The Anagogic Banker – Illness or opportunity to Detox?

Avi Richards photo

By

Siddhartha Rastogi

Loss or Learning?

Illness is good.

Illness brings sanity.

Illness reminds you of your mortality, forcing you to rethink your priorities. It helps you focus on WHO’s important and what’s important in your life.

Any sane man will think exactly the opposite and will wish and pray for a healthy life. Most of the time it’s true. But sometimes you need a knock on your head to realign your life, your time, your priorities, your soul and your wants.

But before I preach further, let’s understand why illness descends upon us?

Only 3 reasons

1. Unclean Environment
2. Unclean Stomach
3. Unclean Mind

These are correlated… one leads to the other and then the third and finally you fall ill.

Unclean Environment – Unclean environment as the name suggests does not only mean living in unhygienic conditions. It also involves the time you spend in your work place under stress, working on things, ideas and with a job description you hate. Working with dumb colleagues, unfriendly and hostile peers, and revengeful, short-tempered superiors are as unhealthy as living in filthy surroundings. Also it’s interesting to note that humans have for centuries been programmed to live in a wide expanse. They need space to move, space to live, space to stretch, without which they cannot think and grow. Unfortunately, individuals who travel in cramped cars or airplanes for long hours on a constant basis are highly susceptible to illness.

Unclean Stomach – The stomach is the temple of the body and, hence, one should be watchful for what one consumes. Taste buds trigger increased intake of ‘garbage’ as the mind compels the tongue to compensate for living in an Unclean environment. Most humans spend 50% of their time in unclean environments doing or experiencing things they hate. To forget the pain of the unclean environment, men and women indulge in the most easily available addiction, Unclean food which includes artificially fortified sweet and salty food with high fat content. The more garbage you take in, the more vitiating and self-deprecating the ideas get generated, which impacts the present and future of a person.

Unclean Mind – This I’m sure, everyone understands and is simple. It has three essential parts. First, thinking about things which have gone wrong in the past… cursing the self and harboring guilt on the outcomes of such events which can’t be undone. Second, constantly worrying about the future by seeing gaps and shortcomings in the present life and ignoring completely the possibilities of the future. Third, thinking evil about others who may or may not be around you. These three acts ensure enough dirt gets deposited in the brain to prevent any positive thought from entering, thereby leading to illness.

Illness itself is bad. But when illness comes, the rational brains start thinking of reasons – cause and effect. They see illness as the effect and start their journey of course correction. Some humans when they experience near-death circumstances start on a new path and follow their true calling, changing the course of their life and that of the people surrounding them.

Smart people take cues even from minor illnesses like coughs & colds, high fever and try to figure where and what has gone wrong and what needs focus and attention. They slow down, take a break from their current world, draw a picture of the new world and start that new world brick by brick. These people easily kick start a new programme of life with better understanding and higher emphasis on their desired goals.

Exactly the same thing is replicated in the financial world. The universe of the financial markets is volatile. The up and downs constantly keep this world enticing and exciting. But sometimes an unprecedented fall hits the investments just like an illness hits a body. This jerk or pause or fall in value brings the true investor out of you. How you react to this fall determines what your investment journey will be and how much your risk appetite is.

If you are the kind of investor who panics and sells when you investment suddenly erodes, then you are better off investing in conservative fixed income generating instruments. Alternatively, if you tend to probe ‘why this fall?’ and how will this be reversed or how long it will take to move up, etc, then you are good with risky assets as well.

Thus, the Anagogic Banker says, “Illness strengthens you if you learn from it but cripples you if you live with it.”

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.