It's time again to 'pinch your measuring tape'

With New Year's Eve almost here, it's the ideal time to "pinch your tape measure," and check your investments in the "401k of your soul," as I write again this year, below.

The old man sported an imaginary tape measure and a very real look suggesting, "Listen up youngster, you might find this interesting."

He then reeled off his age in inches - 10, 20, 40, 60, 70-plus inches - and pinched the tape at that exact spot with his huge hands. He watched several feet of invisible inches fall to the floor. I watched too, as if they were really there.

"You see that? That's gone in our life," the old man said, referring to himself and his bride of many decades.

He then looked at the handful of remaining inches left on his tape measure.

"This," he told me without a hint of self-pity or drama, "this is what we have left."

I met with the old man and his wife to talk about investing in a 401(k).

Not the kind with share earnings and compounded interest, but the kind that stashes away priceless moments and compounded memories. Think of it as an emotional 401(k), one with life's special moments squirreled away into memory vaults for decades.

These direct-deposit moments draw interest as the years peel away, banked in the back of your mind.

I call it a 401(k) for the soul. And the old man and his wife are expert bankers for such life investments.

I was once reminded of such a 401(k) while talking with Phil McCord, the former Valparaiso resident credited with benefiting from Blessed Mother Theodore Guerin's second miracle to sainthood.

Inside the church where his vision-restoring miracle took place, McCord explained how his job at Guerin's downstate convent offered him the kind of benefits that don't show up on some 401(k) summary sheet.

"They're intangible, but priceless," McCord said.

What's that you say? You can't afford to invest in this type of account? Sure you can.

The old couple was able to travel around the world, as often as possible. But usually on a shoestring budget or with a tour group. At every port of stay, they deposited their 401(k) memories, like sea-side tourists digging up shells along a beachfront.

Today, their modest Hammond home is brimming with 401(k) dividends. They call them souvenirs. I call them deposit slips, proof that they made their investments.

What's that you say? You're too busy to invest?

I know you're busy. I'm busy, too. We're all busy. Some of us by circumstance, others by choice.

But somewhere in between our busy lives we need to find time to make deposits into our 401(k) of the soul. If that concept is too ethereal, think of it more simply as a concrete investment to living a happier, more content life in your golden years -- after retirement, after life settles down, after "busy" gets possibly replaced by "bored."

The old man and his wife led busy lives too, raising two sons, working hard, same as you and me.

Yet these days the couple is able to cash in on their emotional 401(k)s, withdraw priceless memories here and there and spending them on each other.

If they didn't stash away those good times, maybe they would be bitter with each other, angry at the world, or bankrupt of happiness at this point.

But they're not. With so many inches left in their life, they're still making measurable investments in his 401(k).