If I Could Audit My 20-Year-Old Self
I have spent a good part of my career reviewing numbers, asking questions, looking for things that don't make sense, and occasionally telling people things they didn't particularly want to hear. That is what auditors do.
He didn't even hesitate.
“Nope. We would still be found at the best bar in town.”
We laughed. But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered whether he had a point.
We like to believe that if we could go back with everything we know today, we would get it all right. We would save more, study harder, recognize opportunities sooner, spend more time with the people we love, avoid some mistakes and make better choices.
But would we? Or would we still be at the best bar in town, laughing with our friends and convinced that we had plenty of time to figure life out?
That conversation got the CPA in me thinking: What if I could audit my 20-year-old self?
There he is. A young man from India, with hostel life behind him and not much money of his own—but already blessed in ways he probably didn't fully appreciate. I had inherited something far more valuable: a wonderful older sister who was then, is now, and has always been incredibly generous to me.
No CPA license. No business. No America. No wife. No daughters. And absolutely no idea where life was going to take him.
Mr. Cornelius, please take a seat.
Your audit has begun.
Finding #1: Insufficient Cash Reserves
This one wouldn't take long. Cash position: terrible. Financial assets: almost nonexistent. Future earning potential: unable to substantiate.
Yet strangely, the young man wasn't terribly worried about it. He could enjoy a simple cream bun that cost a few paise and feel like he had received something magnificent.
Today I understand cash flow, investments, retirement, interest rates and financial planning considerably better. But sometimes I wonder whether that 20-year-old understood something about wealth that this CPA occasionally forgets:
You don't need to own very much to enjoy what you already have.
Audit adjustment: None. Perhaps the auditor needs the adjustment.
Finding #2: Excessive Risk
Young Vish had no five-year strategic plan. I am not sure he had a five-day strategic plan. But he was willing to try things, travel, meet people, take chances and walk through doors without knowing exactly what was waiting on the other side.
At my age, I know how to analyze risk—perhaps sometimes too well. As we get older, we become very good at calculating everything that could go wrong before asking what might go right.
Twenty-year-old Vish didn't have enough experience to know all the reasons something might fail. Funny enough, that ignorance occasionally turned out to be an asset.
Recommendation to current management: Bring back a little of that young man's courage.
Finding #3: Poor Appreciation of Certain Assets
This would probably be my biggest finding. At 20, I didn't fully understand the value of some of the people around me—my mother, my brothers, my older sisters whose generosity I benefited from long before I was old enough to understand just how much it meant, my friends, my teachers, and many others whose presence seemed permanent simply because they had always been there.
When you are young, you assume there will always be another Christmas, another meal together, another conversation and another opportunity to say thank you.
Then life teaches you something accounting never did:
Some assets disappear from the balance sheet without warning. And once they are gone, no journal entry can bring them back.
So I would tell my 20-year-old self: Take more pictures. Ask more questions. Listen to your mother's stories even when you've heard them before. Spend more time with your brothers. Appreciate your sister not just for what she gives you, but for the love behind the giving. Tell people what they mean to you while they are still there to hear it.
Finding #4: A Couple of Opportunities Were Not Identified
Every audit has exceptions, and there were a couple of opportunities I didn't recognize at the time. There were people I should have stayed in touch with, doors I didn't realize were open and chances I probably should have taken.
There is also one habit I wish I had discovered much earlier: starting my day at 5:00 AM.
I wish someone had convinced that 20-year-old that getting up a couple of hours before the rest of the world wasn't punishment—it was an advantage. An uninterrupted hour to think, pray, exercise, read, plan or simply get ahead before the phones started ringing and the world began asking for my time.
If I had started that habit at 20, imagine the compound interest on all those extra productive hours. Starting at 5:00 AM could have given me a leg up—not because I was smarter or more talented than everyone else, but simply because I was already moving while much of the world was still sleeping.
At 20, some opportunities looked like inconveniences. Some looked too difficult. And some simply didn't look like opportunities at all. That's one of life's frustrating accounting rules: By the time you have enough experience to recognize every opportunity, some of them have already expired.
But I wouldn't make a huge adjustment here, because some doors I missed led me toward other doors I never knew existed. Looking back, I cannot always tell which was the missed opportunity and which was the blessing.
Finding #5: Confidence — Perhaps Overcapitalized
This is one area where the auditor would have very little corrective advice. At 20, I didn't spend much time worrying about what other people thought of me. If I wanted to do something, I generally did it. If I had something to say, chances were pretty good that I said it.
Approval was nice, but it was never a prerequisite.
Looking back, that confidence probably got me into trouble a few times. It may have made me stubborn, and it certainly didn't mean I was always right. But it also meant that rejection didn't frighten me very much. I didn't need everyone in the room to agree with me before I moved forward.
Age and experience have taught me to listen more carefully, consider another person's point of view and occasionally admit—painful as this may be for a CPA—that somebody else might actually be right.
I wouldn't tell my 20-year-old self to care more about what people thought. I would tell him: Keep the confidence. Lose a little of the stubbornness. Know the difference between ignoring unnecessary opinions and ignoring good advice. One is independence. The other is foolishness.
Audit adjustment: No adjustment to confidence. Perhaps a small reclassification from Stubbornness to Listening Skills.
Finding #6: Faith — Internal Controls Strong
This one might surprise the auditor. That young man didn't know much about where his life was headed, but he knew Who he believed was going with him.
Over the years, I gained education, experience, a career, a CPA license, businesses, a family and a life in America that the 20-year-old sitting in India probably could not have imagined.
But none of those things eliminated uncertainty. If anything, adulthood simply gave me more sophisticated things to worry about.
The faith I carried when I had very little is the same faith I need when I have much more.
No audit adjustment required.
Finding #7: Listen More
This finding applies to both versions of me. Twenty-year-old Vish needed to listen more because he thought he knew everything. Older Vish needs to listen more because he has enough experience to think he has heard everything.
My wife would probably request that the audit report classify this as an ongoing material weakness.
Management response: “I was listening.”
Auditor's response: “Then what did she just say?”
Management has declined further comment.
Final Audit Opinion
After completing my examination, I think I would sit across the table from that 20-year-old and realize something I wasn't expecting:
I wouldn't want to change him very much.
Yes, I would tell him to save more, wake up at 5:00 AM, worry less, talk to his mother more often, spend more time with his brothers, thank his sisters more often, recognize a couple of opportunities sooner and take better care of his body because apparently knees have a useful life.
And I would probably pull him aside and give him one more piece of advice:
“Don't waste too much time looking for a girl. Your chosen one is over in Jaffna, bossing around an entire town. She'll find you when the time is right.”
Of course, the 20-year-old me probably wouldn't believe a word of it. How could a young man sitting in India possibly know that somewhere across the water in Sri Lanka, a young woman was living her own story—and that one day our two stories would somehow become one?
Some things in life aren't opportunities you have to chase. Some arrive exactly when they are supposed to.
And perhaps I would also tell him to buy some Apple stock whenever that becomes possible.
But I wouldn't tell him everything that was going to happen. I wouldn't tell him about every success, and I certainly wouldn't tell him about every loss. Because part of what made him who he became was walking forward without knowing the ending.
Before closing the audit, though, I think I would ask him one question:
“Is there anything you would tell me?”
I suspect that 20-year-old would look at the older CPA sitting across from him and say:
“You worry too much. You have more than you ever dreamed you would have. Why don't you enjoy it a little more?”
And suddenly, I wouldn't know who was auditing whom.
Auditor's Conclusion
After reviewing the evidence, considering the exceptions and evaluating the internal controls, my conclusion would be:
No restatement required.
There were mistakes. There were missed opportunities. There were losses and certainly some questionable entries. But there were also blessings I could never have planned, people I could never have scheduled into my life, and doors I could never have opened by myself.
So I would sign the report.
Going concern: Yes. Uncorrected differences: A few. Opinion: Grateful.
And one final note to that 20-year-old:
Keep going, young man.
The books aren't going to be perfect. They were never supposed to be. Someday you're going to look back and realize they balanced far better than you knew.
And if, by some miracle, my friend and I really did get the chance to go back and do it all over again, I'd like to believe we'd be wiser. We'd wake up earlier. Save a little more. Worry a little less. Recognize opportunities sooner. Appreciate people while they were still around. Make fewer mistakes.
But knowing the two of us...
We would probably still be found at the best bar in town.
And you know what?
Maybe I wouldn't adjust that entry either.