The Investment Game: Are We Actually Playing to Win?

Here's a wild thought: What if I told you your investment portfolio has more in common with Candy Crush than actual wealth? 🤔

Like many of you, I've caught myself checking my portfolio multiple times daily, celebrating green numbers, and agonizing over red ones. Sound familiar? We've turned wealth building into a never-ending video game where the score keeps climbing, but we never actually hit cash out.

Let's get real about what being a retail investor truly means. Beyond the money we put in, we're investing a massive amount of our lives into this pursuit. The hundreds of hours spent learning. The daily consumption of financial news. The endless emotional energy processing market moves. The family time sacrificed for research and analysis. We've essentially taken on an unpaid part-time job we never applied for.

And here's the kicker – even when we're winning, we rarely benefit. Our gains remain trapped in what I call the "Digital Wealth Chest" – forever accumulating but never transforming into real-world experiences. Numbers keep growing on our screens while life keeps passing by outside our windows.

When was the last time you asked yourself why you started investing in the first place? Was it to have the highest score in your trading app? To beat your friend's returns? To reach some magical number that keeps moving further away the closer you get?

Think about it: Twenty years from now, will you look back at your portfolio's growth chart with satisfaction, or will you wish you had written that book, funded that startup, or hosted that unforgettable family reunion?

Perhaps the real question isn't about maximizing returns or optimizing strategies. Perhaps it's about understanding what those growing numbers on our screens are actually for.