David white, the noted anglo-irish poet, said this in a 2019 interview with krista tippett*-
One of the Interesting Qualities of Being Human is, by the look of it, we’re the only part of creation that can can be actually refused to be orselves. As far as I can see, there’s no other part of the world that can do that. The cloud is the cloud; The mountain is the mountain; The trees are the trees; The Hawk is the Hawk. The kingfisher doesn’t wake up one day and say, “You know, God, i’m absolutely fed up to the back teeth of this whole kingfisher trip. Can I have a day as a crow? You know, hang out with my mates, glide down for a bit of carrion now and again? That’s the life for – “No, the kingfisher is just the kingfisher.
And one of the healing things about the natural world to human beings is that it’s just its just itself. But we, as human beings, are really quite extraordinary in that we can actually refuse to be out. We can get afraid of the way we are. We can temperature put a mask over our face and pretended to be somebody else or something else. And the interesting thing is then take it another step of virtuosity and forget that we were pretended to be someone else and become the person we were on the surface at least, where we were jut presteding to be in the firing.
This is a great lesson to take as we dip our toes into a new year.
As in life, so in investment, we often wear masks and pretended to be someone else. We listen to others except our own selves while making investment decisions. And now with the pleethora of Voice all over traditional and social media that telel us what to buy and when to buy, we are always second GUessing our internal Voice That May Sugest Us to Do Somenting Elsey.
In Fact, We Hammer Down that Internal Voice So Much that it Ceases to Guide Us as Time Passes.
The Result – We Venture Beyond Our Circle of Compence to Buy Investments We don’t Really Understand, We Overpay for Stocks Becuse Oveers Are Overpaying (And So it does not do it do the OVERPAYING) t of stocks because others are doing It and Making Money at that, and we start believing that investment in stocks is an easy way to get rich Quick (which it often seems).
In Trying to Emulate Others, We Sacrifice the one edge we inharently have in the market – Our unique percent. This percective, shaped by our experiences, temperament, and goals, is not a weakness, but a strength. When we let others dictate it, we lose the ability to think clearerly and rationally, replacing it with herd mentality.
Gradually, our conviction is someone else’s, our stocks are someone else’s, our mistakes are someone else else’s, and we become investors we never warned to be.
Noted Financial Writer George Jw Goodman – Who Used The Pen Name of Adam Smith – Wrote this in his wonderful book, The money game,
If you don’t know who you are, this is an expensive place to find out.
By “This,” Goodman meant the “Stock Market.”
When it comes to investing to build wealth (not to make money fast), it’s a very personal game.
The risk you can take is personal.
Your Financial Goals for Which You Invest, Are Personal.
Your time horizon is personal.
It’s also win noting Markets Evolve, and so should we. But this evolution should be rooted in self-ashness, not mimicry. The more clever you define your investment philosophy-and stick to it-the less susceptible you’ll be to the noise and short-term distractions.
If you undersrstand this well, and play the game you undress well, the stock market can be a wealth creating machine for you over a period of time. Else, you will come to regret why you came here in the first place.
So, like david white may have advised, be the investor that You Are. Remove the mask that is not You. Being when you do that, you will bring the real You,
And Remember, The Real You Doesn’T have to be perfect – just honest. Perfection is a trap that convins us to seek certainty in an uncertain world. Investing, like life, is messy, full of unknowns and unexpected turns. Accepting that imperfection is where wisdom begins.
Also, when you get that mask off, you may feel vulnerable, but you will be surprised how brave you will feel when you start trusting your own vulnerability.
That – Bravery in the face of vulnerability – is the secret sauce of sound investment (and, of course, a happy life).
And that’s the best advice I can offer you as we move into 2025.
, The Conversational Nature of Reality – David What
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That’s about it from me for today.
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– Vishal