Can you still remember those times when you did something wrong and your mother said, “Go to your room and wait for your father to come home!”. The worst part was the anticipation. You had no idea what was going to happen and it was impossible to not feel anxious. Sometimes you were lucky and all the worry was for nothing but sometimes you got what you deserved.
Depending on our personalities, we are all impacted by our present situation to some extent. When it comes to investments it is often a blessing to be ignorant of what the future might bring. Those of us who plan ahead and follow the current trends live in a perpetual state of anxiety because we always try to figure out what we need to do now for a positive outcome in the future, but the future is uncertain and there are millions of possible permutations.
If we tell you that the future is so uncertain that there are no financial models that can be run today that will accurately predict where the world economy will be after 2030, will it make you nervous? Or will you just throw up your hands and say, “Who cares!” The reality is that by 2030 machines will have become so intelligent that most of what drives economies today, will be determined by machines then – and we have no idea how that will impact humanity. If you are becoming anxious reading this, don’t. To worry about what might happen is a waste of time. What is not a waste of time, is to think about the future and change your plans as different scenarios unfold.
Just remember how adaptable we’ve always been and still are. In just 260 years we have come from horseback-riding to being astronauts. We have come from drilling for oil to harnessing the sun. We have come from waiting three weeks for a letter to having instant contact with someone anywhere on the globe. If you had not been paying attention as an investor, you might have missed out on superb investment opportunities such as selling your shares in horse saddles and investing in internal combustion engines; or selling your fax machine stocks and buying Apple shares. One of the most important qualities you can have in life is to not worry about things you have no control over, but to act decisively on those things you do have control over.
