When it comes to savings and retirement, we have lots of stuff to worry about. How are the markets going to do? Are we properly invested? What are interesting rates going to be in the future? How long will we live? How long will we be able to work? Are we saving enough? Are we spending too much? What is the government going to do to help or hinder my savings?
A bunch of stuff to worry about to be sure. But what is worth really worrying about? Most of these things are mostly or completely out of our control. We have no say in how the markets are going to do, what the government is going to do, and limited say in how long we’ll live a healthy life. So those things are not worth spending a lot of time worrying about.
There are three things we can control. How much we spend, how much we save, and how we are invested. This is where our attention should be concentrated. We can decide to save more, spend less, invest in long term growth assets. Or not. But losing lots of sleep over the market being up or down, or what the government is about to do about taxes doesn’t help. Control what you can and try not to sweat (too much) what you can’t.