Aesop Fable: Ant and the Grasshopper

The Aesop's Fables are treasure chest of great stories for kids. Alas, Aesop was actually a slave in ancient times. It is so incredible that humans enslave other humans and perfectly ok with that for centuries. Ok that's another topic. It is incredible that Aesop the slave can come up with so many great stories. They are MAGNITUDES better than other shallow rhyming wacky stories for kids.

I want to talk about the Ants and the Grasshopper. Yes you probably heard of it. The grasshopper sings and plays all day while talking to ants who are busy collecting food for the winter. Yes winter came and the grasshopper is sorry having no food around.

The moral of the story: there is virtue in hard work, duh.

So when adults tell this story, they may ask the kids audience: so you want to be the hardworking ant or the play all day grasshopper? Did you say "ant"? Now remember your answer.

The version I had say after the winter, the grasshopper learned lesson and know better next year. According to some scientific things I read, grasshoppers actually do not survive winters... they just have eggs waiting to be hatched in spring. Poor grasshoppers have no parents to tell them that they ought to save up food. Ok, that's the grasshopper's life. But we are human here.

Look folks, winter means "retirement". Sounding like some banking guy for a moment: are you saving enough for retirement?

Now ants have no rents or property tax to pay, nor gas/electricity/water utilities. They only worry about food. Ants also don't have outrageous healthcare bills to pay either.

Did you say social security? well it is going to run out when you retire.

"Winter" is something quite horrible to think about. If you don't think about it at all you are singing and playing like the grasshopper. Did you say you want to be ant or grasshopper?

Here is one good thing being human, ants can't put their corn kernel somewhere and have it magically multiply like you can put money in bank and earn interest. Alas, nowadays banks pay so little interest (nearly none).

This means: even if you work hard and save like ants, you still don't have enough to retire if you rely on savings alone as inflation will eat them like locusts. You are working like ants and still be a grasshopper...unless you have a successful career with a ton of $.

This means: 401k is a must. But they can tell your "total return" is -3000% when you retire and you can't do much about it. Invest in the volatile stock market? You can lose money you know.

It is hard to be a winter-surviving ant.