Investments and Relationships: A brief comparison

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Recently I have been applying investment theories towards every aspect of my life so that I can achieve the lifestyle I truly want instead of one that society demands. I see an asset as something that puts wealth into my pocket financially or spiritually whereas a liability is something that takes wealth out of my pocket.

Liabilities being mortgages, car loans, credit card debt, taxes, school loans, rent, food and transportation.

Assets being rental income, dividends, interest, royalties, real estate, stocks, bonds, stocks and intellectual property.

But I also questioned, are the relationships share with others, are they enriching to your financial and spiritual wealth?

I see so many people living beyond their means to impress society, a young couple getting further into debt, getting a mortgage they can't afford or having children when they could be securing a greater investment strategy for the future. Many people only see the short term gain, people strive for wealth, health and love but they only see short term fixes such as how to get rich quick, how to lose weight with a magic pill, how to meet prince charming or fall in love without any obstacles, hard work or obstructions..

People want convenience in our society and that's where they miss the point, they fail to see the long term strategy. Instead they go to college, get a diploma, work hard to pay off their debt until they are in a vicious cycle of paying their debt because of the desire to live beyond their means. They spend years accumulating wealth, going to college learning topics but learning little about money management or financial wisdom. Academics spend years in their fields of expertise to acquire wealth yet they don't find true financial freedom.

The relevance this has towards love and dating is that we can apply it to relationships as well. Should you buy a convertible sports car to please the opposite sex when you could be saving for investments? Should you have children if they are going to be a liability simply because society says so? Should you buy a big house just to please society or your wife or girlfriend? The answer is no. The sooner you free your mind from the demands and pressures of others and start living for yourself, the sooner you see long term rather than short term, the sooner you can be free to pursue the life you want. Even many women feel pressure to push out a few kids before their biological clock runs out but I ask myself why? There are other pursuits in life other than having children, especially if you are struggling in other areas like financially or spiritually.

I see so many threads on this forum, people questioning philosophies regarding dating and it makes me think, why waste your time with knowledge that has no end result? Is it going to get you the life you truly want? Question why you long for health, wealth and love and devise long term strategies as to how you will fulfill these needs instead of short term.

Oh, boy.

OP, you've got some deeply strange ideas about why people do things.

People usually have children because they want children or because they can't bring themselves to have abortions. Yes, it would be nice if more people thought about what kids will cost, but most parents aren't parents because they were hoping to impress.

Academics don't study "how to get rich", and it's not generally what they're after, though most of them would prefer not to be on food stamps.

I'm increasingly convinced that most of the guys posting here have never actually spoken to a girl. Sports cars? From what hopped-up movie fantasy do you get the idea that girls (we're leaving women out of this entirely) are mainly after Maseratis? Yes, if she has to do the driving everywhere, she'll likely get annoyed, but in general it's young men who're impressed by sports cars, not young women.

Most adults who aren't Rand-obsessed pinheads understand that taxes are necessary to a functioning society. You don't want to live in a town that has no police or emergency services, no road or water/sewer services, no zoning, no recreation facilities, no trash removal, no library, no schools, no judicial system, no public health services, no telecom or insurance or power-company regulation, no services for the poor and disabled. You don't want a society that's got lots of adults with a 2nd-grade education. How much you have to pay to get the services and have a functioning town, how the money's managed, these are other things. But yes, most adults understand that it's a bad idea to free yourself from paying taxes.

Returning to the subject of children: What's extraordinary to me is how many of the people who insist it's a vile insult against them to suggest they should have anything to do with the support of the children they were smart enough not to have (support through school taxes, for instance) -- how many of these people expect that the universe will just produce fresh new people for them. Fresh new people who will one day arrive at their businesses and buy things from them. Or who will become nurses and social workers and take care of them. Remarkable way in which the whole mechanism works for these people.

Anyway - if your main point is "don't overspend", then, well, okay, but if it's "hug every nickel to yourself and don't let go", nobody's much interested in this and for good reasons.

I read the OP's message and thought to myself "wow, that sounds like something I wrote at the age of 21!" All I can say is that the OP is just like me at that age, very intelligent and insightful but has A LOT to learn about the world and society really works. Seeing the OPs age listed as 21 is no surprise and if it wasn't listed as something close to that, I would call them a liar. It's a good if not naive angle and I don't have time to reply, but I would love to see what the OP thinks of what they wrote ten years down the road. All I can say is that all the theories and laws you learn in University generally DO NOT apply to flesh and blood human beings. No wonder everyone laughed at me when I was 21... I was embarrassingly naive about reality and I shouted down at all the 'idiots' who didn't embrace a Randian/Libertarian ideology.

OP, you have an interesting theory. At your age I was looking for both coping mechanisms to deal with the string of broken relationships and a way to explain what was going on. You've done it using Economics and Investment theories, I did it using Statistics and Game Theory. I'm still here, and I'm now in a stable long-term relationship so I know that my method works, how about yours?

Treat this as a long term project, follow through using your theories for (maybe) a few years and then consider writing it all up.

Now, there are going to be folk on this board who think that the two of us are nuts, fine, I don't care, but consider this. Aspies are supposed to appreciate order in all things and we KNOW that our minds work differently to the standard NT model. Why not therefore use our specific skills as a way of coping with the big wide NT world out there?

I actually agree with a lot of what the OP has said.

But why long for health? Because, without health, you've got nothing. Nothing. I think health and happiness are the two things people should never lose focus on trying to achieve.

Apart from these two things, I don't see it wise to get caught up in the views of society.

I remember reading a book review about a guy who wrote a book about love and economics. Think it was The Romantic Economist

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Romantic-Economist-Market-Forces/dp/1780721021