So I went to the dentist.
I realize that probably wouldn’t be a shocking statement for most people to make. But I hadn’t been since 2007. George W. Bush was president, we’d never heard of ISIS, and Britney Spears hadn’t even shaved her head yet.
In other words, it had been a while.
In fairness, I’d been meaning to “get around to it” for years. But the longer I waited, the more daunting the task became. It’s one thing if you haven’t been in a year or two. But after a while you start thinking, “Well, I’m probably going to have a cavity, if not a few, so I’ll actually need to make two appointments…one for a cleaning and one to get the cavities filled, and now this is just more expensive and time consuming than I can afford it to be.”
But after a while, my teeth hurt. Not all the time, but almost anytime I had something cold or sweet, several of them hurt. I ignored it for a while, until I inspected my teeth more closely and found that two of them (the two that hurt most often) had discolored areas near the gum. This seemed to me that it was a sign of severe decay. On Monday morning I started checking out dentists. I found one that could see me on Wednesday and made an appointment.
On the drive there, I started making bets with myself about how many cavities I might have. It was going to be a minimum of three but probably no more than eight. I knew I’d need at least one root canal. I might even have one tooth that needs to be pulled and I’d have to get an implant. What an irresponsible adult I’ve been for the last 14 years.
As soon as I walked in the office, I started setting their expectations. “Look, I haven’t been to the dentist in more than a decade. I know that It’s going to be bad, so just prepare yourself.”
First up, the X-rays. “I’m not supposed to make a diagnosis myself, but I don’t see any problems at all,” said the hygienist. Perplexing, but good news…I’ll take it!
Then she started cleaning my teeth. She couldn’t stop raving about how good they looked. I probably could have charged her instead of vice versa based on how much of a pleasure it seemed to be for her.
The dentist confirmed. All is well. My teeth are perfect. The pain and the discoloration is from some receding gumlines, which is apparently common. Just change to a different toothpaste and that should fix it. “You don’t need to come back in six months, but could we make an appointment for you for next year at this time?”
I’m told that most of this is genetic. Some people just don’t produce much plaque, and I’m apparently one of those lucky folks. So in addition to being white, male, born to a Baptist family of Carolina fans in the South in the 20th century, you can add “doesn’t produce much plaque” to my list of hereditary lottery winnings that have set me up for an easy life.
On the way home, it occurred to me that most people treat their financial life the same way that I treated my dental care from 2007 to 2021.
“I don’t want to go see a financial advisor. It’s probably going to be painful and expensive and he’ll give me a lot of bad news and then I’ll be embarrassed because I’ve done a bad job of handling my money and it might be too late to even fix the problem.”
But for most people, they get much better news than they expected. A lot of people go from “I’ll have to work forever” to “Oh really? I can retire next year?”
And the best part is that it isn’t genetic. If you do have issues to fix, you can do it just by changing your behavior. Or maybe just your mindset. Your DNA doesn’t matter.
So take it from me, the guy who procrastinated for more than a decade about going to the dentist. It’s probably not nearly as bad as you think.