Beyond “Stock Market” Emotional Health

I’ve been investing for a long time. One of my earliest mentors talked to me about saving and investing when I was only 19. I pay attention to it and read the business news daily just to keep up with trends and economic signals.  But over the last couple of years I have seen a two-fold trend.  When the President tweets, the stock market jumps down or up.  It’s uncanny how volatile the market is in response.  If I had a crystal ball and could know when he was doing that, I would be neck-deep in the options and futures markets, but I don’t, so I don’t.

One day the trade tweets had made the market jump again and I thought, “If my emotional health was as volatile as the stock market, I would be in a padded room by now!”  Some, just like the market, let a single event or statement or circumstance completely reorient their emotional health or happiness.  I’ve seen it too many times.  They make money or lose money.  They have a painful conversation or a blessing conversation.  They get a confirmation or a confrontation.  Those things then send them into an emotional tailspin, a roller coaster of ups and downs.

In contrast, I read Paul’s claims about contentment, that he has discovered the secret of being content in whatever circumstances come.  What he describes is a settled place that recognizes the EXISTENCE of the wild swings of good days and bad days, but he has refused to connect contentment to them.  He knows who he is and whose he is and that tempers and colors everything else.

Have you discovered that kind of contentment?  If you wait for it, it will never come.  You must CHOOSE it.  Paul chose it.  Will you?