Why Invest? - Gabe's Blog

Why do I invest?

2025 January 8

I have always enjoyed eating food. According to my family, “When you were a toddler, you would make sure that we ate 3 meals a day and on schedule”. Also according to them, “When you were 6 years old, you weighed 60 kg” [1]. Decades since, I know I enjoy eating food because I:

1. Continue to plan my daily schedule around meals

2. Think about the range of cuisines that I already like and might eventually like

3. Think about the range of options to taste those cuisines

4. Hope that when meeting others, we meet up with the option of having a meal [2]

5. Hope that when interested to taste new food, we eat without thinking about the financial cost

On the point of financial cost, I realized young that my eagerness to eat needed to be paired with the ability to pay. To have the ability to pay, one needs to have savings. To have savings, one needs to earn net income. To earn net income, one needs to earn revenue. To earn revenue, one needs to make an exchange. This particular exchange can take several forms:

1. As an employee: labor for an employer’s compensation package

2. As an entrepreneur: a product or service for a customer’s payment

3. As an investor, an exchange of a possession for another entity’s possession

4. Others [3]

Given the constraints I faced as a 13 year old which included but were not limited to my ability, resourcefulness, geographic location, and local regulations [4], choosing the path of investor seemed my best available option to:

Make an exchange -> Earn revenue -> Earn net income -> Accumulate savings -> Pay for food

Overtime I realized that there were many other payments that I would eventually need to pay for necessities such as housing, transportation and healthcare, and also for luxuries such as entertainment, travel and collectibles. To pay for these, I would need to make more exchanges and therefore need to invest more.

In summary, I invest because I need to accumulate savings to be able to make willing payments for products, services and possessions that my family and I need. And, my interest to invest started with my joy of eating food.

Footnotes
1. 60 kg is not a typo.
2. A snack is also good.
3. My first job tried to instill upon me the MECE thinking approach. As part of this thinking approach, one on-the-job wisdom passed on was to give the impression of MECE by giving 3, hopefully, convincing points followed by a catch-all 4th “other” point. The one who passed onto me this wisdom eventually pursued a graduate degree at this academic institution. I believe that person would have wanted me to add that link.
4. My third job required a MECE thinking approach with very thoughtful delivery. As a result of this requirement, the folks across different departments and different teams would use words to the effect of “here are some important considerations, and there may also be other important considerations, but let us think about those other considerations at a later time”.