In some aspects of life, it’s pretty obvious that we need to stay above zero.

• In my favorite “low oxygen environment” (kayaking in the river), it doesn’t matter that I’ve had plenty of oxygen available to me for decades. If I put myself in a situation where I’m without oxygen for 4 or more minutes, bye bye me.
• When a blood pressure goes to zero. Or a heart rate goes to zero.
• When founding populations are small, it can lead to trait extinction (see Figure 2). This is far less common in large populations.

Sometimes it’s less obvious:

• When increasing standards of living have caused me to slip into negative cash flow, without even realizing it because of the complexities of disconnecting bank account balances from credit card spending, and friction reducers such as requiring reoccurring payments.
• When college has become an experience, a standard part of growing up, instead of an educational opportunity only needed for certain fields. But now it therefore comes with “experiential” prime pricing, and many careers don’t provide a real financial return on investment.
• When our population is aging but only as extended years of unhealthy life, and in need of more long term care support, but years of inability to estimate costs and unliveably low wages have driven out options for receiving long term care. And you realize it when your Mom has fallen, broken her hip, is about to be discharged from the hospital, and needs somewhere to go today.
• When a mortgage contract, with its dozens of pages, buries the fact it has a “call” option on your mortgage. Which is most likely to be exercised when the economy is tanking, possibly having taken your job and your savings (and in 2020, your health) with it.
• When hospital capacities are routinely pushed to the normal limits because that’s the most effective use of resources (in the short term planning definition). And then we have a new disease that skyrockets hospitalization needs, while also forcing hospitals to stop income-producing routine care, causing rural hospitals to fail and close.
• Individual stocks can go to zero. The most widely known example of this is Enron (1, 2, 3), where employee investors lost everything. Diversified mutual funds, however, are not likely to go to zero unless the whole world is collapsing.

Staying aware of the consequences of our actions, and keeping above zero, is something that takes deliberate planning and risk assessment.

It doesn’t matter how high above zero we can take our roller coaster; the very first time the roller coaster hits the ground, your ride is done. And that’s the role of planning ahead, having your health (for the conditions you can protect against through good diet, exercise, healthy living), having an emergency fund, playing defense with various insurance (life, health, long term care, home owners/renters, auto, umbrella), and having a network of people who love you that you can fall back on in hard times.

Do you have some good soft, absorbent, crash mats to keep you from hitting zero?