If you’ve been following my blog then you’ll be aware that I attended a property investment seminar a couple weeks back by Milan Doshi. During the three days, Milan spoke at great length over the idea of self-delayed gratification. He taught us all that luxuries can be kept for later, and that it was most important to stabilize your finances first.
As someone who has be known to spend excessively on things I don’t need but things that I want, I took this to heart. It’s something that I’ve given a lot of thought to and decided that, perhaps, I should save for the future.
I put on hold my plans to purchase my dream home. Instead I concentrated on making intelligent investments that will pay out later in life.
And then flight MH 370 vanished.
It completely stopped me in my tracks. I travel a lot. And the fact that a plane, which I could easily have been on, could disappear… Well, it could happen to anyone.
Even though odds are low, I’m still hoping for that miracle that when we find them, they are surviving at some island that has no connectivity to the outside world.
You could have everything going for you and in a blink of an eye it’s taken away. Not just by factors brought on by yourself, but outside causes that you have no control over whatsoever. Life is such a fleeting moment, it can end at any moment.
So I decided, fuck it. I’m going to buy the home I’ve always wanted.
I signed for a place that overlooks the golf course, something that I’ve been thinking of for a while.
It is absolutely 100% totally against everything that Milan advised me to do. But the way I see it, all these investment strategies assume that you’ll live til a ripe old age. And you can’t be certain of that. No one can.
As a result of this, I’ve decided that it’s far more important to learn how to earn more, rather than learning how to save more. I’ve never believed that we should sit around and save money just so we can have a comfortable like later.
Yes, investment-wise I made a bad choice.
But what’s life if you’re not living it the way you want? Merely survival. Of course I’m not saying that you should max out your credit cards and buy everything under the sun just because you want to. I’m not saying that you should take out a second mortgage and multiple bank loans so you can buy shit you don’t need.
What you need is to find a balance between earning and saving.
What’s your primary question?
Tony says we all have a primary question that we ask ourselves, and it’s this question that determines and guides every decision we make, every action we take in our lives. We all have our own.
But I feel for the most part, based on what society tells us and our upbringing, the primary question for many people is: “How can I save more money?”
If this is your thinking, you will forever be looking for ways to skimp, to not reward yourself, to choose the chicken over the steak…
I think the question that we should have instilled in us ought to be: “How can I increase my earning capacity?”
Do you see the difference?
With that set as your primary question you will constantly be looking for new opportunities to grow, not only financially but personally too.
And so my mindset remains, rather than focusing on saving, focus instead on how to increase your earning.
Everyone dies. Not everyone truly lives. Life is short. Appreciate it by living.
