Investments

I've been working on becoming more fiscally responsible. Yawn.

But not really. I kind of love being able to read the finance section of the newspaper and understand what it's talking about. More than that, I love feeling good about the financial decisions I'm making in my life.

The crazy thing about learning about any subject is that all the sudden everything seems to make more sense.

I've been reading an embarrassing number of financial books and it's got me thinking about investments. Nearly every book I've read proposes a different strategy for how you invest your money. I don't think that any one strategy is the right one and all the others are wrong. In fact, I don't believe I've followed any particular strategy as I've worked on restructuring my finances and living a fiscally responsible life.

My thinking recently has been pretty stuck on financial principles, and I've found myself applying those ideas to other areas of my life. Specifically, I've been thinking a lot about time investments. Time and money are kind of similar. You only have so much of it (for most of us) and it's pretty uncertain how much you actually have. You can make projections and estimations, but really none of us knows exactly how much we'll have of either of them. To have a healthy retirement portfolio it's crucial to make the right investments now. It's hard to see how a small money investment in the right place makes a difference, but if you make that same investment paycheck after paycheck it's amazing how it adds up.

Time is finite for each of us, but that's not really important. What is important is that you have this moment right now.

I've decided recently that I need to invest more of my time in me. It's a shift in focus. I don't go to the gym because I should but ugh it's awful. I go to the gym because I'm worth the time investment. It's not always the easiest decision to make, but each time I make it I've taken another small step toward a happy, healthy, hopefully long life. (Also, it was fabulous at a recent work conference to be able to run up the stairs when most of my colleagues were huffing and heaving up the stairs.) It's the same with everything I want to do and everything I want to become. A small time investment will reap big results.

I truly believe that the possibilities are endless and most of our limitations are self-imposed. We are what we choose to become and that largely comes down to our time investment.

So how are you investing your time?

I'm investing my time in me.