RESOLUTIONS AND LIFE IN 2016

I wish all of you a very happy 2016. May the lords be benevolent upon you and your kith to shower their blessings and keep you engaged in positive pursuits.

The new year is just a date in a calendar. Actually, it becomes a benchmark to start new events or take stock mentally of what we desire to do. And we call this activity resolutions. Actually, we desire to develop a new habit or break a bad one.  

I have my own list of things I want to do but they are date agnostic. 

I want to remain healthy. As I grow older, it dawns upon me that whatever I have earned or am earning or will earn through my investments will be useless if I cannot enjoy some fruits of those earnings. As you cross 45 in age, nature takes over. It will give you some aches, some heart burns, some ailments. If you do not have a healthy life style, you are doomed to suffer. So, take care of your health. We learnt as children by rote — Health is Wealth. Now I realise, how true is that metaphor.

Purpose of money is only to give me choices. It does not make me happier. Once I have enough to take care of my basic needs — food on my table, a roof on my head, clothes to wear, education for my kids and funds for hospitalization, all the additional balance money is excess to my requirements. It gets channelised into feeding your vanity or sinful and pleasure activites, if not diverted to charity consciously. So, I need to do more charity.  All living beings are selfish.  Altruism and charity is alien to human genes. We have evolved that way. We need everything for ourselves.But animals do not save and store. They hunt for the day, forage for the day and then fend for themselves again the next day. We stock and store much in excess of our requirements.  

Look around you. Does Vijay Mallya actually travel in 27 Porsches or Ferraris at a time? You need just one or two cars (odd and even numbers) to transport  yourself or travel in comfort. The balance 26 feed your ego. Does the food served at the Ritz Carlton taste better than the dhaba? I guess not. Pleasure out of food is a function of hunger and not the quality of chef or the number of dishes. I distinctly remember a meal on the road side after a tired route march of 26 Kms in the jungles of Manipur. It was just hot rotis and a chicken curry. But I enjoyed it because  I was hungry, the food was hot and palatable. All of us will have memories of such meals.  The Beluga Caviar is for the novels and fantasy films of James Bond not for real people, reading this blog. 

I will read at least a 100 pages a day and improve myself.  Though I am a regular reader with a wide repertoire. But it is still too little because some days I just do not read anything.

I will say No to a lot of things. It is important for my productivity to increase.  Apart from personal committments, one must learn to say No to a lot of things. Time is a limited resource. I must wisely use it. A party at someone’s house running till 1 a.m f@#%s up my health and my next day. Can I refuse the invite or tell my host that I will leave at 10 pm, irrespective of dinner? I am working towards this idea. 

Discussion about episodes of Quantico and The Mentalist with six people does not qualify as knowledgeable talk. I will therefore read less of newspaper, it is drivel. Only read the Op Ed page and trash the rest. Except for a quiz competition, it does not matter who won the IPL or the Wimbledon. I’d rather play tennis and learn something new. Crossword is the only interesting part of the newspaper.

I will not look at the TV screen for financial news. Stock prices on a ticker tape are just prices. Not investments. Therefore, I shall only look at my portfolio, once a year so it will be on 1 Jan 2017.

I shall wait for good businesses to sell cheaper so that I can buy them in 2016. Some of the businesses on my buy list are — Thomas Cook, Vaibhav Global, IPCA Labs, Piramal Healthcare, ILF&S Investment Managers, Axis Bank and Kitex Garments.  If they are available 20% cheaper than current rates, I would love to fill my truck.

Meanwhile have a great 2016.