STRANGERS

They say, strangers are friends you haven’t met yet. However, the bitter irony is that we so often hear disheartening and daunting stories of how people fall prey to the ethics of these strangers that our mind clock ticks a zillion times before befriending anybody. Our guarded mindset warns us to be alert. There is solid evidence that most people are quite cynical about human nature, and this cynicism is nurtured right from childhood. Even babies show some variant of this ‘Stranger anxiety’, because they question if someone else can really be trusted to come and soothe their upsets.

Think about it like this: the first time you trust a stranger and are betrayed, it makes sense to avoid trusting other strangers in the future. The problem is that when we don't ever trust strangers, we never find out how trustworthy people in general really are. As a result our estimation of them is governed by fear. If you try trusting others in this viscous circle, you'll find they frequently repay that trust, leading you to be more trusting.

In a world where everyone is out for themselves, who should we trust? One signal that suggests we are trustworthy is a smile. Genuine smiles send a message that other people can trust and cooperate with us. But there are some instances when no signal helps; it is just your plain intuition, and before you know it, you just CLICK and become acquaintances.  You develop a strong bond with some strangers, but it is quite amusing when sometimes, just spending a minute or two with some, leave an ever-lasting imprint on you. 

I recently encountered a stranger on the busy streets of Camp, who happened to open my Locked Car using just 2 simple pieces of wooden plank. As I watched him jaw dropped, it left an immediate impact on me. The incident, and through it this stranger, is something that will always amuse me.  Similarly, the quakes, bomb blasts in Japan, Mumbai have taught me a lot about strangers. How these humble people can actually go out of their way to provide food and shelter to the victims runs shudders through my spine; how the rich, the poor, the young, the old put their own lives to risk and save children. It makes me proud of the humanity that still persists.  When you shift to a new place, the people you see, the neighbours you meet are all strangers until you make an effort to befriend them, or give them a chance to make you understand and know them. You might never imagine in what way, one day, these very same ‘Strangers’ will be of your help.

All these stories now, really makes me wonder, are we doing the right thing, questioning all these Anjaan people we meet, or it is simply our perspective? We need to come out of the barriers that we have built around ourselves and realize that Fear only makes strangers of people who otherwise could be our friends. So give it a chance… For the worse, you simply get an experience, but you never know, many a times it might all be just worth it! J

The investing Icon: Mr Warren Buffett

Some refined personalities just sweep you off your feet; you simply tend to admire and idolize them. Their overwhelming humbleness and modesty makes you understand why! You try to incorporate their thoughts and apply them in your real life situations. I have read quite a few articles on one such man, Mr Warren Buffet. His intellect engulfed me, inspired me in lot many ways, and immediately made me his ardent fan!

Warren Buffett may be amongst the world's richest men, but they say you wouldn't know it if you met him. He wants to be liked far more than he wants to be famous, and his sense of humour is far more indicative of his personality than his ego. Even today, being the most successful investors in the world, it is not uncommon for him to take a visitor to McDonald's on the way to the airport. 

He articulates practical investment strategies, the base of which greatly rely on ‘Investing in Yourself and making your life your greatest asset’. Then of course, there is a part of Buffett's appeal; his charm and charisma that he brings to the normally pretentious world of finance. His magnetic aura makes you realize that it is important to keep life simple, not easy!

Here, I thought of sharing some of my favourite quotes from one of the greatest investing legends of our time:

1. A very rich person should leave his kids enough to do anything, but not enough to do nothing.
2. It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.
3. It's far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.
4. Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.
5. Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote.
6. I don't look to jump over seven-foot bars; I look around for one-foot bars that I can step over.
7. Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.
8. Time is the friend of the wonderful company, the enemy of the mediocre.
9. Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked.
10. In the business world, the rear-view mirror is always clearer than the windshield.
11. Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing.

12. Look at market fluctuations as your friend rather than your enemy; PROFIT from folly rather than participate in it.

13. Wall Street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway.

14. The rich invest in time, the poor in money

15. I never attempt to make money on the stock market, I buy on assumption they could close the market the next day and not re-open it for 5 years…

16. If past history was all that was needed to play the game of money, the richest people would be librarians.

17. We should enjoy the process, far more than the proceeds.

18. I have no idea on timing. It is easier to tell WHAT will happen than WHEN it will happen.

19. Only when you combine sound intellect with emotional discipline do you get rational behaviour.

20. You only have to do a few things right in your life, so long as you don’t do more things wrong.

As a novice in investing, these simple postulates (and I call them so, because they come from a legend) made a lot of sense to me, and I hope they do the same to you!

PEBBLES AND SAND

Recently, I came across this really interesting article. It not only caught my attention, but it also made me pause and think for a while, what the true worth of life is... Is it simply just 'living the moment', or is it much more intense than that. I realized we often take our closest people for granted; ignore them, get mad at them over the silliest reasons, hate them at some point or the other, and in short make them the 'obvious' part of our lives. 

A philosophy professor stood before his class with some items on the table in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly he picked up a very large and empty jar and proceeded to fill it with rocks, about 2 inches in diameter.

He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles, of course, rolled into the open areas between the rocks.

He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else.
He then asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous “Yes.”

“Now,” said the professor, “I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The rocks are the important things – your family, your close friends, your health, your children – things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter – like your job, your house, your car.

The sand is everything else. The small stuff.”

“If you put the sand into the jar first, there is no room for the pebbles or the rocks. The same goes for your life.

If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are really important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. There will always be time to go to work, clean the house, give a dinner party and buy a new dress.

Take care of the rocks first – the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand."