Tuesday, February 10, 2009

An Introduction: A Challenge to Common Financial Thought

1: Hopes are dashed with disappointments as stocks dip in October 2008
2: Arctic ice crashes

The rest of the world is on a disillusioned note towards the free market economy. Money has been power for most, well, it still is; ever wondered why we feel so helpless nowadays.

Hearing the business news does make us cringe. Companies declare huge losses and even bankruptcy, massive layoffs from one industry to another, the value of retirement plans linked to investment vehicles cut down by nearly half, and we think to ourselves, “When is this going to end?” or “What’s next?”

We cannot seem to escape it, that’s all the news there is. It’s even hogging the headlines of our daily lives. Words like rent, mortgage, credit, debts, loans, expenses and liabilities keep on popping up in our heads until worries set in, dampen our resolve and dull our spirits.
These are definitely tough times. For others, these may even be dark days. Somehow, we find it hard to believe that the greed of a few can mangle the globe. And they’re telling us this going is going to take sometime, maybe even longer before we could get back up.

The last thing that we should think about doing is quitting.

What we need to do is to reassess our perspective, our view on success, thereby looking at life in a bigger scope. Somehow, we need to rethink our financial stance and the idea that only material wealth can ultimately make us happy. We may not be aware of it, but somehow, we have that in our heads.

Material wealth is part of success, but it's only a part of the bigger picture. What's worse is we fall in love in the process of amassing wealth only to find out that its fruits contain only a narrow definition of success.

Part of not quitting is knowing what our "remaining" assets are. More importantly, part of success is being aware of what real assets we have and taking care of them, making them last, that we may longer enjoy its fruits. Others, more often than not, are surprised at the idea that their most precious assets are non-material (and we usually take for granted that truth too).

Along with these important, untapped, and hidden non-material assets and resources, we can make better use of the material ones for our future advantage. This is the basic objective of The Hidden Investment. How to do it? It's about helping each other in repositioning ourselves in this big, big picture that is life and living it to the fullest.

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