Waiting for the perfect plan

In 1772 Voltaire published a short tale in verse called “La Bégueule”. Its opening lines credit a “wise Italian” with the saying “Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien”, usually rendered in English as “the best is the enemy of the good”. The tale follows Arsène, a young woman in Paris with an attentive husband, friends and a comfortable life, who is bored by all of it. Her fairy godmother takes her to a palace where nothing is lacking, but she is restless there too. She climbs over the wall and finds herself alone in a barren desert as night falls. The fairy’s verdict at the end is that nothing is as dangerous as leaving what is good in order to be better off.

The part people tend to miss comes straight after the famous line. Voltaire adds that striving for better is worthwhile in prudence, kindness, talent and knowledge. Everywhere else, he calls it a fantasy.

Voltaire was writing about discontent, not money, but the boundary he draws carries over well to retirement planning. Understanding is always worth the effort: what a policy does, what it costs, how much room it leaves to change course. A single perfect product, on the other hand, does not exist, because the life it is meant for keeps changing. Waiting for it tends to push the start further away every year. That is why the CapitalPath approach (see “My approach”) opens with Understand and closes with Review: understand first, then decide, and adjust calmly later.

Ines is 31, works as a project manager, and resolved a little over two years ago to finally start saving for retirement. Ever since, there has been a spreadsheet on her laptop. It began with three columns; now it holds nine offers, plus notes on charges, guarantees, fund choice and tax treatment. Every new comparison article adds another row.

She still hasn’t started. Each time a decision feels close, another question turns up that needs settling first. The spreadsheet is thorough, but it has turned one decision into a project with no end.

One Sunday evening Ines types a single sentence above the table, setting out what “good enough” means for her. She has to be able to explain the policy in her own words. The monthly amount must not eat into her emergency savings; she has €50 a month in mind, as an illustration rather than a recommendation. And it has to allow a pause or a change if her life moves on. Then she goes through the nine columns. Two pass. Seven don’t, or only with a question mark, and she moves them to an archive tab. Nothing gets signed that night, but an endless project has become a choice between two options.