Friday Thoughts – Election Week 2016

What a Week

Well this has definitely been a draining week for a lot of reasons.  I’m currently sitting in a coffee shop sipping a $6 coffee and trying to compose my thoughts.  Yeah, I went there.  Spent the money and it feels good.  I just had to get out of the house today and break the routine.  Work from home productivity hit a low this week and it was time to shake things up.

wp-1478877835533.jpgHere’s where we are…

The Election

Honestly, this didn’t go the way I expected in the front of my brain, but in a way the back of my head knew it would.  Let me explain.  My current life is that of a tech worker for a silicon valley company.  It’s a very intellectual world and influences the way I view the world.  I’ve read lot of posts about echo chambers and confirmation bias and I can say I think it’s true.  I’m guilty.

This hasn’t always been my life though.  I grew up (junior high/high school) in rural East Tennessee.  I still know some of the people there even though I don’t see them often.  I’ve heard how the financial crisis impacted them.  I know why they’re angry and I get it.  It sucks.

The real challenge that has caused the most emotion is the negative fallout from this election (and it’s on both sides).  A lot of very negative things were said during the process and my fear is that there are groups of people that now feel validated and empowered because of this rhetoric.  We live in the South.  I know it’s been hiding in the woodwork and now I’m afraid it won’t hide but maybe getting it out in the open will help us heal it.

We have to listen.  We must ask how we can help make things better.  My wife’s first reaction was to say we needed to move out of the country.  That’s something that we’ve talked about doing anyway for a while, but I don’t want to do it for this reason.  Running away doesn’t help anyone.

The Market

I watched the futures quotes the night of the election.  I’m not going to lie, that was scary too.  The S&P hit it’s limit down for after hours trading.  The next day everything was sunshine and lollipops.  I can’t predict the future but I can stick to my plan.  My timeframe is not this week or next.  I’m in this game for years.  While it’s also true that I dabble in trading as well as investing, 99.5% of my assets are in my investing accounts.  One of these days I’ll post about that too, but let’s just say I’ve managed the risk by limiting what I play with personally.

I know it can be scary to see large down days or stretches of decline, but remember the best lesson you can learn is to plan your investments and then invest according to your plan.  The market will reward that over the long time and will punish the emotional response.

Going Forward

Like Pop said in Luke Cage, ‘Always forward, never back’.  Let’s work on that together.  I’m going to be looking for ways I can help.  It’s time to be more involved in the community and it starts with me.

For now, let’s all breathe and listen.

Peace

-cb3

2 thoughts on “Friday Thoughts – Election Week 2016”

  1. My family and friends have had a couple of negative experiences resulting from the election fallout in this past week. This made me angry, and more importantly, made me question if I belong here, if my daughter belongs here. Every time I hear from someone like you online, it goes a ways towards filling up my hope glass again.

  2. I’m glad if I can provide a little bit of positive. I worry for my children as well. My daughter is very sensitive and caring. One of her few friends is from Pakistan and she has been very worried about what this would mean for her friend’s family. It sucks that a nine year old must worry about such things.

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