Friday, March 13, 2009

Spending Vs Investing

What do we spend and what do we invest? The question came to my mind last week and I had to think more on it. The arena where this thought had to play was not just the financial grounds, but in our entire life. To hit the dart straightaway, ‘spending’ usefully towards a long standing benefit to you or others is ‘investing’!

Let’s go to a different dimension now by relating this to our life. How much of our time we spend and how much of our time do we invest? I keep 'time' as the baseline here, as this drives our age and lifetime.

If you put in your effort on something that is not useful to you the next moment, I call it spending. Say you getup late in the morning, catch an auto/taxi to reach on time to office, you might have reached office on time and could be perfectly ok with your official works. But, you have spent your energy, money and that travelling time in the wrong direction. A perfect start of the day is very important and you failed investing in that!

Devoting your time for your children is an investment on their growth. Investing time on music might make you feel pleasant. Investing time on meditation might make you feel inspired and strong. Interest varies between individual.

Another dimension here could be this! Whatever is against ones interest, he considers it a spending and the vice versa is investing. Putting your money to buy a big TV might be a spending for some. But, for some others they have invested their money towards entertainment. The few minutes they watch in that TV might still give them great happiness, energizes them and might fulfill their fantasies.

But, there are some universally accepted things which are investments for all of us. Think deep in your conscience and it will reveal you what is a real investment. Investments are more than just quenching your fantasies. It has to be something that gives you long standing benefits.

By analyzing on how much time in a day you 'spend' and think about how to convert that into an 'investment', one can improve his art of living. Iteratively doing this, the time we spend diminish and gives way to investments. I strictly believe that we should start investing in our life.

I consider blogging this, an investment. Not sure what you felt reading it :-)

Cheers!
Mani