Letting them down and lifting us up

While I am sure I am not alone in this, a lot of what I do in this life is selfishly done for my family. It is funny to think of it as selfish perhaps, but since they are my family and I might not go to the same lengths for someone else's day in day out, it is what it is.

I do try to help people where I can, but I am always limited in how far I can stretch myself, as I have plans and goals also and constantly giving might feel good, but it doesn't build the foundation to be able to do any more for people. Some people try to make me feel bad about not giving more, as if they know what my own life is.

I am lucky - I have a lovely family and sometimes I forget how lucky I am to have the wife and daughter I do. But, I know enough that I keep working for them tirelessly, no matter how tired I actually am. I wonder how much impact having a family has had on my approach to life and my willingness to take risks - Am I more or less willing?

Financially,I think I am more willing to take some risks, which might seem strange, but I believe it is because my outlook on life has extended further into the future than if I just had myself to worry about. It could be because I back myself to be able to cope under financial pressure, but I don't want my family to have to deal with the same, at least for a lifetime like most of mine has been.

I wonder if back in 2011 or so when I first considered by Bitcoin and couldn't be bothered enough to work it out, so went drinking with the money instead, would I have made a different decision if married with a child? It can't be known for sure, but I think there is a good chance I would have stuck with it and taken a bite - at least I wouldn't have gone out drinking.

While not all risks are worth it, he risk of investment seems more bearable when there is a good reason to take it and I consider my family very much good enough. Some people of course do it so they can by themselves a better life, but I think the stronger pull is to be able to secure a better future for those we care about and it isn't just the financial side, it is the rest of it too.

A good life is more than having money, it is about having the stability of experience, the access to opportunity and the potential to explore who we are and who we might be given the chance. It kills me to think that because I can't provide what is needed, my family will miss out on opportunities that they should have, the things that would help them be their best - but this is the way of the world - we all have to live in limitation and restriction in some ways.

But, we do the best we can and for me that means taking steps daily to provide what I can and part of that is trying to do something that provides for the future too, a very, very uncertain future. I don't know what it holds, but I feel that I have to do something and what that something is, is not what it once was.

The possibilities that secured the past are not going to be effective for the future - so even though there is risk and uncertainty and it hasn't yet been described and defined well, the way forward for my family is to embrace what is to come, even if none of us fully understand what lay ahead.

Perhaps being our best always means taking some risks as we have to stretch into areas we can't reach comfortably. But, I do think that when we have something to be uncomfortable for, the discomfort itself is much more bearable. I wonder what the effects will be for a more disconnected world where people do not have weaker, more transitory relationships - will people look further into the future, or be more short-sighted - where the selfishness I might have for my family's well-being doesn't extend past the individual.

I think it would be interesting to see a cross-section of investors and see the difference between the coupled and the uncoupled, the long-term relationships and those who bounce from one to another. I wonder if there would be a difference in risk exposure and outcome. I have my intuitions on it, but I have no idea whether they are right or not.

We all have our reasons to do as we do and value what we value and with each decision we make, we affect our results - but I feel that there is probably a difference when we invest with others in mind, or if we are doing it purely for ourselves. I don't know if the outcomes are better or worse, but at the very least, the meaning and experience might be very different.

Taraz [ Gen1: Hive ]