"It's impossible to conceive of..." has been a common introduction to many conversations whether its financial pundits on CNN or CBC, blogs processing everyone's reactions to the incomprehensible or friends commiserating over coffee and their "sudden" financial vulnerability. Yet, isn't an important part of the financial world supposed to include anticipating and minimizing risks?

"We never imagined..." is a common phrase in interviews with top executives and government officials. But aren't they looked to by others to gain insight into what the future holds and why these powerful individuals are doing what they're doing?

If, ten or twenty years down the road, you say one of both of these things about your then-current situation, what will that cost you? That's what future planning involves today. Building in as much resilience and resourcefulness into the elements of your life and into your way of thinking as you can, so that you remain as flexible as possible whatever happens.

The financial mess, which just keeps getting worse, is a terrific time to think about how you make decisions and how you have gotten where you are today. The more aware you are of how you decide, the better able you'll be to successfully navigate the bumpy ride ahead.

• Continuously checking your stock portfolio isn't going to help things improve and blaming yourself or others for your situation won't either. This deliberate thinking will also calm media-induced panic, so you don't overreact or become frozen in the headlights.
• In the short run, before you decide how to act on the financial challenges you face, take some time to retrace your decision-making steps. You're not looking for "if only I'd" elements, but for the many small cross roads which we act on consciously and unconsciously.
  
• How many times has making no decision caused a decision to be made for you that you now realize is tough to live with? How many times has priority setting or the lack of it caused you to miss out on opportunities?
  

The pieces of the puzzle have all been there for everyone to see. Without imagining the worst or conceiving of impossible negative outcomes, how could possible disastrous interactions be uncovered before they happened. It's the unsinkable Titanic all over again. Although financial disaster has been looming for quite a while now, forecasting the crunch is complicated by thousands of unpredictable human reactions and decisions. Futurists know the closer to today you envision, the more difficult it is to accurately predict specific outcomes. All this is true for your life, finances and future.

So, you may be sure reverse mortgages are not for you and that's that. But the financial crunch many property owners are faced with may cast a new light on this option. Problems will arise for those signing on for a reverse mortgage when those decisions are made the same way people made choices to end up in this situation in the first place. History unconsciously repeats itself. Do you?