hope and love

Holy cows!

That's what hope and love are, holy cows begging to meet a cruel butcher. A German friend of mine recently subjected me to a lengthy lecture to show me his utter contempt for my crude opinion that hope and love are not only useless in many instances, but outright dangerous. My friend is a sweetheart of a man, but I still refuse to trust love and hope blindly. It is more relaxing to trust the intentions of someone who hates me.

No, I am not talking about your messed up love life: you will have to sort that one out all by yourself, if you can. But even there, love may be in the way of excessive enjoyment. You can tell, moderation is a four-letter-word in my vocabulary.

Think stocks. You own shares of a particular company, and your love for that company overrides your exit strategy. You are holding on to those shares all the thorny way down, instead of pushing the 'Eject' button with a cool head. Emotional attachment is a hindrance to making--or keeping--money when the market signals you to hit 'Sell.'

Remember the fatal relationship Enron employees had with their Enron shares? The financial mob blamed Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling--and rightfully so--but that did not repay the devastating losses suffered by employees and investors. We don't learn anything by blaming people. Usually we don't recover our monetary losses by taking responsibility either, but realizing our responsibility permits us to actively rejoin the game and the markets. Assuming responsibility provides us with the only chance to participate in the future.

Do you know the most painful forms of responsibility? Being responsible for screwing up is easy. Making a dumb mistake may not be our favorite thing to admit, but we have learned to manage it. The mistake of trusting too much, however, of dogged loyalty, or the realization how 'the power of love' in our peaceful hands can lead to (self)-annihilation is of a different quality. Taking responsibility for doing the right thing at the wrong time can easily shatter our belief in ourselves for a couple of years or decades.

We prefer to swallow some strong substances before we are willing to face the sobering fact that everything we collectively consider as good, may turn into an evil force the next time we touch it. Good natured German folks had to learn that devoted love for their country included the modus operandi for killing tens of millions of individuals and to burn extended parts of the world to the ground.

Good God, how could I get so distracted?!

Anyway, I am confident you understand the idea that your undying love for the shares of a publicly traded company can prove to be a bitter pill that your wallet refuses to swallow joyfully. U.S. Steel used to be synonymous with corporate success, but their steel production today is hardly above their output from 1902. I doubt U.S. Steel executives, their board of directors, and their investors expected a century of stagnation 100 years ago. They expected aggressive growth. But blue chip stocks don't come with the guarantee to remain blue chips.

"If you play enough, accept that from time to time you are going to go bust, because from time to time, everyone, even the best of the best, does. Every professional eventually is faced with having to hardnose the highway." --Doc Holliday, as quoted in Bruce Old's 'Bucking the Tiger'

The professional investor knows that love for a company is costly, sooner or later, and the dumbest thing you can do. And when the love for a stock turns into loss? Yeah, what happens? Right: dear old hope kicks in. Hope, that the market will turn around and your losses will be recovered. Need I mention tulip mania in the 17th century? The tech bubble of the nineties, or the unbelievable banking fraud--fraud is the true name for it, is it not?--that is currently destroying literally trillions of investors' and tax payers' dollars? Yes, hope and pray, and it will all be good really soon.

Now, if it can be a bad move to love a company whose shares you happen to own temporarily, can it not be equally dangerous to love a company you have founded and built yourself?

That depends.

We desire "to do what we love to do." That's awfully sweet! But I am afraid, love for the stuff you do will cut into your profits as well as into your happiness. I am just playing advocatus diaboli once again, and I don't really mean what I say? Wrong! I am serious.

As an example, assume a person who is establishing a business based on one particular product idea she has fallen in love with. It will fail on the marketplace entirely, it will lead to mediocre sales, or it will turn into a roaring success. You tell me, what is the probability for either of these three simplified options?

Exactly. And in the probable case of her beloved product ailing or failing, she will throw good money after bad in the "hope" that it will get better eventually. God, that is so painful to watch! The theory that you should do what you love is the most crappy leftover of the disgustingly pitiful baby boomer generation. It's like Deepak Chopra and Janis Joplin having a baby, or Oprah Winfrey and John Lennon, the most loved fascist of the flower power movement (when everybody agrees with me, there will be peace; brilliant!). Same thing.

Apropos, one thing the poverty versus prosperity thinkers of the 1970s and 80s promoted was abundance. Remember? That is not completely useless if you apply abundance to your ideas and activities. One idea or pet project is likely to fail. A bunch of practically realized ideas are more likely to include a winner. Introduce new products or services to the markets continually, and probability is on your side: at some point it is likely to work for you financially, if you live long enough or cough up new stuff quickly and frequently enough.

You cannot control which one of your products will make money or lose. Falling in love with one of your brain children is threatening your well-being and the likelihood to discover what works for you. Your emotional attachment to that one bloody sacred thing you want to do means almost certain financial doom, followed by hope that will cause you to survive until you are destroyed for good.

Doing what we love or not is not the issue. It's ultimately meaningless. Do whatever you do--no matter whether you love or hate the activity, the project, the product--with excessive attention, the utmost skill you can muster and hell, with your damn love if you must.

That will lead to a steady level of satisfaction you will never reach with addictive dependency on doing only what you love to do. Hope and love work against the ecstasy you expect to gain from them. Screw your imbecilic idea of doing what you love.

Instead, love what you hate to do.

Egbert Sukop

P.S.: Have you purchased my book yet? 'How to Better Hate Your Job.' Grrr ... what are you hoping for? Better times, perhaps?