This blog is intentionally designed to provide advice and give a broader perspective of investment. My motto is that I believe in human capital development and everything else will fall into place. So, "you are who you are because of what you did and you will be who you are because of what you will do."
I have a few simple rules in my blog,
1. Read it with a Broad Open Mind.
2. Interpret it and recreate in your own situation.
3. Lastly, this is just my opinion, so you can form your own view and please share with me.
Let's start with lesson number 1, investment is an everyday thing. In Malaysia it is typical that everyone seems to have the concept of investment related to shares, buying property, making money out of the thin air, etc. This is true, where investment often have an incentive of what comes back in return for what we did before.
There are several definitions of investments from Dictionary.reference.com as following:
1. the investing of money or capital in order to gain profitable returns, as interest, income, or appreciation in value.
2. a particular instance or mode of investing.
3. a thing invested in, as a business, a quantity of shares of stock, etc.
4. something that is invested; sum invested.
5. the act or fact of investing or state of being invested, as with a garment.
6. a devoting, using, or giving of time, talent, emotional energy, etc., as for a purpose or to achieve something: His investment in the project included more time than he cared to remember.
7. Biology . any covering, coating, outer layer, or integument, as of an animal or vegetable.
8. the act of investing with a quality, attribute, etc.
9. investiture with an office, dignity, or right.
10. a siege or blockade; the surrounding of a place with military forces or works, as in besieging.
11. Also called investment compound. Metallurgy . a refractory material applied in a plastic state to a pattern to make a mold.
12. Archaic . a garment or vestment.
I concur that definition 6 is the most comprehensive. Well, not only because it contains the return element in an investment, but also the social methodology as well as the comprehensiveness of making a good investment in life. So, definition of investment should not be limited to monetary terms, but also social and political terms. This is often often due to the fact that return in investment comes in different form based on the investor's perspective. However, investment is always associated with expense. Why? If you're an accountant, you see how companies capitalize their expenditure which basically turns expense into "investment" for the company. So, it works the same here where either you're spending money or you're expanding money based on how you define it.
Think of this, we have lots of expenses in our everyday life. However, if you're not aware of it, all expenses are actually your investment into them. When we're going to an expensive restaurant, we're actually investing into this company in return of indulgence of our mouth. When we're heading for a movie, we're making an investment in return of our knowledge pleasure, stress release or perhaps just to enjoy the crowd. Everything we do is actually an investment, but if we think of monetary terms, non of the activities I said will make money for you which is why you mentioned it as expense. So, I hope you can recognize and accept that investment definition is not as narrow as you think it is, cause investment can be anything that your money is going into and therefore the investment makes who you are.
