Sunday, April 5, 2015

That's Life

That's life, that's what all the people say.
You're ridin' high in April, shot down in May.
But I know I'm gonna change that tune,
when I'm back on top, back on top in June.
(That's Life, Frank Sinatra)

I work with financial markets and that's how I sometimes feel. Just when you think you are rightly positioned with your investments, a new occurrence hits you and everything is out of the sudden turned upside down. Up and down the sentiment goes, depression followed by exuberance, right back to depression. You live in a constant pressure cooker environment and try your best to stay rational in your approach, trying to keep all emotions at bay, impossible as it is. As one of our portfolio managers once put it, we are really the stress managers for our clients. Well, that's a tough job indeed!

Who knows why life set me up for this job, but here I am doing the best I can with it. My job certainly makes me whistle the "That's Life" song at times. Who knows, perhaps I only stumbled on this career path to discover the Tao. If you search for direction but can't find any, you suddenly open up to a Force that is simply beyond you. You open up to the Way, the Tao. You realize that that there is a yin and yang in everything. You indeed can be a peaceful bystander amidst life's turbulence. You remain at the center while the world circles around you. With that insight in mind, who knows why you are in the situation you are in; perhaps your spiritual mission gets born out of it.

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