Note: This article is based on the work of Darius Foroux, in which he tells us about his experience in dealing with the ups and downs of life.
Last week, I spoke with my old friend Quincy about how most of these so-called "cool" guys fail in life. My friend grew up in a different city, but he also had the same kind of friends.
From its outset, the lives of these guys have taken a wrong turn. They didn’t go to college, had low-paying jobs, partied every week, have precarious relationships, run up debt, and so on.
Things in life usually go according to a specific way. Either it goes up, and things gradually improve, or downwards, and it gets worse. Even when it goes in a stable manner, things often seem as if they are in continuous deterioration. Because everything around you seems to be advancing.
At about the same time when I was in high school, my parents taught me an important lesson. They said I was doing well in school, but they knew I had more potential than that, and they didn't want me to follow the trend around me.
So they have always supported me to make education a priority; They understood the importance of this all too well. My parents' life was difficult, and they are well aware of how the conditions of the family's older members declined year after year.
People who started their lives poorly ended up with diseases, addictions, and depression in most cases. We might see people being able to change their lives in Hollywood movies. However, this rarely happens in real life. People don’t change their lives overnight, and it is good to see people change for the better and maintain that change, but it is not as common as we would wish.
Examples of life uncertainties
In the stock market, you often find companies in a state of decline, they may have been growing great for years. However, if they stop progressing, Wall Street will easily forget about them.
Stocks can lose half of their value overnight. For example, a stock that trades for $200 might go up to $100. However, people would still think that they're having a good deal.
But it didn't stop there, it may even hit $50, and you may wonder if it's going to lose more of its value. Yes, this is definitely possible, as it may reach $10 and the price may fluctuate between 8 dollars to 12 dollars for years. For this, we can understand the stigma about investing in stocks.
A recent example is the Lending Club; The company's shares are trading at around $130 in 2014, and have slowly declined to reach nearly $4 in 2020. However, the company has returned to growth again as a result of changing its strategy and the growth in the lending market, and it seems that it is taking an upward trend at the present time. So if a company wants to regain its position strongly, it needs to make a serious change in strategy to achieve huge growth numbers again.
The same thing happens in our personal lives. When things go wrong, they will stay this way unless we make a major change. You cannot do the same thing and expect a different result, as they say, and this is what my parents forced me to do. had to stop wasting my time and focus on my education. I needed a successful strategy, and pursuing my education was better than falling into the trap of idleness and laziness.
Success and failure are two natural things
Cathy Wood, Director of ARK Invest, was one of the most popular investors in 2020; Its main fund's returns increased by 152% in 2020, making it one of the most successful funds in the recent pandemic.
All of their revenues have grown exponentially since 2018, and as a result, they have attracted billions of dollars, and suddenly everyone wanted a share of those huge revenues. But in 2021, the returns of the ETF fell by 14%, after witnessing a sharp decline throughout the year, which naturally made people less eager to invest their money in it.
The company is expected to continue to decline in 2022, but it would be a surprise if Cathy Wood outperforms the market over the next five years. Because it invests mostly in innovative technologies and new industries, and before these types of investments bear fruit, it witnesses a lot of fluctuations in the market, and in its journey towards success as well.
In conclusion
Life doesn't go in one direction, and people don't always have a perfect state of mind, even though most of them would like to reach a state of balance, that's not the nature of life. So stay focused on your responsibilities and the things you value regardless of the direction in your life, focus on what you can control, and keep moving forward, your enthusiasm will push you higher again.
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