Tell me not in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal.

When I go from hence
let this be my parting word,
that what I have seen is unsurpassable.

Saturday 3 January 2009

New resolutions for old

I don't believe in new year resolutions. I don't believe there is any special day for making resolutions. If I feel the need to form a resolution, I don't wait till the start of next year or my next birthday to implement it. By a curious coincidence however, since the two years I have been making resolutions just around the time of new year. Last year, after dithering for years, I finally made up my mind to learn swimmimg. And I did it!! I can now proudly claim to know three of the four strokes in swimmimg. I don't know the last one only because I have decided to avoid the water during the winter. This year I found myself making another resolution while frolicking in the beaches of Puri. I have resolved to become financially literate. Its the unlikeliest place to be making such a resolution but recent events have not allowed me to ignore money matters even for a second, not even when I was vacationing in Puri. I have decided that the only way I can be free of such worries in the future is if I start worrying about my finances before they start troubling me. Till now I have steadfastly refused to think about investing. I believe I am temperamentally unsuited for the job. My investments have been limited to hurried buys into the first tax saving MF someone points out to me before March every year. Needless to say, the recent slowdown in the economy has gobbled up all that money and put it somewhere I can't find it. All that I about to change. I have resolved to become Mr. Investment himself. I am evolving a long term investement plan which should put the most die hard investor to shame. As a first step, I have bought a copy of the "bible" on investing - "The Intelligent Investor" by Benjamin Graham. I have already picked up a few invaluable tips from it but more on that later. For now let me just quote a wise woman who said, "Money, if it does not bring you happiness, will at least help you be miserable in comfort".
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