Inoculation

By Brad Thomason, CPA

​As the result of all the news coverage about COVID, your average lay person probably knows more about the mechanics of immune responses and the vaccines that love them (or is it the other way around?) than was the case circa 2019.
 
When the immune system meets a new compound it says, “Ah, what’s this?” What makes a disease a bad disease is that in that moment of wide-eyed wonder, the virus or bacterium replicates fast enough to cause problems before it fully dawns on the immune system that the body is under attack.
 
This moment of pause is a significant event in all forms of interactive conflict.  For instance, in boxing, the jab – that multi-tool of pugilism – is often used quite effectively to throw off your opponent’s timing, especially when he’s in the middle of a planned attack of a series of punches (i.e. a ‘combination’).  When a guy is one movement into a choreographed set of, say, four strikes, and you unexpectedly bop him in the nose, it tends to break his concentration.  As such, he may stop for just a second.  That saves you from getting hit multiple times, at minimum; and maybe it lets you counter attack him instead and do some damage before he regains the presence of mind to block or move.
 
Nations do this sort of thing with submarines, cruise missiles, etc. 
 
A moment of surprise followed by indecision can be a bad thing if you’re a white blood cell, a heavy-weight contender, or a convoy of military vehicles trying to be all sneaky back in the mountains or other boondocks.
 
Or a person trying to navigate retirement.
 
A vaccine lets the body get to have a look at the dangerous compound, work through the getting to know you bit – followed by decided dislike – and move on to the counter-act and defeat phase. Gives it a head start for later when an actual infection tries to make a run.
 
Much of our work is in the vein of talking about the kinds of decisions you will have to make as your retirement plays out, and highlighting some of the problems which frequently occur in typical cases.
 
Our work has little to do with saying what the future will hold, and everything to do with talking about possibilities in the hopes that if you get thrown a curve ball it will be a type that isn’t a total shock. If you’ve already thought about it before it happens, then you can at least consider how you might respond; and maybe even have prepared some defenses, too.
 
Protecting against a temporary moment of being frozen in place may not seem like much, but it may be enough. We’re trying to deal with a world where problems can’t be predicted or stopped but might be able to be dulled just enough if a sneak attack can be prevented.  Which, in turn, may end up making a really big difference in how your future plays out.