Paralysis by Analysis

We often get paralyzed mentally and consequently never get what we want out of life.  This type of anguish is called, Paralysis by Analysis = Too much thinking, and not enough doing.

It’s a sad truth that most of us are walking Zombies.  We believe our only real chance of living a happy life is to win the lottery.

Does this sound familiar?



Monday to Friday: Wake up early, get the kids ready for school (if
you have them), go to work, eat the same thing for lunch that you
had the week before.  You start looking at the clock hoping its near 5:00 pm only to realize
its only 2:30.  DAMN IT!

Finally, you get to drive home from work in rush hour traffic, the highlight of your workday.  You look to the side and notice that gas prices keep going up.  Oh great…you think.  I wonder what it will take to fill up my tank next week.

At home, you check the mail.  Your cell phone bill is double what it should be because they screwed it up again!  You imagine how pleasant the call to the automated billing machine will be.  GREAT!

Next, "honey what’s for dinner?"  (Of course your wife had a full day of her own and resents you expecting her to cook); Spouse, "Oh…I don't know…I don't feel like cooking tonight."  Dinner becomes something you slap together.  That’s what you get!!

Instead of conversing while you eat, you watch some TV or get on your smart phone.  This is where you are probably reading this now.  Or maybe you are reading this at work where you know you should not be reading it, but you don't care because you are under-paid and over-worked.

You spend hours on the computer looking at various investments or doing financial research.  You feel this is the way out of your rut.  But you have no game plan.  You are just swimming around in a big pond of muck most of us call the Internet.  You are over-thinking everything.

You are waiting for the perfect opportunity.  In your mind the perfect opportunity is an obvious tangible thing that when it presents itself the heavens will open up and your bank account will fill up.

Guess what?  The perfect opportunity does not exist.  I have made multiple investment decisions in my life and I can assure you, not one of them was perfect, i.e., out of this world returns with zero risk. At some point, if you’ve found a reasonable investment by virtue of due diligence, you will need to act.  Failing to take a risk is far more risky to your livelihood. The alternative is working your 9-5 job, saving at a snail’s pace, relying on a pension you haphazardly build, or winning the lottery, to rescue you from the rat-race.

Thanks for reading.