Hedging Your Investments

It's an interesting testament to economics that many of life's lessons mesh so well within metaphors based on finance. It seems as if all of life, in some fashion is related to giving and receiving, transfer of goods and services if you will, and how giving and being given to affects our standing physically, mentally, and emotionally. This idea rose to the foreground of my mind after a discussion I had with my father earlier this evening.

One thing I nearly constantly find myself defunct in is risk. This is somewhat oxymoronic because I take from both of my parent's sides. My father's spontaneity is readily apparent to anyone who has seen me latch to a new idea or begin to explore a new project. My mother is more careful and planning, setting aside her time quite well generally, and this I do as well, though to the extreme.

It is human nature to shun failure. Failure, by definition, brings with it negative side effects, and negative sentiments both to the attempting party, as well as those those influenced by the attempt itself. It's easy to criticize both those who make mistakes and those who are paralyzed in any fashion by the fear of being mistaken. It's commonly assumed that stupid people doing stupid things make mistakes. Certainly, everyone will outwardly acknowledge that "everybody makes mistakes," either to comfort themselves or a wayward child, but this revelation rarely carries over in to the day-by-day. Who, upon seeing a desolate man or woman by the side of the road or a frightened accidental father or mother for instance, would at first instinct think that "everybody makes mistakes?" Very very few of us it seems, at least to my poor limited observation, and I count myself as guilty as anyone else in that respect.

Humans fear mistakes, it's part of our make-up however illogical this tendency is. There are VERY few mistakes that a common every day person can make that could shake the foundations of even their neighborhood, much less their city, county, state, country, or the world. There are very few mistakes so horrible that their effects are insurmountable (please notice that I did not say irreversible.) Take social for instance, my own area of shortfall. Social interaction, especially a the middle and lower-middle class levels that I personally have occasion to frequent, is not a universe altering arena. You tick someone off, no big deal. You make an idiot of yourself, it only matters as much as you allow it. However, due to the short-comings of human nature, risk can prove cripplingly limiting.

As with most reactions in life this crippling effect is built around what we value. I, personally, value the effect that I have on other people. I see interaction as an opportunity to invest in some one's life, to expend of my personal energies and talents to help another human being. This tendency seems illogical it seems, and it's not always served me well in the past, but I must admit that it is a segment of my nature. A relationship, to me, is a giving experience. However, even with the best of intentions, it is an impossibility to give unless one is also receiving. My personal fear of failure is that fear of not receiving. I know this sounds selfish initially, but please take take to consider what I am truly saying. I am afraid of giving and giving and giving, surrendering everything in a pursuit or for a goal and then getting nothing in return.

It stands to reason then that I value my energy and talent (who doesn't?) and that I value the effect they have. I want the highest amount of positive value to be bestowed on an individual for the amount of value (in the form of energy and talent) that I invest. In return I receive contentment in direct proportion to the amount of good that I bring to that individual. To use a metaphor I am investing my element of value to increase someone else's value, and then reaping value of a different sort from the effects of my investment.

Here's where the glitch hops in to the switches though. This approach has not served me well. I've seen my good intentions and efforts wasted, misused, and abused very badly. Those of you who selflessly give and have never experienced this phenomenon I crave your divine indulgence as a lowly human being. I'm simply being honest, and I think that if nearly anyone on this planet were honest on this matter their sentiments toward this issue would be similar. To use the economic metaphor, I invested in the stock market and my investments tanked.

My solution was to withdraw all of my "funds" from the stock market, and promptly shove it in to a low interest secured fund, where my value was guaranteed never to go down, and all of my investments were secured by the lovely FDIC and their protection up to $100,000. There's a problem however with my theory, and the framework I built around it accordingly. My investments never grow because (drum-roll) they're NOT INVESTED. By hedging my energy and talent-based investments I have limited myself as well as those energies and talents. I have destroyed my capacity, not just for being socially well lubricated or 'nice', but rather to live. I've been a blind fool to miss this, and the irony is that I've been tying the blindfold myself. This is something we all do though, at some points in our lives, and for different reasons.

The solution to pain is not to be careful. Pain is vicious, it will find you wherever you are, through whatever you hide behind. If it can no longer stab you it will find a way to dully throb. If it can't throb then it will lurk, and spring out at any chance, the vestiges of a hidden hurt perhaps festered and grown since last you encountered and buried it. To fail and be failed is human, just as to rise and fall is the economic cycle. However, we should not let the fluctuations of what we have invested in dominate our decisions in the future. If we must, we reinvest, but never should we resort to shove our valuables in to a hole in the ground and sitting atop it. We do not grow this way, and in the end we slowly die inside.

The Rules of Engagement

Well, as far as bloggers go I imagine I'm rather behind the curve. I've considered starting a blog on several occasions but I've never worked up the gumption to take a crack at finding my niche in the "blog-o-sphere."

Over the course of the last year or so I've been informed repeatedly by several different people that I apparently talk too much. A person who has too much water bottles it and sells it, an individual with excessive possessions has a yard sale, and so I imagine the best use for thinking too much is to jot those thoughts down and shoot them in to the fray.

So, to inaugurate this new adventure, I wish to make my intentions and expectations clear to anyone who cares to read. First of all, I write randomly. Anything that catches my fancy, whether it's currently events, personal experiences, or any random inkling that happens to flicker across my synapses constitutes free game. I occasionally labor intensively over what may seem like the simplest and rudimentary things. My goal for this blog is to pick apart things that I personally find interesting, and encourage you to take interest as well.

For the moment I have chosen to personally scan all of the comments submitted to my blog, to make sure that the initial barrages are of a reasonable quality and kill spammers. It's my wish that everyone who has a valid say (as determined by the quality of their effort, not the content of that effort) gets a chance to comment. I'll do my best to respond where applicable when I have the time because I believe that I have as much to gain from doing so as anyone else involved. On that note, please reply with a level of quality equivalent to the point you're trying to make (you may be the next Aristotle, but if you don't take the time to write sharply then no one is going to care, no matter how good the idea sounds in your head or how smart your grandmother told you you were.)

I can be sharp and brash sometimes, but my goal is never to offend. It's my hope that no one has occasion to become genuinely offended, and that everyone will benefit in the end. I look forward to the future. That's really the only place the future can be found anyway.