The first is the most obvious: how to find investments that promise the most return for the least risk. Anyone who tells you they have a secret formula or shortcut for this is either lying to you or have only been investing for a few years. Still, it is valuable to look for clues and sort out signals from noise in this space. There is a ton that gets said and written about this. Pay attention to some of it from time to time. You might learn something. And stay humble. (And of course you don't have to do the humbling on your own. Investments will inevitably do it for you.)
The other element of investing might be even more fascinating, though. When you invest you are buying futures. Obviously you are trying to pay, say, $100 for $200 in a year or a decade. You are hoping to buy a future that gives you more money than you have now, money enough that you don't have to work at 75 (or maybe you're shooting for 45). But beyond the personal future you're trying to buy, there is the question of what collective future you're trying to buy. If you buy stock in a company that is making flying cars, you are paying for that future. It may fail to materialize but that's the future you're buying, a future where people can fly around as easily as they drive around. If you buy stock in a company that is leveraging mRNA into new cures, that is the future you're trying to buy. Your investments could be an answer to the question of what kind of future you want to subsidize or accelerate.
If you could buy the future, what kind of future would you buy? That's an interesting conversation to have with your kids. Or even your neighbors' kids.
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