That’s how I think…
What is the purpose of investing, and why do we do it?
I’m confident if you asked a hundred people these questions, you will get a hundred different answers. After all, investing is as personal as anything else.
It’s easy to see that some people might consider investing as a way to show off, like buying a fancy, gorily-expensive sports car. In such as case, the vehicle is a means to show off. But is investing the same?
Investing can be a competitive sport, if you let it. I can imagine that to some, where comparisons and bids to out-do each other are common, that investing and financial matter can be something to either brag about or use to denigrate others. But that is just a waste or time, energy, and spirit.
Here, Now
In my view, investing has been and is a path to financial security. Namely, to get to a place where I never need to worry about whether, in the normal course of events, I will be in poverty. That I will have enough to be comfortable. That I will not find myself disgusted about my distressed financial condition.
Viewpoint
My perspective has changed since I retired. When I was working, I considered my investments and retirement accounts as a way to increase my net worth, and something about “my future.” That elusive future self, which I had only a vague understanding or perception of, was unclear but constantly looming.
Now that I have been retired for a few years, I see these investments as a life preserver, a method towards financial well-being. I am in a position now, should I be prudent with my finances, that I would no longer need to work, that I can care for myself and family without needing to sell my time for money. That I am financially “free.”
That viewpoint, that money is means to security, is in my view, not necessarily obvious to a young person starting their working career. When I was in my early twenties, I viewed working for salary as the method to get fed, clothed, and housed. Namely, simple survival.
Over time, as my working career flourished, as my salary did, I was able to save and invest. I knew it was the right thing to do, but if you had pressed me into explaining what I might use that money for, I would probably has a hard time explaining what I was doing it for. I would have fallen back on some simple platitudes and explanations I had probably heard.
Nowadays, as a retired person, I see things in a different light. I feel that my financial condition provides a positive infrastructure to my life. Similarly to the infrastructure of a city, where roads, streets, buildings, transportation, water pipes, bridges, and all the constructions that make life accessible in a city, so too in my life my financial situation gives me the potential to have a life I enjoy.
It is how I use my resources that determines how well I live.
What is your take on you financial situation? Let me know here.
The paper lantern chromolithograph shown is part of a catalog manufactured by the C. Riethmüller company of Baden-Württemberg, Germany, published in 1880 in “Papierlaternen-Fabrik Riethmüller”. Courtesy Metropolian Museum of Art.
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