Most of us are familiar with Aesop’s fable of the ant and the grasshopper: the hard working ants slave away all summer building nests and storing food while the lazy grasshopper idly eats and makes merry. Each one calls the other foolish: the grasshopper tells the ants they should relax and enjoy life, while the ants admonish the grasshopper to work harder and prepare for winter. In the end the ants have the last laugh when winter comes and they have food and shelter while the grasshopper has none.

It should be noted that Aesop was not a bug expert. If he was, he might have realized that grasshoppers only live a few months and do not survive long enough to even see winter. Knowing this, the grasshopper was actually quite wise to ignore the ants’ advice. He lived his life to the fullest, with no time wasted on unnecessary labors.

The true moral of the story is this: it is equally foolish to hoard wealth we’ll never use as it is to squander wealth that we’ll need in the future.

None of us knows the date that is going on our death certificate. We should strive to emulate both the ant and the grasshopper, because we never know which one we’ll wind up as. Like the ant, we should work hard and save wisely to prepare for the future. But like the grasshopper we should also enjoy what we have, while we have it. We need to have a little fun every day, because we never know how many days we have left.