Investment and Returns

Investment and Returns-two words which bother any layman considerably today. If you would ask a commerce guy, he would give a big fat definition of these two words, landing you in sixes and sevens.  The same happened with me a few days back. I was talking to one of my friend in Commerce Stream and I happened to ask him about ROI (Return on Investment), a term which I had just encountered in my Ad Revenue Reports. He began blabbering inculcating big big commerce terminologies in his elucidation which sounded like Greek and Russian to me. But after sometime I pondered over the matter and managed to strike a note over these two terms. To put it in simple words, everything we do is an investment and anything we get is return. But now, the Investment and Return which I am going to talk about has nothing to do with commerce or any monetary matter.

The person who might have coined the terms-Investment and Returns may not have known that he had unknowingly coined two very stark and important chronicles of human life. From my perspective, Investment and Returns have got more to do with our personal life rather than with trade and commerce. Investment and Returns, I believe are words with huge criteria encompassing a lot of facets of human life. Everything a human does/receives in life has to do with Investment and Returns.

For us, the best investment we can make is investing our TIME. Any person, rich or poor is empowered with one very precious thing-TIME. A quote says-“The most precious thing you can give anybody is time.” And interestingly, the best return a person can get for investing his time for somebody is also TIME. In today’s helter skelter filled world, we end up in mismanaging our time. We give our schedules to the mobile and computer reminders to manage, but at the end of the day they too are our salves. They will only obey our commands for time, which are usually wrong. Everybody today, a student or a businessman, a kid or parents, husband or wife, everybody is running. Running for what? Students for Marks/Grades, Parents for their jobs, but for a minute think are you investing your TIME at the right place? Most of you will pass an affirmative for this interrogation. But now, think about Returns. What return do you get for your total investment of TIME for Grades and Money? May be yes, some temporary happiness which is at times necessary, but is it justified to invest everything at just one place? Now this is something like investing all your money in a single stock of Share Market. Share Market is a place where nothing is guaranteed. No stock is permanently green, even Satyam, Infosys and Reliance have fallen, then human life, grades and money are way too uncertain. Share Market is just a miniature of human life. Nothing assured, grades, money, status nothing. Still we humans, carry on this deal of loss throughout our life. Astonishing but true!

Now you may think, if time is not worth investing over career and money, then what is worth investing over? I have an answer for that. Corporates and Practical minded may not agree to my justification, but I don’t care a damn! I believe, rather than investing your time over career and money, why not give your time to relationships? This is what we humans lack today! For a moment, think and analyse the time you spend with your family and the time spend at your workplace. Almost all corporates spend more than 12 hours at their workplace and hardly a couple with their family. Now is this a judicious investment? What will you do with a car if you don’t have your children with smiling faces to sit in it? I believe it is this corporate approach towards life which has taken a toll on all human relations today. Parents don’t spend time with their kids and so do the kids. Parents with jobs and kids with Facebook. But they end investing their time at such a thing which will lead them to DEAD END. Now this is why we have days like- Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, Daughter’s Day and stuff. Ask yourself, why do we need such days? Just because on those days, we specially dedicate our time and attention to that respective relation. A few decades ago, everyday was Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, Daughter’s day and etc. But voracity of man shunned all bounds and this is what we call a BAD INVESTMENT. And needless to cite that bad investment leads to loss which the human kind is already bearing today. But our closest relations are something which have their returns assured. If you give your time to your family, you get seamless love and affection in return, without a doubt.  Therefore think before you make an investment.

Now there are some who invest their time in relations and people. If they are fortunate enough, they get a good return, in the form of gratitude, love or affection, but that is a too rare possibility in today’s world. The degree of thanklessness in humans today knows no bounds. You give your everything to somebody and you get nothing in return. Forget nothing in return; talking in computer terminology instead of a null exit status they get a negative exit status! When I hear some proverbs like-“As you sow, so shall you reap” and stuff I feel, proverbs too have begun failing in the unrewarding world.

To justify this let me narrate to you a testimony of my friend. He is a simple guy, bright and calm, maintains his head on his shoulders, who believes doing all he can at the best of his ability for anybody who needs it. He befriends a guy. He helps him academically and emotionally in every dimension of life. But at a stage his academic performance starts deteriorating and this starts affecting his attitude. It goes without saying that this change in him was transitory. He expects his close friends to stay well in touch with him, the only return to his investment. But how unlucky he was, his friend for whom he did all he could, couldn’t tolerate the timely transition in him and cut off from him just like he would have dropped a hot brick in hand! Now what kind of justice is this? When you get profit from your shares you relish it to the fullest, when it comes to supporting the venture in timely loss, you withdraw? For share market its business, but is it the same for life? If it is, I fail to understand this dimension of the deal.

Commerce teaches whenever you make an investment, there is a return, sooner or later. But how horribly this rule fails in the real world! People have got so much into commerce and business that they take life and relations too as a profit and loss deal. If you see profit in relations invest, enjoy till returns continue, and withdraw when losses begin! I don’t blame the world for adopting such an attitude, but the ones to be blamed are who continue being good despite of this brutality of the world. The answer to business is always a business. If others follow profit and loss principles, then why do we stop ourselves from harping in the same tune? At times I feel we too shall adopt the same approach, invest our time and attention to only those who may value our dedication, else WITHDRAW!!!  But God’s word refrains me from adopting this hostile approach. Well, to conclude, I will just quote one statement which I have heard often in insurance commercials-

ALL PLANS ARE SUBJECTED TO MARKET RISKS. READ THE DOCUMENTS CAREFULLY BEFORE INVESTING.

Love & Regards,

Anish.