Never Suffer Alone

Everyone knows that the first lesson of investing is to diversify. You don’t want to put all your money into Apple because if Tim Cook goes bonkers and decides to release iToothpaste, then your retirement savings are screwed.

Instead, you’re supposed to spread out your investments across dozens or even hundreds of investment vehicles. That way if something unexpected happens — *cough* like a pandemic *cough* — not all your money goes down the same toilet.

You can kinda think of human relationships the same way. Each of us is forced to be invested in ourselves. If good things happen to us, we feel good. If bad things happen to us, we feel bad.

But as we go through life, we can also build relationships with others. Building relationships is like investing a small percentage of our happiness in this other person, and receiving an investment of some of their happiness in us in return. This allows us to diversify our happiness across many people in many different aspects of life. And this diversification makes our own emotional health more resilient when difficulties in life come.

You want a strong network of relationships because when life comes along and knocks you on your ass — and trust me, it will knock you on your ass — you want an emotional safety net of people who can step in and share a bit of the emotional burden with you.

You want people who will listen and care and sit there and drink eight beers with you even though they know they’re going to feel like ass in the morning. You want people who will call and call again, even when you’re being a dickhead and wallowing in your own self-pity.

Because no matter how big of a badass you think you are, none of us can stand up forever on our own. As human beings, we are evolved to be somewhat emotionally dependent on each other, to rely on each other and need each other, especially in our most trying times.

If you are currently suffering, the most valuable thing you can do is reach out and connect with someone, talk about your problems, and share your pain. It’s the most necessary ingredient to coping with any sort of psychological trauma.

And if life is fucking great and you’re kicking ass right now — awesome! But use this time to build those connections, to share in the ass-kicking goodness, to diversify your emotional investments and create that support network. Because the good times never last. And the next time a crash comes, the last thing you want is to be down in the hole, all alone.