A Fruit Juice Frenzy: Investment

By Rasphal.S.

Investment. To me this used to mean when you bought something nice that you couldn’t use. It started when I was ten. My parents decided to buy an investment property, a house much prettier than ours, which we couldn’t live in. It was nice, but we couldn’t use it. Since then I think a part of me disliked investments. I found them boring.

Then came other kind of investments, style investments. My mum decided to buy beautiful jewelry and never wear it. She still has a box of jewelry in the house that’s called the box of “extra lovely jewelry” and some of the stuff still has price tags on it. And I do admit I have invested too. I bought a beautiful gown from India, a royal green with a gold embroidered pattern and I have nowhere to wear it too.  

Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we buy something all for the sake of owning it? Well my parents should have explained investments to me when they bought the house we never lived in. My dad should have sat me down and explained that that house was an investment towards our future. So that we had more money. But what about the jewelry? And the dress? We can’t wait to wear them one day. Why one day? We have to wear them today.

So in my life and hopefully in yours too I am inventing a new term.  Current Investments.  There are so many people in the world obsessed with living for the day, heck I mean there is even the term YOLO used now days. (You only live once, for those of you who don’t live in the Facebook era). So instead of using YOLO before drinking so much that you drop your pants in front of a camera, and wake up with embarrassing pictures of yourself all over the Internet, use YOLO in a different way. Invest in your day, every day. Take out that jewelry and wear it to work (mum, that’s for you) and use that dress you paid a bomb for and even wear those heels that cost a little bit too much.

Invest in yourself and your style. I recently split 50/50 with my mum and purchased an expensive coat. It’s light baby pink and beautiful and when I wear it I feel like I’m from the Upper East Side in New York. This piece of clothing is an investment towards my style and myself.  Now, I’m not saying that you have to care about being a fashionista. This isn’t about fashion. I’m saying that everyone should invest in his or her style because whether we want to believe it or not we are judged by how we look.  And we all judge others by how they look. I know I do it everyday.  The guy with the spiky hair is a bit too hardcore punk for me and that girl wearing barely anything on a cold day must either be cold blooded or be craving some attention.  The thoughts pry in our head.

Whether you know it or not your style is how others perceive you, judge you and even if you don’t care about how you look you still give off that vibe of “I don’t care”. Let me give you a few examples. I have an aunt and when she travels all she cares about it being comfortable.  She hasn’t ever had to tell me that, I can just tell.  She wears tops and shorts that allow her to walk around without restriction and sandals. This is her style.  By just looking at her I can tell that she is a traveller, an outdoor kind of lady and that she couldn’t give a damn about whether the dress she is wearing is out of season by lets say, five years.  This aunt may not know it, but she is investing in this style. She buys the same kind of clothes for the same kind of purpose. Now, she would be someone who I would say is investing everyday.  She is currently investing and all by using, the things she buys.

Now another example is of one of my cousins. I lived with her for quite some time and know her quite well. My cousin is a high-end fashionista, buying clothes that in trend all the time.  Working in the corporate advertising world she needs too look the part.  However, there is a problem. My beautiful cousin has all these beautiful things and although they fit with her style, she doesn’t wear them. She is waiting for the future. And why? Because there might be an event one day where she can wear them.  So here is how we solve her problem. Wear your clothes that fit your style, the clothes you love and spent money on, wear them. Don’t wait for an occasion.

This isn’t a message just for my family members but for all of us and we are probably all guilty. Don’t wait for a time, a place and an event that is probably going to take forever to happen.  Invest in your style, your look and who you are everyday.  Be in the moment, and be current. Because there is no point waiting for the future when it comes to you and how you look and how you perceive yourself. At the end of the day you will waste your own money and closest space by not wearing the beautiful dress you bought fifteen years ago.

So here’s the final point. Investments aren’t nice things you don’t use; they don’t just have purpose for the future. Investments take place and should make you feel good, every single day. These are nice things you do use. Things you use, all the time.