Every day, we're hearing more and more stories about people who are worried sick about their finances. These are people who put their entire savings into bonds of a company that went bust, or even put their money into diversified stocks, which are down about 40% from their highs last year. A lot of folks have even gotten out of the market entirely, fed up with -- and afraid of -- the declines.

While it's easy for experts to say that individual investors should "just ride it out," it's agonizing for people, even if they don't need that money right away, to see their net worth diminish.

Then, there's my dad. He recently retired from a long career, and saved well. But not a penny he saved ever went into stocks. It went into CDs, Treasuries -- only the safest instruments.

There are a lot of people who would smirk at that. Modern financial theory holds that if you're saving for five years down the road or longer, you should be in stocks because that's the only way that seems to beat inflation over time.

I even talked to a financial adviser a few weeks ago who said people who are as risk-averse as my father are "stupid." Warren Buffett said in an editorial that the strategy of holding cash equivalents is "terrible."

Yes, it's true that my father is not what most people would call "rich." But his goal wasn't to be rich. Born in the last year of Hoover's administration, he had his earliest memories in the darkest days of the Great Depression. His widowed mother scraped by with a shoe-factory job to feed her two children. The soup lines were long, and people would occasionally come to the door begging for a bit of work in return for a meal.

Not exactly an environment that fosters a drive to take financial risks.

So when my father put away his money, his goal wasn't to jet-set around the world, or own the biggest possible house, or the flashiest car. His goal was simply to be financially secure.

And he's done just that. I'm sure my family doesn't have nearly as much money as we would have if he'd invested in stocks, but it also meant that we could experience Black Monday in 1987, the dot-com bust in 2001 and even this terrible decline now basically as observers, rather than as those affected by it. There's a lot of peace of mind in that.

The lesson is this: anyone who is upset, who is worried sick or can't sleep at night because they can't bear to see their net worth decline so much, should take another look at how much risk they're carrying. At some point, evaluate what you own and get more conservative. Because even owning cash and Treasurys isn't as terrible a strategy as buying at the peaks and selling at the lows, which is what anyone who's gotten out of the stock market in recent weeks has probably done.

This isn't just a "right now" lesson. In fact, the most important time to remember this will be years down the road, during the next boom. Because there will be a next boom -- there always is -- and along with it will come the people at parties, the cab drivers and the twentysomething wunderkinds who will tell you how their investment made a 30% return last year, or doubled, or tripled.

As tempting as it will be to follow them, everyone who is in agony right now should remember this agony, and nod and smile as the risk-takers talk, and stay invested conservatively. Peace of mind is worth a lot.

Hey, Dad -- nice job. Thanks.