After the week many of us have had with the stock market it’s no wonder we feel a little queasy this week-end. Some say “sell everything!” others say “buy everything!” and you find yourself having to choose between one side or the other while your heart tells you you belong somewhere in the middle.

I find the stock market very interesting….it kind of reflects many things we face in life. There are all kinds of viewpoints…some brokers say the world is coming to an end, others say this is a golden opportunity. I sometimes wonder, am I listening to stockbrokers, bankers, money managers or “fortune-tellers?” I have heard many fortune-tellers this week in the disguise of brokers, managers, and bankers. In all honesty, their guess is as good as ours.

We are told that the whole world is inter-connected…and to that I agree, but how much of the rhetoric are we to believe that if one part of the world sneezes we all catch a cold? It kind of takes away the control we have over our own destiny. It limits our choices and makes us doubt ourselves as if how we feel and what we think doesn’t matter. ” We” don’t know, but “they” do.

More and more, many of my friends moods and how they feel on a given day is dictated by how the stock market is doing for that day. If the market is up, all is wonderful! Everyone’s going to be a millionare and will live “happily ever after”. On a bad day, we’re all going to lose everything, our house, our car, and our families. It’s the end of the world. What’s scary to me is that more and more people are looking to portfolio balances for happiness. We have to be very careful here not to allow money to become everything to us. If all we do is allow the gyrations or the roller-coaster ride of the stock market to dictate how we feel and how valuable we feel we are there can be no true stability and peace of mind in our lives.

Some people I know who are very religious are having a terrible time with the conflict of the growth of their savings and God. They pray to God to help them find peace…but on the next breath they look over their balance sheets to see how much they are worth today, to find their true value. A dangerous game.
As I know we all need money to live, and we all want to invest in the best stocks, keep it in perspective…it is not who you are. In the end, that is determined by God and you.

Take the time to love,

Jennifer Avalon
© 1997 Jennifer Avalon