14 Secrets Of Happy Investors At World’s End

by Paul B. Farrell

If "this times is never different,' enjoy Eternal Now, Wow, and what an epiphany! Zen masters call it satori, enlightenment.  One of those great a-ha moments!

I finished my last piece, was thinking about my fellow doomsday prognosticator, Jeremy Grantham, the guy whose firm managers $95 billion. He’s convinced that capitalism is one big engine driving the world headlong into doomsday, off a cliff, into a cosmic black hole.

I remembered so many times Grantham repeating the mantra, “this time is [never] different.” Why? Because it fits every other one of 300 prior bubbles Grantham’s studied. It fits not because capitalists will never change their self-serving, obsessive, more-is-never-enough greedy ways. They won’t, but it fits because the capitalists can’t change their ways.

Why? Because their behavior is wired and programmed into their collective brains and their individual genes, locked in forever, says Grantham.

And because that’s what makes the long-term “this time is different” market cycle repeat in all prior 300 crashes — driving off a cliff, time after time, after time. That’s why another crash is destined to repeat soon. It is inevitable, unavoidable and so very easy to predict, the biggest ever bubble will explode, like all 300 prior pops.

What’s different this time? China’s capitalists buying Ferraris!

But … something really is different. This time capitalism itself is self-destructing. Then my great epiphany while driving to a meeting, listening to CNBC or CNN: All about the red-hot Chinese luxury-goods market. A few decades a poor nation. Now millionaires and billionaires with more money than the Koch Brothers. China’s luxury market’s bigger than U.S. and Europe combined. Growing 25% annually. Buying French handbags. Tiffany diamond earrings for a hundred grand plus.

Suddenly, Ferraris, and my a-ha moment: Ferraris are white-hot in China. Turns out one nouveau riche Chinese dude’s already collected six Ferraris. Bingo. A big light went on in my head: Hey, that “this time is never different” cycle really is locked deep in the DNA of the world’s capitalists. Whether in China, America, Africa, it’s the same everywhere, driving the rest of us headlong to the peak, to blow up the 301st bubble.

And there’s nothing (absolutely nothing) that’s going to change the trajectory. Nothing, till the bubble explodes in our faces, terminates Adam Smith’s “Era of Capitalism,” and yes, maybe even end the world as we know it, warns Grantham.

Suddenly it hit me: Doesn’t matter. Forget Doomsday. Live today, now!

But get this: What’s happening with Ferrari collectors in capitalist China suddenly revealed itself as no different than the Koch Brothers wanting a few more billions … no different than an oil corporation’s payments to climate-denying pseudo-scientists … no different than campaign dollars flowing to keep the army of conservatives in an aggressive war to take absolute control of all branches of our government.

Remember, all this is programmed in each capitalist’s DNA … in America’s collective DNA … and it’s locked in the DNA of the inevitable, can’t-be-stopped, cosmic “this time is never different” bubble cycle that we’re all riding to an explosive peak.

And that triggered my epiphany: If collapse is inevitable, preprogrammed in our collective DNA, and preprogrammed in “Graham Cycle 301” … the cycles destined to self-destruct capitalism and end the world … someday in the future, maybe in a century or two … as we absolutely waste non-renewable resources, like potassium … resources essential to feeding the 10 billion people on earth in 2050 … if the crash, meltdown, collapse is really that certain, guaranteed … then why not stop fighting it … accept it, live with it and stop wasting your time and energy trying to change the trajectory of the end of capitalism and the end of the world with ineffective, futile countermeasures.

Stop fighting coming Death of Capitalism and World’s End

Seriously, let’s end ineffective projects like Bill Gates’s billions spent on vaccines, Matt Damon’s pure water for the Sahara, Bill McKibben’s 350.org’s fight to stop Keystone XL pipeline, Grantham’s Research Institute on Climate Change and Environment at the London School of Economics.

Why not just stop? Why? We already know the destined outcome of the 301st bubble. History is crystal clear, this time is never, never, never different. Why keep banging our heads against the wall created by Kochs, Ryan and BP?

Live in the Eternal Now. Enjoy the last days of capitalism: Maybe buy a Ferrari today. Take the kids to a great movie today. Enjoy a neighborhood barbecue. Read a trashy novel today. Accept that capitalism won’t be around much longer. Remember, in the last days of Earth that great film, “Avatar” may be more than a metaphor. So let’s live for today, in the Eternal Now.

If you need help, here are my reminders, 14 Secrets of Happy Investors at World’s End. Maybe they’ll jar your memory, maybe bring a smile, maybe help you see that at this one moment in time, in your own unique way, you really are the happiest, richest and luckiest investor living in the whole wide world:

1. Happiness is making others happy

Like family: My wife loves Mary Engelbrecht’s calendars. We have several around the house. My perennial favorite’s a jolly, happy, bright-colored Santa strolling along with a huge bag of gifts and a cute dog. The caption from Oscar Wilde: “Some cause happiness wherever they go.” And there’s lots of pages from Mary’s smaller calendars tacked on our fridge with magnets … they all “cause happiness” with a smile.

2. Happiness is doing what you love (even if you’re not doing it)

“Success is getting what you want,” says Uncle Warren, the Sage of Omaha. “Happiness is wanting what you get.” And to University of Nebraska students he admitted: “If there is any difference between you and me, it may simply be that I get up every day and have a chance to do what I love to do, every day … I get to do what I like to do every single day of the year,” says Buffett. “I tap dance to work, and when I get there, I think I’m supposed to lie on my back and paint the ceiling. It’s tremendous fun.” Moreover he’d do it even if he had “$40 instead of his $40 billion.”

3. Happiness is some Cheerios and a warm puppy

For Peanuts’ creator Charles Schultz, it’s very simple: “Happiness is a warm puppy.” And pure joy in Anna Quindlen’s “A Short Guide to A Happy Life”: “Get a life in which you pay attention to the baby as she scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a Cheerio with her thumb and first finger. Turn off the cell phone. Turn off your regular phone, for that matter. Keep still. Be present. Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you.” God bless Snoopy and cheery Cheerios!

4. Happiness is getting lost in whatever you’re doing

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi looks more like jolly St Nick than a psych professor. In Seligman’s “Authentic Happiness,” Mihaly says: “Isn’t it funny? I’ve been studying happiness for at least 40 years, but I still don’t have a definition of it. The closest one would be that happiness is the state of mind in which one does not desire to be in any other state. Being deeply involved in the moment, we do not have the opportunity to think about anything but the task at hand — hence, by default, we are happy.”

5. Happiness is getting into action and doing what’s right

In “The Secret Power Within: Zen Solutions to Real Problems,” Chuck Norris says: “At heart, we all want the same thing, whether we call it ‘enlightenment,’ ‘happiness,’ or ‘love.’ Too many people spend their lives waiting for that something to arrive — and that’s not the Zen way. Zen is always on the side of action, always on the side of doing what is necessary and right.”

6. Happiness is also doing nothing, just whistling

In “The Art of Doing Nothing,” Veronique Vienne relates this little de-stressing trick: “You know how to whistle, don’t you?” said Bacall to Bogart. “Just purse your lips and blow.” Vienne says if you “want to take some pressure off yourself or let the air out of a tense situation ... try whistling a few notes. …. You feel pretty sexy and carefree with your puckered lips, don’t you? Hold on to that feeling.”

7. Happiness is faking it so good you really are happy

In “The Way of the Peaceful Warrior,” Socrates tells his young disciple: “A fool is ‘happy’ when his cravings are satisfied. A warrior is happy without reason. That’s what makes happiness the ultimate discipline ... This is the final task I will ever give you, and it goes on forever. Act happy, feel happy, be happy, without a reason in the world. Then you can love, and do what you will.”

8. Happiness is more a bunch of little moments than big deals

I love Roger Rosenblatt’s “The Rules of Aging”: “Rule 40. A long, happy life lasts five minutes.” And forever! In Hugh Prather’s poetic “Little Book of Letting Go” a tennis pro talks about a frustrated 12-year-old: “Her problem is that she thinks she should be happy. She hasn’t yet learned that happiness is an occasional good meal and, if you’re lucky, a good TV program now and then.” Hugh concluded, that’s “an apt description of the surprisingly limited role happiness plays in most adult lives.” Five minutes is forever.

9. Happiness is knowing when enough is enough

Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, peace activist and was a close friend of the popular Trappist monk Thomas Merton. In “Stepping Into Freedom” Thich says: “Your notions of happiness may be very dangerous. The Buddha says happiness can only be possible in the here and now, so go back and examine deeply your notions and ideas of happiness. You may recognize that the conditions of happiness that are already there in your life are enough. Then happiness will be instantly yours.”

10. Happiness is not being attached to money and stuff

Remember Henry Miller’s famous opening line in “Tropic of Cancer”: “I have no money, no resources, no hopes, I am the happiest man alive.” Sounds similar to Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh’s vows: “The Tenth Precept: On Not Accumulating Money or Possessions for Personal Use. Aware that the happiness of a monk or nun is found in solidity and freedom, I vow not to allow money or possessions to become a preoccupation in my life. … We are happy just by being aware of what is in front of us.” My mentor Joseph Campbell adds: “My life course is totally indifferent to money. As a result a lot of money has come in by doing what I feel I want to do from the inside.”

11. Happiness is spending less than you earn

Americans know this truth, from Charles Dickens’s famous formula: “Annual income, 20 pounds; annual expenditure, 19 pounds; result happiness. Annual income, 20 pounds; annual expenditure, 21 pounds; result misery.” Money guru Andy Tobias included it in Parade’s “10 Smartest Things About Money.” Dan Millman echoes the message in “The Way of the Peaceful Warrior.” “The secret of happiness,” says the ol’ garage mechanic, Socrates, “is not found in seeking more, but in the capacity to enjoy less.”

12. Happiness is doing what you really love

“Why is it that only a minority of our population love their work? …. If you make one major decision correctly,” says Thomas Stanley in “The Millionaire Mind,” “if you are creative enough to select the ideal vocation, you can win, win big-time. The really brilliant multimillionaires are those who selected a vocation they love.”

13. Happiness is being of service … to your world

In “The 7 Spiritual Laws of Success” Deepak Chopra says: “Everyone has a purpose in life, a unique gift of special talent to give others … ask yourself, ‘How am I best suited to serve humanity?’ Answer that question and put it into practice. Discover your divinity, find your unique talent, serve humanity with it, and you can generate all the wealth you want.”

14. Happiness is about being rich in spirit

“Instead of focusing almost exclusively on our finances,” says Ralph Warner in “Get A Life — You Don’t Need A Million To Retire Well,” we “should be thinking about the things that truly make a difference in our later years; our health, spiritual life, relationships with family and friends, and having a plate full of interesting things to do.”

Now add your comment, complete this sentence: “I am the happiest (and richest) investor because …”

The prize? It comes from within, an investment that will continue growing, making you richer in spirit and in fact as you cause happiness wherever you go today, and every day. And share this column: Email it to friends and loved ones.

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