The stakes are high. We are asking people to make decisions that will impact their lives 40 or 50 years from now, and we need words for those sorts of decisions. These issues are there, under that rock. It is one thing for an 8-year-old to call mysterious underground life forms "bugs, worms and creepy-crawlies." It is another for a profession to do it. Without articulate distinctions, we cannot isolate issues, compare responses, take from the gardens of other disciplines or otherwise advance those parts of the financial planning profession that would allow us to look at the world through the eyes of individuals.

We need our words.

Richard B. Wagner, JD, CFP, is the principal of WorthLiving LLC, based in Denver. He is the 2003 recipient of the Financial Planning Association's P. Kemp Fain Jr. Award, which recognizes a member who has made outstanding contributions to the profession.

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