There is nothing better in life than constant learning, hence I always refused to label myself as an expert in such and such, even if I could never stop other people from labeling me this way. I not only openly changed fields from music, painting, ballet, foreign languages, engineering and finally medicine, but even during these years when my career seemed “set” and “fixed”, I kept my mind open and studied many other things, not caring a bit whether I made a good “investment” in my career or not.
This month I just completed an online course about sushi. Those that follow me on Twitter already know this. Will this help me be a better physician? Most people would say it was a waste of time. And money. I will never make a career out of this, but it was fun and I improved on a skill I may remember for many years, unless dementia will kick in. Sometime.
Chance made it that I found a workshop hosted by the local Stock Exchange from Bucharest. I registered and went there last evening. I met a totally different world than the one of hospitals and patients I’m familiar with. Very bright presenters whose lives revolve around bits of paper.
A stock is a part of a company, but it’s not something tangible. It’s an abstract concept after all. A piece of paper. Yet here I was in a hall full of mostly middle-aged people, some visibly gray-haired, where these pieces of paper, often electronic paper only, were their bread and butter.
It’s fascinating to be a beginner and the more I learn, the more I miss this feeling. I thought I had a broad understanding of finance, but I could barely keep up with the presenters, especially during the second part which was full of charts.
Between greed and fear, it takes detachment to invest in stocks.
But investing is not something abstract that only smarties in an ivory tower do. You invest all the time. Each time you do something – like reading this post – instead of doing something else, you’re investing your time. It is the same with your energy, neurons, money, you name it.
Money is a huge part of medicine. But throwing money at a problem will rarely solve it. It may solve it if the problem is simple enough and/or the expert is skilled enough. Steve Jobs threw millions of dollars, but that didn’t get him an app for curing pancreatic cancer.
I’ll leave you with a short video on American centenarians sharing their wisdom when it comes to investing.
Anca Ioviţă is the author of Eat Less Live Longer: Your Practical Guide to Calorie Restriction with Optimal Nutrition available on Amazon and several other places. If you enjoyed this article, don’t forget to sign up to receive updates on her second book regarding a comparative biography of aging from the simplest to the most complex organisms known.
