Can The Great Resignation Be An Estate Planning Strategy?
The motivations for joining the Great Resignation, in which you quit your job even though you do not have another one lined up and even though you do not have enough savings to be financially independent for a long period of time, are complex, but from the outside, it simply looks like you don’t have a plan. If someone tells you this to your face, you can simply respond by saying that planning is overrated, especially plans that involve money. How many financial goals has your generation set, only to find yourselves working harder and harder for less and less money while the things you plan to buy become more and more expensive? At some point, making financial plans starts to feel like an exercise in futility. Trying to make plans for what will happen to your modest possessions and your non-existent money after you die is even more futile, since you will not be there to see your plans work out. A Tampa estate planning lawyer can help you if you are wondering whether, “I would prefer not to” is a wise approach to estate planning.
What If Bartleby the Scrivener Were Your Estate Planning Role Model?
“I would prefer not to” is the refrain of “Bartleby the Scrivener,” a short story by Herman Melville, who is better remembered today for his whale-sized novel Moby Dick. The title character gets a job at a law office, but soon he decides that he would prefer not to do any work. Eventually, he chooses not to do anything at all, not even leave the office, so he gets evicted and then arrested for vagrancy; in jail, he dies of starvation, having decided that he would prefer not to eat.
The story warrants multiple interpretations, but in 2024, it is hard not to see it as a protest against capitalist ambition. What is the worst that can happen if you decide to do nothing? Everyone eventually dies, from the ambitious folks who set up revocable trusts to the Great Resignation set, who decide that they would prefer not to bother with estate planning. If you choose to forgo the pursuit of wealth and the perpetuation of the species, the worst that will happen is that you will not have any money or any family. Old age and illness happen to everyone, though, except those who died prematurely or suddenly. If you opt out of estate planning, you can live in a nursing home as a Medicaid beneficiary, with no money to your name except the personal needs allowance. When you die, Medicaid will try to claim any money from your estate that your Social Security check did not inherit. If this is not what you want, then you need an estate plan, no matter how non-materialistic you are.
Contact David Toback About Estate Planning for People Who Don’t Care About Money or Reputation
A Central Florida estate planning lawyer can help you build an estate plan even if you have no plans to own property. Contact David Toback in Tampa, Florida to set up a consultation.
Source:
interestingliterature.com/2022/05/herman-melville-bartleby-the-scrivener-summary-analysis/
