Alexander Hamilton said, “I have thought it my duty to exhibit things as they are, not as they ought to be.” So often, we paint our perspective of past, current, and future events with what ought to be that we miss what *is*. Keeping a level head and focusing on the long-term is a surefire way to improve your outcomes.

I just participated in my 20th annual fantasy baseball draft over the weekend. Talk about an intro that puts people to sleep! Don’t worry, I won’t bore you with the details of my picks (I’ve found that nobody cares). However, I can’t help but notice the investing principles contained in the process of selecting the players for my team. Here are the top three takeaways from the weekend.

Death and taxes, as we all know, are the inevitabilities in life. We spend a lot of time and energy avoiding the former and almost as much mental capital trying to prevent the latter. But should we? As unpleasant as they are, taxes are born out of a successful endeavor where we earned or won money in some form. That being said, you should still be “tax-aware” with your finances to minimize the drag that taxes have on your bottom line. After all, we don’t want to line Uncle Sam’s pockets unnecessarily.

There are many vehicles for saving money, but few are as flexible as a Roth IRA. One can have retirement savings, emergency money, and college savings in one convenient place.