51 Taking little bumps in your stride

The experts say that the best way to operate in the Stock Exchange is to invest for the long term, and just not look at our shares in the meantime. In other words, put in your money (of course, on solid companies’ shares, not unknown speculators), and forget. The inexperienced person, on the other hand, keeps a close watch on the share prices, and dies a little at every dip and goes over the moon at every rise. When we first start looking at the share markets, we tend to think that serious players must pore over the pink pages every morning with the coffee. But serious investors don’t really do this! They don’t expect to cash in every time there’s a few points rise, because they know that brokerage and taxes are going to erode their profit, and they will be stuck with the question of reinvesting the money… are they going to be waiting for the next fall? In fact, I cashed in just before the 2014 elections (expecting a hung parliament and a stock market crash), but the Modi government won with a high margin (at least in the Lok Sabha, the People’s House), and the stock market soared… I haven’t had the heart to get into the market again!

Now I find this as good an analogy as any for the way we ought to be responding to life’s little aggravations. Most of the time, if we just wait out a period, things sort themselves out. The more we push, the more the resistance. If you think the wheel is stuck, you rock the vehicle back and forth, and your pushes have to be synchronised to the movement of the wheels. That  will give you the advantage of what is known as ‘resonance’ in physics… small movements can build up to a crescendo!

We probably know people who fret and fume at every little irritation or delay, which means all the time! They end up with stress, high blood pressure, acidity and even diabetes… brought on by the constant stress. On the other hand,  if you let things go, you will have time for the important things. After all, you don’t climb every pebble you come across in your path… you step over the small ones, and go round the big boulders. It’s called taking things in your stride.