Fear Or Faith? Real Estate Investing in Today’s Market
When you turn on the TV, pick up a newspaper, or listen to the car radio, the words “financial fallout,” accompanied by stories of bailouts, sub-prime crisis and worldwide recession, will undoubtedly bombard you. There’s more than one reason and more than one way for fear to take hold of your senses during these difficult times.
While it is certainly true that we need to be aware, informed, and discerning about the events unfolding today, we also need to keep in mind that history is replete with examples of similar market breaks and the potential to actually profit from times like these.
In fact, the late Sir John Templeton, one of the most successful investors of all time, made billions based on his investments in countries nobody wanted to touch during the Great Depression and years leading up to WWII. More recently, commodity trader Paul Tudor Jones tripled his wealth on October 19, 1987-Black Monday-when markets around the world crashed.
We have proven examples of people who took advantage whenever everybody else was running for the hills. But we’ll never be able to maximize this truth without first realizing that fear is not the only option to respond to things that are sometimes beyond our control. The alternative is faith.
What is the difference between fear and faith? Both are products of the imagination. Certainly, when your life is in danger, fear is a useful tool in that primal fight or-flight sense. But most of us aren’t in those types of life or death situations on any regular basis. However-and more importantly-we invoke that same primal instinct just about all the time, whether it’s in response to a drop in the Dow or a challenge that presents itself in a relationship.
We know that markets go up and down all the time, just as we know that sometimes we might think the worst of someone’s intentions when it was only a simple misunderstanding. But fear can still be a natural response to both situations, even though neither is actuality based on any real danger, but rather a seeming threat to our identity, to our wants, goals, dreams-whatever matters to us most. The events, as interrupted by us, may in fact have nothing to do with reality at all. In this sense, the old acronym that fear is False Evidence Appearing Real rings true.
Faith, on the other hand, is imagination guided by intention. Faith does not react like fear does.Consistent faith creates a centeredness that says, “No matter what happens, I will find a way to make it through any challenge. I’ve done it before (and we ALL have), I can do it again, and come out even better, stronger, and more fulfilled.” Whether you believe in the concept of God or not doesn’t matter. The evidence is in nature and history itself. Change and challenge are what makes us grow and evolve. Economies have gone through these cycles. So have governments, institutions, nations, ecologies; anything that involves life. The same applies to us personally.
No one knows what the future holds, but the difference between fear and faith is that fear is imagination out of control. It grows like a virus, infecting our emotions and destroying our sense of wellbeing. Faith is imagination directed, giving us the courage to act with the intention of attaining what we really want, not just react to what’s happening-ready to accept the outcome without fearing loss. This is the strength that not only gets you through tough times, but also molds a character that prospers and endures beyond today’s challenges.
Mastering your fear doesn’t mean that it never shows up. It just means that you take control of it rather than it takes control of you. When everyone else is ducking for cover, you’ll be ready to use these times to prosper. When it comes to fear or faith, especially now, is there really a choice?
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