The stories of fruit vendors in India and farmers from Kenya show that many people cannot save even when there are great savings opportunities. This proves that barriers do not always come from the outside. Part of it is also due to human psychology. Most of us, when we were children, have at times denied that we didn't eat a cake, blaming the cake for evaporating when our parents got angry. I know I'll get into trouble if I sneak it, but the cake is so delicious that I can't help myself.

As mentioned in Chapter 3 on preventive medicine, the human brain processes the present and the future very differently. Essentially, how we behave today and how we will actually behave tomorrow is often at odds with what we imagine ourselves to be like in the future. An example that illustrates this type of "time inconsistency" is spending today but at the same time planning to save for tomorrow. In other words, we hope our "future self" will be more patient than our "present self."