Once convinced, never defer investment plans to tomorrow

“Taal Diyaa Agar Kaam, Ye Soch Ki Kal Karenge;

Jaise Ki Aaj Ka Akhbaaar Kal Padh Lenge.

Kal Nayaa Akhbaar Aur Naye Sambaad Honge;

Kal Ka Akhbaar Bas Raddi Ki Tokari Me Milenge.”

Translation

Today’s tasks we’ve deferred, like reading today’s newspaper tomorrow.

Tomorrow will bring a new one with fresh news; new conversation will follow.

Time never flies back; ‘Today’s’ will find their place in the discard sack.

I will start with a story downloaded from Google. I don’t know who has authored it, nor do I think it is important. Many of the readers might have read it earlier, but it would remain as relevant as ever.

“Imagine you had a bank account that deposited $86,400 each morning. The account carries over no balance from day to day, allows you to keep no cash balance, and every evening cancels whatever part of the amount you had failed to use during the day. What would you do? Draw out every dollar each day!

“We all have such a bank. Its name is Time. Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off, as lost, whatever time you have failed to use wisely. It carries over no balance from day to day. It allows no overdraft so you can’t borrow against yourself or use more time than you have. Each day, the account starts fresh. Each night, it destroys an unused time. If you fail to use the day’s deposits, it’s your loss and you can’t appeal to get it back.

“There is never any borrowing time. You can’t take a loan out on your time or against someone else’s. The time you have is the time you have and that is that. Time management is yours to decide how you spend the time, just as with money you decide how you spend the money. It is never the case of us not having enough time to do things, but the case of whether we want to do them and where they fall in our priorities.”

Did it arouse a sense of déjà vu? Still, it is recommended to read it till the lesson is learnt as was learnt by Yudhishthir, the eldest of Pandavas. Once, Guru Dronacharya asked all his disciples to get by heart the lesson: ‘Always speak the truth.’ Everyone except Yudhisthira got it by heart and rendered the line before the Guru the very next day. “Ok remember it by tomorrow,” the Guru mandated Yudhisthir. This exercise was repeated for a few times before Dronacharya got infuriated and scolded Yudhishthira for his inability to remember a simple lesson. On a certain day, Yudhishthir politely approached the Guru and said, “like all others, I too got the lesson by heart on the very first day, but whenever I thought that I had learnt the lesson, I realised that I had not implemented the same in action. Therefore, I could not tell you that I have learnt the lesson. Now, I have implemented the same in action. I, therefore, can say that I have learnt the lesson.” The Guru hugged him in joy and blessed him.

We often think rationally, but more often go on rationalizing our inertia. We all know that time once gone cannot be brought back except in science-fictional concept of time travelling. Nonetheless, we all squander our time.

The author of the above excerpts from Google has righty compared money with the time. In simpler terms, the value of a certain amount of money -today is more valuable than the same amount of money- tomorrow. But the caveat is that money must be utilised or invested. Still, idle money can be useful in terms of liquidity or psychological satisfaction of having cash in hand. This luxury is not available with time, as time-unutilized in idleness is tantamount, simply, to time-wasted.

Now let us also understand that ‘time’ constitutes just one of the ingredients of serendipity called opportunity, while the others include efforts, capability and the likes. Imagine any event of your life and try to co-relate with factors leading to its occurrence. You would be surprised to notice their uniqueness. Had any of the factors been missed, outcome would have been different.

As wasted time can’t be reclaimed, similarly, our actions and efforts once wasted can’t be reclaimed. Whatever we accomplish right now or will accomplish later, will be unique for that very moment.

The procrastinating tendencies in human beings have been beautifully, correlated by using newspaper as a metaphor. All of us must have realized that if we defer to read today’s newspaper tomorrow, it simply means, we never want to read it.

As with life, so is with investment, never ever defer anything to tomorrow if you convincingly want to do it. Take your own time to clear all your doubts. Shoot all your arrows of what, why and how. But never ask when. It’s the very moment you are convinced to do. It’s a now or never like situation.

Do remember that old newspapers can be taken back from the discarded sack, if required, but time, once missed, can never be brought back. Except, perhaps, the memories!

Still, it is ‘better late than never.’ So, start investing today even if you had missed it yesterday.

(The writer is senior Vice-president, SBI Funds Management Ltd; Translation and text by Satyam, HR Head, DLF Limited-Gurgaon & North)