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 A monk decided to take a boat out in the middle of a lake and meditate there alone. After a few hours of undisturbed silence, he suddenly felt a bump of another boat colliding with his own. He kept his eyes closed but thinking about the other boat, his anger started to rise. He had come to the lake so that no one would disturb him and still another boat had bumped into his. He was ready to scream at the boat man who dared to disturb his meditation. But when he opened his eyes, he saw an empty boat that probably had floated to the middle of the lake. At that moment, he understood that the anger was within him and it merely needed a bump of an external object to provoke it out of him. From then on, whenever someone would provoke him to get angry, he would remind himself, “The other person is an empty boat, the anger is within me and I need to work on it.”

Wealth creation too needs focus, equivalent to meditating in the middle of a lake. Here too you come across bumps from empty boats (market vagaries) which are only there to distract you from your long-term mission of wealth creation. The Sensex journey since 1981 had many bumps (see chart). Some moved you ahead, some took you backwards and some just kept you afloat in the same place. Those who kept faith and patience without getting distracted by the bumps managed to create wealth over this period. But most were like the monk who got irritated/ distracted by the constant bumps and abandoned the boat at various points without enjoying the journey. The need is to control our emotions from being swayed by market noise and stay focused (invested) especially in the world of social media which has taken the noise to the next level!!

Past performance may or may not be sustained in future. Source: BSE