If you grew up in the 90s like me, you might remember the movie Holes starring Shia LaBeouf. If you were also a book nerd like me, you knew it first as the award-winning novel by Louis Sachar.
The story follows Stanley Yelnats, a boy wrongly sent to Camp Green Lake, a juvenile detention camp where boys spend their days digging holes for “character building.”
Throughout the movie, there are flashbacks to history. We see numerous stories, but one is about the “Yelnats Curse.” This multi-generational cycle of financial ruin was triggered by a single broken promise.
Stanley’s ancestor, Elya Yelnats, asks the mystic Madame Zeroni for help winning the hand of the woman he loves. She gifts him a piglet and simple instructions: carry the pig up a mountain every day to drink from a magical stream so it grows fat. In return, Elya must also carry Madame Zeroni up the mountain afterward. Elya would then be able to present a large pig as a gift to his love’s father and live happily ever after.
However, after heartbreak, Elya defaults on his debt to Madame Zeroni. He forgets his promise and flees to America without carrying her up the mountain. This single act of negligence triggers a “generational curse” of chronic bad luck that plagues his descendants for over a century.
It has probably been nearly 20 years since I watched the movie, but there is one lullaby that still rings in my ears regularly.
“If only, if only,” the woodpecker sighs,
“The bark on the tree was as soft as the skies.”“While the wolf waits below, hungry and lonely,
Crying to the moon, ‘If only, if only.’”
Do you ever notice how some people always seem to be stuck in difficult situations?
To be fair, life can be deeply unfair. Chronic illness, loss, and hardship are real. Some people truly face challenges outside their control.
Other times, contributors to some people’s demise exists outside of just themselves – or by the example set by their parents, and even grandparents. You could call these generational curses of sorts. More often, they are legacies of bad habits, fear, or learned helplessness.
We fall victim to our circumstances. Or victimize ourselves, perhaps?
We hear phrases like,
If only my parents had taught me about money.
If only my grandparents had helped me pay for college.
If only I wasn’t having to spend so much money on car repairs.
If only I bought a house when the interest rates were low.
If only daycare wasn’t so expensive.
If only, if only.
The woodpecker wishes its hard life were automatically easy.
The wolf cries at the moon instead of hunting.
The Yelnats family blames generations of problems on their “no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather.”
However, the woodpecker has ceased pecking, and the wolf has forgotten the hunt.
Eventually, “if only” becomes more than a phrase.
It becomes a financial philosophy.
We inherit it quietly.
Spend now because nothing ever works out anyway.
Avoid the budget because money is stressful.
Ignore debt because everyone in the family has debt.
Stay afraid of investing because nobody you knew ever trusted the market.
Sometimes what looks like “bad luck” is really learned helplessness repeated long enough to feel hereditary.
However, cycles can be broken.
Actions can be taken, people can change, and future generations can benefit from better decisions made today. And thankfully, there is an abundance of resources around us. Advisors, podcasts, blogs… there are tools to learn.
Sometimes I catch myself saying, “If only, if only a client had come to me first.” There are so many mistakes that can be avoided with early advice.
The good news? Your family’s “if only” story does not have to continue. It can stop with you by checking out all of Hixon Zuercher’s free resources.
