According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary online – the second listed definition of the word invest is to “to make use of for future benefits or advantages.” There are two other definitions – “to involve or engage especially emotionally” and to “to commit (money) in order to earn a financial return.” Although I enjoy studying and learning the money ways of investing – you really need a large sum of it to make it worthwhile in my opinion.
I’d like to focus on the other two parts of the definition. Making use of (something) for your benefit and involving or engaging an object emotionally – this concept is something I really need to focus on more in life. For a moment I would like to consider thinking about the intangible investment that always comes from the ether – time. Taking the time out of our day and using it to do something, accomplish some goal or task, devote it to our own benefit.
I believe we waste so much time in our lives. I believe I have in many ways. But at the same time I think I have become pretty good about making better investments of my time. I believe reading and writing are good investments of time, or shooting or recording a video. Maybe even taking half an hour to play a game to take a mental break at the end of the day could be a good use of time. But does playing a game for 3 hours and staying up too late make a good investment of time? it may to some, it may not to others.
We budget ourselves free time, but what about our work. Does your work reflect a good use of time? Certainly time management is a critical skill to have in todays’ workplace. Retail, office, services; the saying is time is money. At the end of the day are you proud of what investments you made in your time of that day?
Tangibly speaking? Am I making good use of the resources I have at my disposal. What can I do to mark an improvement? So I am starting a journey on this little blog on the Fried Circuit channel – I’ve got some ideas in my head for it – now it is a matter of making the best use of my time to invest in it.
On a side note – I’ve built my own web server to host it, which was no easy task. I am using a Raspberry Pi as the hardware platform for my LEMP stack and in case you can’t tell, WordPress as my site management platform. In the future I plan to go into more details on explaining that and how you could potentially build one yourself – but in the meantime there are tons of great tutorials out there. The important thing is be careful and don’t leave yourself open and vulnerable to an attack.
Back to our word for the day. The concept of emotionally dedicating some object, person, or thing to an investment. I think this is the piece where many investments fall short. People lose interest in old or outdated things – It was there for a period of time, then something else better comes along. If not managed or modified or upgraded – our investments will go to waste whenever we lose interest. When we fail to emotionally dedicate to an investment, it will wither and die, just like anything else in our lives.
The question is – can we keep up and stay emotionally engaged or managed to our investments – time, money, people? Or do we fall short.
What are your thoughts?
– Jon