A Message From the Past

There’s a Russian saying about nostalgia: “The past is more unpredictable than the future.” It’s so common for people’s memories about a time to become disconnected from how they actually felt at the time.

The past wasn’t as good as you remember. The present isn’t as bad as you think. The future will be better than you anticipate.

So much of what matters in investing – this is true for a lot of things in life – is how you manage the psychology of uncertainty. The problem with looking back with hindsight is that nothing is uncertain. You think no one had anything to worry about, because most of what they were worrying about eventually came to pass.

“You should have been happy ... See more

The past wasn’t as good as you remember. The present isn’t as bad as you think. The future will be better than you anticipate.

Everything looks certain in hindsight, but at the time uncertainty ruled the day.