Everything in life comes down to one thing – Timing

Well, alright, there are just a few more things involved, but for me timing is the most important.

I suppose it relates back to that ‘sliding doors’ moment. Had you not turned left when you got off the bus this morning and turned right instead, you might have bumped into the love of your life.

Depressing but a possibility.

But more to the point, I am referring to those who rave about how great they are because they made lots of money when they sold their house, or bought shares low and sold very high and gave their lives a freedom from financial woes that ninety percent of us go through each month (or at least every few months when the dreaded power bill arrives).

These people are not geniuses, they have not discovered the secret to the financial markets. Yes, they would like to think they have, and indeed tell us so, but no they haven’t.

How can I be so sure?

Do a quick search of the main so called ‘expert’ economists, financial ‘wizards’ and see what they wrote as their predictions at the beginning of last year. They are there for all to see. And the one common thread throughout? They are almost all completely wrong.

I saw one the other day, adamant that inflation would reach twenty percent by the end of last year in the US. I have seen others who predicted a major crash in China (which will no doubt occur one day but no-one knows exactly when).

Timing. It is like predicting an interest rate increase. If you predict one publicly and loudly and one actually occurs within a month you are an instant expert. You could have been predicting an increase every month for two years but because you finally got one right you know everything, right?

Wrong!

Or if you predict that the next Apple iPad will be a total flop, which very senior people have done every year since the first model was released, and that year you happen to be right, suddenly people think you know everything.

Sorry, but it was just a lucky guess.

The markets are mainly driven by emotion. Yes there are some facts in there that a very, very few can follow and predict how people will react, but no-one gets it right all the time. Not even Warren Buffett.

The vast majority get it utterly, completely wrong, especially now when our markets are so wildly unpredictable.

So the next time someone tells you of their great gain when they sold their property, think how lucky they were to find the one buyer who fell in love with it and had to have it. Or the shares that could easily have tanked because of a bad asparagus crop out of Croatia.

It is all timing. Yes some call it luck, and I suppose it is lucky to get the timing right, but I prefer simple timing.

So next time you get off the bus, walk a different way to work.

You never know.

Why not hold a ME/CFS and FIBROMYALGIA Games?!

Seeing the Commonwealth Games on television last night got me thinking, why not hold a ME/CFS and Fibromyalgia Games?!!

There could be Gold Medals awarded in events such as;

1. Who can get out of bed first;
2. The fastest time for getting out of bed and into the kitchen;
3. Who can go to sleep and stay asleep for the longest time;
4. Who can take their pain medication the fastest (with bonus points for remembering the correct doses);
5. Who can correctly put away ten random everyday items from a supermarket in their right places;
6. Who can remain standing up in a shower for the longest time;
7. Who can do their meagre household budget the quickest (bonus points for accuracy and for actually knowing what a budget is);
8. Who can stay on hold with Centrelink the longest without going insane from their on hold music;
9. Who can fill out an application for the Disability Support Pension without going mad and tearing it up in tears;
10. Who can drive their kids to school whilst remembering to actually have their kids in the car and then leave them at school before going home;
11. Who can actually drive;
12. Who can find the leftovers from dinner the night before (hint: try looking in random cupboards);
13. Who can convince a doctor that their condition is real (bonus points for completing this before the Games closing ceremony);
14. How fast can you convince a random member of the public that lying in bed all day is actually not a holiday (again bonus points for completing this before the Closing Ceremony);
15. Who can take the most medication withhin 24 hours without significant side effects; (ambulances will be on standby);
16. A motorised wheelchair race;
17. Who can hold a conversation the longest whilst actually making sense;
18. Who can say the word ‘Centrelink’ without screaming or bursting into tears;
19. Who can receive a refusal for their Disability Support Pension the fastest;
20. Who can go a day without pain (this event will carry over to the next Games in four years time, and every Games after that until a winner is declared);
21. Who can climb up the steps to the diving board the fastest (you don’t actually have to dive, simply falling off is acceptable);
22. Who can watch real athletes complete the decathlon without feeling exhausted and requiring resuscitation;
23. Who can remember to bring their tickets so they can get into the Games (bonus points if you also remember your lanyard and plastic ID holder);
24. Who can complete a five metre swim without drowning (floaties are allowed);
25. Who can remember to actually show up to the Games;
26. The final event, traditionally a marathon, will be replaced by awarding gold to the first person who remembers where they parked their car.

These are but a few of the exhilarating events of these wonderful, prestigious Games. They would be held alongside the Paralympic Games because no-one with ME/CFS or Fibromyalgia could possibly interfere with their events.

If the four years between Games is too short for competitors to recover in time, the Games may need to be held every eight years (or twelve).

The actual gold medals will be made of paper, as we do not want to see contestants falling off podiums after receiving them due to their weight.

Also the podiums will be replaced by beds, at different heights off the ground (the tallest being one-and-a-half feet high) so contestants can actually receive their hard earned medals.

I think we are on a winning idea here!Who is with me!

…….now that is just rude, you could simply just say no……

Now what am I going to do with all these paper gold medals???