Investing in the Individual

Expanding more on last week’s commentary, egos, like cockroaches, have gained a bad reputation. The ego, it would seem, has become the bad guy in our personal lives because the spiritual traditions have warned us time and again that this trip on earth has nothing to do with keeping our individuality beyond the grave. To even surmise that a sense of personal self might someday be realized and maintained is tantamount to playing god. Our society has a great aversion to personal power, especially when an individual assumes attributes of a deity.

But is such a judgment really fair? What has the ego really done to warrant such a bad rap? Oh sure, we all can be self-serving individuals, and when applied to egotistical ambitions, things can get out of hand. It is like the individual investor in pursuit of making money. Greed makes us want to buy more when the going is good, and sell when times are tough. Likewise, with our selves, when our ego is on a roll, we love to gobble it up and go for more. “This is me! This charming, gorgeous, intelligent individual is the real me and I love it!” And when we are down and out, depressed and neurotic, we determine that our ego must be some intruder.

The answer to making money in the markets can be given in one sentence: Buy low and sell high. This can also be applied to managing our egos; buy in fear and sell in euphoria.
We would be better off if we managed the ego the same as our retirement account: buy when it is down, and sell off on the highs. The natural tendency is take credit for our individuality when times are good, but that is precisely the moment when we should humbly admit that maybe circumstances and the help of others has brought us to such good fortune.

It is also a temptation to disown our individuality when times are bad. That demoralized victim having a bad day is not really me, is it? Well, yes it is, and this is the time to accept it. By embracing our low points, we buy into something very valuable. And by accepting that, and buying into it at that moment, we suddenly have a whole lot of upside potential. “Been down so long it looks like up to me,” and indeed, there is no way but up. The acceptance of our worst moments makes two wonderful things happen at once. We see ourselves for who we really are, facing up to the reality of the work we have to do, and we also, ever so humbly, recognize that there is this remote possibility of finding individuality. When we do this, the ego villain vanishes, and in creeps a very shy and un-predisposing potential hero: the “I.”