One goal. A better life.
🎁 Special discount until January 5, 2026
“This is a masterpiece.”
—Morgan Housel, author, Psychology of Money
“Discover the extraordinary within yourself.”
—Manish Chokhani, Director, Enam Possess
As the year draws to a close, it feels like leaving a busy market at dusk and heading home after a long, noisy day. But for me, the end of 2025 was quiet for another reason. A personal tragedy involving a close friend recently reminded me of the utter uncertainty of life. It was the kind of news that freezes your world and makes any “market update” or “annual goal” feel incredibly small, and also serves as a brutal reminder of how thin the line is between all that is good and all that is forever changing.
Either way, like a river finally reaching the silence of the plains, I’m using this moment to look back at the lessons that really mattered this year—the lessons that helped me stay afloat when the news was hard to bear.
I have collected ten passages that served as North Stars. They represent the “Ten Big Ideas” that I have promised myself to learn, relearn, and advance. I hope you find them valuable too.
1. Ego
An individual human existence should be like a river: small at first, kept closely within its banks, and flowing passionately along rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river widens, the banks recede, the waters flow more calmly and finally, without any visible break, they merge with the sea and painlessly lose their individual being. – Bertrand Russel
In our youth we are always in a hurry to get somewhere. But eventually you realize that the world doesn’t revolve around your pace. In investing, this means moving from “I need to beat the market” to “I want to support my life purpose.” In life it means realizing that my joys are not separate from those of others. I’m learning to just flow a little more calmly.
2. Humility
Humility comes from understanding that the world is not divided into good and bad people, but is made up of all kinds of individuals, each broken in their own way, each engaged in the common human struggle, and each with the capacity to do things both terrible and beautiful. – Nick Grot
This passage changed the way I think about personal conflict. We judge others by their worst qualities, while we judge ourselves by our best intentions. It’s better to realize that we’re all a bit of a mess. Acknowledging my own imperfections keeps me humble. When we stop expecting others to be perfect, life becomes a lot easier.
3. Equanimity
In my youth I was but the slave of the high and low tides of the sea, and the prisoner of crescents and full moons. Today I stand on this shore and I neither rise nor go down. – Kahlil Gibran
This is the goal: not to go crazy when things go sideways. In the markets, it’s easy to become obsessed with the green and red charts, feeling great one day and miserable the next. But Gibran suggests a third condition: presence. Just watch the waves without being swept away. The lesson is to separate my peace of mind from a P&L statement. The market will rise and fall, and so will life. I try to stay on the shore, as a witness instead of a slave.
4. Attention
Instructions for a life. NB. Be amazed. Tell about it. – Maria Olivier
If attention is the ultimate asset, by 2025 I’ll have spent too much on ‘junk bonds’ – pointless scrolling. Oliver’s instruction is a good reminder for the year ahead. “Paying attention” means finding value where others see nothing. It’s about actually noticing the world. After all, attention is the only thing we really possess. I must spend it as carefully as I spend money.
5. Freedom
There is a space between stimulus and response. In that space lies our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. – Viktor Frankl
Whether it’s a market crash or a personal setback, these things are just triggers. Real growth is found in the ‘space’ we allow before we react. This is where the real victory lies – not in the action itself, but in the restraint. Widening this gap is the essence of freedom, that is not about a life without problems, but about the power to choose how those problems affect the soul.
6. Questions
I beg you, be patient with whatever is unresolved in your heart… try to love the questions themselves. Now live the questions. Maybe then, one day, far in the future, you will gradually… live your way to the answer. – Rainer Maria Rilke
We are always looking for ‘answers’ to life’s big questions. But maybe it’s okay to sit with the questions for a moment. Patience is not just waiting, but the ability to be comfortable with uncertainty. You can’t force the future to happen faster. Like compound interest, the most dramatic changes happen slowly. The key is to trust the process.
7. Character
Whatever happens to you externally, keep your mind free from emotional disturbances; and whatever you do from within, let it be done with justice and for the common good. –Marcus Aurelius
The world is the weather; my character is how I deal with it. Marcus Aurelius reminds us that our primary duty is to keep our inner world calm. Whether the portfolio rises or falls, who I am should not change. The way forward is to maintain my values no matter what the world throws at me.
8. Resilience
I can think. I can wait. I can fast. — Hermann Hessen
These are the three pillars of a resilient life. Nasty think is avoiding the herd; Unpleasant to wait is to control time; Unpleasant quickly is to prove that you are not a slave to your comfort. In 2025 I practiced this sporadically. In 2026 I’m going to try to take them more seriously. If you can wait and go without things for a while, you’re pretty much untouchable.
9. Love
Love takes off the masks we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within… I use the word ‘love’ here… in the harsh and universal sense of quest, daring and growth. –James Baldwin
We confuse ‘safety’ with ‘safety’. We wear masks to pretend we have it all figured out so we don’t get hurt. But Baldwin says these masks are prisons, and exhausting. Real growth comes from the moments when we are vulnerable enough to admit that we don’t know the answer or that we need help.
10. Joy
I leave you with these words of Kabir. They’ve been on my mind lately, and honestly, they say more than all the other nine points combined.
Mano Mea or in prison.
The happiness I find in Ram Bhajan is not in wealth.
Listen to everyone, good or bad, and survive in poverty.
After all, this body will turn into ashes, where will it go in pride?
Kabir says listen brother, Sahib was found in Saburi.
We spend so much time hunting America (wealth), thinking this is the finish line. But Kabir says the real peace is there neperi. This doesn’t mean you have to be poor; it just means you are free from the need for more. It’s that feeling when you stop checking your portfolio every ten minutes and realize that you’re actually doing okay right now.
The most important part is the rule: “Sahib mile saboori mein.” Kabir reminds us that the “truth” (or the sahib) only occurs in Congratulations, That’s just a fancy word for patience.
He also asks a very blunt question: “Where do you go in poverty?” Why do we walk around with so much ego? At the end of the day, everything we have built, including our bank balance, titles and pride, turns to ash (to eat).
So my plan for 2026 is simple: less magroori (ego) and more download (patience).
Until 2026
The river keeps moving. If this year has taught me anything, it’s that we have no control over the tides, only our position on the coast. We don’t need all the answers for what lies ahead; we just need enough light to see the next step.
Here’s to a year of cherishing the life we have and finding peace amid the noise. Happy new year.
One goal. A better life.
🎁 Special discount until January 5, 2026
“This is a masterpiece.”
—Morgan Housel, author, Psychology of Money
“Discover the extraordinary within yourself.”
—Manish Chokhani, Director, Enam Possess
#Ten #lessons #fragile #world #Safal #Niveshak