The ultimate investment

This has been an interesting year for economists. Inflation is back in a big way. Fuel prices are up, mortgage rates have spiked, the cost of food is increasing, while at the same time the stability and predictability of our supply chain has been diminished.

In short, things are not going well. Or at least that’s the perspective of the great majority of Americans as evidenced by poll after poll.

Interestingly enough, government officials continue to tell us the economy is strong. Unemployment is low, wages are up, and the economic horizon is bright and getting brighter.

Two groups of people, looking at the same situation, have come to entirely different conclusions — a phenomenon that really isn’t all that unusual. In fact, it’s surprisingly common.

People who live near airports tend to focus on what they perceive to be unrelenting noise produced by menacing machinery that spews lead into the environment. Some fear chemtrails, while others worry about airplanes crashing into their homes in the middle of the night.

With the exception of the chemtrail nonsense, these risks are real. They’re negligible to the degree they are almost non-existent, but they are real nonetheless.

Ironically, people report being more annoyed by the 20 seconds an airplane is audible over their home than they are bugged by the collective lawn mowers, weed eaters, and leaf blowers their neighbors use for hours on end.

Peculiar, isn’t it?

Should we take a step back and review the situation dispassionately, it’s entirely understandable that people are wary of aviation and those who make it happen. They’ve invested a significant portion of their income to make that house their home. That income has come at personal cost in terms of time, effort, frustration, and worry. These naysayers are simply reacting to something they don’t understand very well, and so they see it as a risk to their security and welfare.

Humans are, by nature, suspicious of what they don’t understand.

But how much of a risk is it? Much as prospective homebuyers are now flirting with mortgage rates of 6% and thinking that cost may be unattainably high, those of us with a few more years under our belts recall a time when a rate twice as high would have been considered a steal.

Perspective is critical in all things. Without it, we would be ruled by fear. When encountered without training or context, fear becomes a motivator that shuts down rational thought, replacing it with instinctive, knee-jerk reactions that are as likely to be counter-productive as they are to be effective.

Which brings us back to the economics of our lives. We invest in our homes hoping to find security and some sense of well-being. We invest in our cars, even knowing they are rolling depreciation machines that will fail us in the not-so-distant future. We may invest in brokerage accounts, 401Ks, cryptocurrencies, or collectibles with the dream of finding some level of wealth that we’ll consider satisfying.

Yet we tend to shy away from investing in ourselves. Throughout our lives, we look outward to buy the things that will give us satisfaction and provide a life of ease — or at least an easier life. For reasons that escape me, we seldom look inward to achieve those same goals.

That strikes me as odd. The quest to satisfy an emotional goal by purchasing a material good just mystifies me. It’s analogous to buying a bread maker because we’re hungry. Sure, the bread maker will eventually produce something that will meet our need. But the need is more immediate and the purchase only promises a desirable outcome, it doesn’t come with a guarantee. It would be cheaper and more efficient to just walk two doors down the strip mall sidewalk and buy a hamburger. Hunger handled. Money saved. And your kitchen counter doesn’t become cluttered with one more item you’ll seldom use.

I’ll make the argument that we would be better off to invest in ourselves. To expand our personal potential. To see the world in a whole new way and appreciate it and ourselves, more deeply in the process.

Rather than putting tens of thousands of dollars into a sports car to assuage our fear of aging, why not learn to fly? Rather than taking on six figure debt to upscale into a bigger, more expensive house in an effort to impress the Joneses, wouldn’t we be better off to invest just a small fraction of that amount in ourselves?

I think it’s a valid question.

Flight lessons are less expensive than either of those all-too-common scenarios. It’s basically motorcycle money. Yet the pilot certificate confers on its holder the possibility of an entirely different way of life. It trains us to think differently, to conduct ourselves with greater care.

My career has allowed me to meet literally thousands of pilots and wanna-be pilots, yet I have not met a single person who thought their life went down the drain because they learned to fly. Just the opposite. The almost universal exclamation is, “I should have done this years ago.”

Our inner economists are a mess, causing us to be in conflict with ourselves. We invest heavily in the external things that ultimately mean little to us and scrimp on the internal things that have the power to truly enrich our lives, provide meaning and satisfaction, and maybe even serve as a motivator to our children and neighbors to follow in our footsteps.

Perhaps, as we plan to put 15% into our retirement accounts, 25% or less into our homes, and 10% or so into our transportation needs, we should at least consider putting some percentage into ourselves. Over the long term, that investment is likely to have the best return of all.