The Anagogic Banker

Reuters photo

By

Siddhartha Rastogi

Why you need space in your life and why it applies to your investments as well

The single objective of humans is to make progress. Progress is nothing but achieving the state of happiness. If you have achieved moments of happiness, your desire increases for it to last… not just for a few minutes or hours but forever.

The ultimate objective of humans is to attain a constant and irreversible feeling of contentment. Some name it success, some security while others may call it opulence.

But what does happiness actually mean?

And when someone tells you that he or she is trying to achieve that feeling of eternal happiness, what is he or she trying to convey?

Happiness is a state of the mind, body and soul where one is in equilibrium with the current environment. You are in a happy space and desire that this feeling lasts till perpetuity.

There are three kinds of spaces mortals seek:

• Physical
• Mental
• Higher consciousness

All three are in the order of preference each one of us strives for unless someone is born differently with supernatural or extraordinary consciousness. The irony is, as one tends to work towards a lower level of space the higher one or the one next in order diminishes disproportionately at a higher speed.

Let me elaborate with a simple example. To seek happiness, you try and seek a bigger place to live in, a bigger car to drive, a higher bank balance to secure your future and that of your near and dear ones. In this endeavor, you start engaging yourself in a multitude of things. As you progress with a lot more objectives, your mental space gets reduced for achieving enjoyment and happiness because of all your paraphernalia. The consequence of this is that you are not able to stay long on the act which you actually love doing as other apparatus seek your time and attention.

Similarly, for a man who wishes to become the master of everything, he ends up reading and absorbing more of everything, gaining more knowledge temporarily but giving up happiness in the process.

Another disadvantage of seeking more is an increase in choices. As one desires to achieve more, get more, acquire more, he is hit with even more to choose from. The interesting part here is that Higher Choices are inversely proportionate to the happiness and contentment quotient.

As one gets more choices, the distance between the best and the second best gets reduced. Even when one chooses the best option, he feels let down that the choice he made is not as good as the one he left, thus casting doubts on his or her abilities and reducing happiness. Also, with more choices, one needs to keep evaluating those choices; this takes away more space, leading to more indecisiveness and more dissatisfaction.

The same philosophy applies to Investments as well.

People tend to invest their money beyond the subjects they are passionate about as they believe what has worked for someone else might work for them too. Nobody is alike, we are all different. Given the same surrounding, same environment and same prospects, two people will have different expectations from each investment and a different perception of each investment.

For example three people investing in a startup at the same time might have different objectives. One person might have borrowed some money to invest, so that he can get rich faster and has a huge appetite for risk. Another might be the friend of the promoter who has seen him successful in the past and believes that this can be a multi-bagger. A third one might have sprayed some money to keep a tab on the sector or innovation as his business might get impacted if this startup changes the way business is done.

Hence, the key for an investment philosophy to fructify is to invest in businesses or opportunities in which one has thorough knowledge and, more important, interest to learn and grow with it. Peripheral interest and knowhow will only lead to more cluttering of space, whether physical or mental, thereby leading to more dissatisfaction.

Therefore, whenever in doubt remember the key words of Life and Space

The need for MORE often results in a Life of LESS.

Siddhartha Rastogi

Siddhartha was born to a learned middle class educated family in Semi Urban India. His father was an extremely honest man who because of his honesty had to pay the price in corporate world. Mother is a determined woman who ensured that children are being well taken care off. After a few years of birth, doctors called Siddhartha, a slow child having flat foot. He would fall more than he could walk. Determined mother ensured all therapies for her son to come out strong to fight the world. Siddhartha joined swimming when he was in 6th standard. Seeing other children of his class, he jumped in 10 feet deep pool and learnt swimming on his own, the very same day.

From that day there was no looking back. He topped his city in 12th and went to score highest in his B school exams. During his profession as banker, he became youngest branch manager of a MNC bank managing their biggest wealth branch in the country. There he found love of his life and got married. His love of his life emerged in the form of his daughter who completely changed him for good.

Siddhartha Rastogi is Director for a boutique Investment bank in India.

Siddhartha is a forward looking thinker & writer who has written a book on decision making. 8 Simple steps to effective decision making.

He writes on various social and current issues via his blog and can also be found on twitter.