fog of their own phobias, anxieties and pain. Of course, she is merely doing what she knows she needs for herself and has to face the same risks as everyone else.

The Bucket List – just seau…

Financial planning is little more than taking action to afford the lifestyle you want to have. This may be “big or small”. Importantly it is defined by you. We have been talking this through within our marketing meetings and felt we needed to help a little with this process. We have begun to work on ideas for a “bucket list” and will develop this idea further. In truth, it is likely to contain few genuinely original ideas, but it may hopefully act as a reminder to each of us that time doesn’t wait. If you have any suggestions for the bucket list please get in touch.

Sorry, I could not resist adding the trailer for the film…

Dominic Thomas
Solomons IFA

You can read more articles about Pensions, Wealth Management, Retirement, Investments, Financial Planning and Estate Planning on my blog which gets updated every week. If you would like to talk to me about your personal wealth planning and how we can make you stay wealthier for longer then please get in touch by calling 08000 736 273 or email info@solomonsifa.co.uk

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GET IN TOUCH

Solomon’s Independent Financial Advisers
The Old Bakery, 2D Edna Road, Raynes Park, London, SW20 8BT

Email – info@solomonsifa.co.uk Call – 020 8542 8084

7 QUESTIONS, NO WAFFLE

Are we a good fit for you?

Take Survey

PRIVACY POLICY | DATA PROTECTION

Fences

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Fences

The gritty reality of the harsh life of a black man in 1950s Pittsburgh. The film “Fences” based on the play of the same name by August Wilson (which originally opened on Broadway some 30 years ago) has been gaining a lot of praise. In particular, for the character performances from Denzel Washington (as Troy Maxson) and Viola Davis (as Rose).

This is the story of resentment and how it can become all consuming, impacting every aspect of life. An inability to see alternatives (such as the dreams and hopes of Troy’s son Cory). Perhaps with good reason, this is 1950s America and Troy has had some significant, bad experiences, yet lacks the hope of the civil rights movement of the day, instead fighting a narrative of low expectations and low chance of failure. The fences that Troy constructs are clearly more than physical.

Familiar history

When you engage with your financial planning, we spend time finding out about your history. This will involve your family history too – your upbringing and your family longevity all have a likely impact on your planning.

Expectations and responsibilities

It may be that like Troy, you have family members that require your support, financially, practically or both. If you have parents that are alive, how expectations are managed about the future. Of course, if you have children, your hopes and expectations for them too.

Then there is the more obvious stuff – about your working life history so that we can understand what you have in place through various employers or self-employment. To understand the debts you have and the way that you have managed, or perhaps mis-managed the money that you have earned, borrowed or been given. This all forms part of the background upon which we reflect and gently challenge assumptions about the future. This may even involve some changes in behaviour – which is not always easy to hear and invariably harder to adopt. Unlike Troy, we would not assume that your future will be dictated by your past. However, clearly it is likely to be influenced by it. We work with you, in partnership to help avoid repeating any financial mistakes that you may have made in the past.

Self-imposed fences

All good financial planning faces the occasional barrier. We tend to help ring-fence funds for specific important, known events that have a financial cost. We also take appropriate measures to protect your finances and data. However, the most significant obstacles are those that we all create for ourselves – the fences within our own minds of what is possible and the assertion that the future will merely look a lot like the past. It doesn’t have to, but without challenge and a proper plan, in all honesty, that is a likely outcome and one that we would hope to avoid.

Here is the trailer for Fences. It has been nominated for various Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Actor in a Leading Role (Denzel Washington) and Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Viola Davis).

Dominic Thomas
Solomons IFA