It’s easy to succumb to the headlines of the day. It’s popular to predict gloom and doom. It’s disheartening to think about what once was. It’s inspiring, though, to think of what the future may yet hold. Being around a two-year-old when I’m not at the office adds a needed perspective in this regard. This person doesn’t wake up longing for yesterday or worrying about tomorrow. He wakes up ready to enjoy today. Ready to embrace it. Curious to learn, and excited to experience. Children inherently know that the future can be bright. And, you know what? They’re probably right. Children born today will have opportunities that their parents and grandparents only dreamed of. They’ll experience technology that was science fiction mere decades ago. They’ll find less poverty in the world and enjoy a standard of living higher than that of world leaders of recent past. Their optimism is likely justified. So too would be ours. In investing, the reason we invest is for capital appreciation. And the reason we invest in publicly traded equity markets is that historically that’s exactly what they’ve provided over time. When can that take us off track? When we stop being optimists. When we let today’s headline impact tomorrow’s dollars. When we forget, even for a moment, that we’ve put a plan into place that took into account the anticipation that every single day won’t be great, but that over time things will get better. When the fear of the moment is getting to you, take a step back. Aknowledge how that fear would’ve played out, if acted upon, in past scenarios. In investing, it likely would’ve cost you money.
