Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a f***ing big television. Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin can openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance.
And so the unfortunately concluding diatribe from Trainspotting character Renton, played by Ewan McGregor in the movie, goes.
Junior Foreign Office Minister Mark Simmonds MP resigned from government this morning, telling the BBC he had to “put family life first”.
50 year old Mr Simmonds is married with three children.
He lashed out at the remuneration and expenses system for Members of Parliament, explaining these made it impossible for him to spend quality time with his family in London.
Simmonds said: “The allowances that enable Members of Parliament to stay in London while they are away from their families – my family lives in Lincolnshire in my constituency – does not allow me to rent a flat which can accommodate my family, so I very rarely see my family and I have to put family life first.”
He said that spending another five years rarely seeing his children and staying in a different hotel room each night “fills me with horror”.
And who can blame him?
Leaving aside the widespread criticism of the explanation behind his resignation, it appears that Simmonds decided to choose life over career.
We all have to make choices from time to time, giving priority to different aspects of our lives.
There’s a lot of talk about work/life balance, which in reality is often one and the same thing; our work lives and entwined with our actual lives in the majority of cases.
Where Financial Planning can play such an important role is to ensure we can support our goals in life financially, without having to make compromises or make career decisions which detract from our overall happiness.
What Mark Simmonds appears to have done with his resignation is place his family first; leaving aside the politics of the decision – or the headline figures about his salary, allowances and expenses – I’m not sure any of us could argue that was a bad decision.
