Several years ago, there happened a terrible incident with my family. It was around 3 O’clock in the night when the door of our room was opened forcefully. My parents woke up because of the noise. What they saw in front of them were three strangers. Their faces were covered and their hands were holding pistols. They had already switched on the lights of the room so everything was visible.
As you would have already guessed, they were the burglars who had broken into our house in the darkness of the night. My mom was wearing a chain and two bangles of gold. They commanded her to give all to them right away.
They took my father to the other room which was my uncle’s. Actually, at that time two families were living in the same house. One was ours and the other was my uncle’s (father’s brother), who got married a few month ago.
It felt like the burglars were keeping an eye on our house for a long time as they chose a day when my uncle’s family was not at home.
When my father reached that room, he found out that the robbers had already opened their cupboard and robbed all the valuable things in it. Of course, he didn’t knew how much money or jewellery was in the cupboard. Nonetheless, it was emptied which meant they had thoroughly checked everything in it.
They burglars took all the money and jewellery they had robbed and easily got out of our house. It was like a nightmare for my parents. Nevertheless, there was no other way except to face the reality.
Next day, when my uncle’s family came back home, the news fell like a bomb on my aunt. It so happened that before leaving the house that day she kept all her jewellery in the cupboard. She had gathered all the jewellery items distributed at different places of the room and kept them in the cupboard thinking that it was the safest place. There was nearly 220 grams of gold that was robbed.
I am sure the decision to keep all the items together at a single place would be one of the worst decision she would have ever made.
Well, that was a story I had heard because I was quite young at that time. Things make more sense to us when we have a first hand experience with them. I had an experience, though not as damaging as the aunts, that taught me a financial lesson.
Once I went to a market. I had kept all the money in a clutch which was in my shoulder bag. When the time of payment came, I put my hand in the bag to take the clutch out. I was shocked to find out that it was not there any more. It was picked by a pickpocket.
The incident taught me the lesson to not keep all the assets at one place.
Since then, whenever I go to the market or elsewhere I divide the money into different pockets of the bag, so that if one of the pockets gets victimized, the others are safe.
This lesson is not just about physical money but also about digital assets. Instead of keeping all the assets in one wallet, I keep them divided in different wallets. In this way if a scammer makes their way to one of the wallets, the assets in the other wallets will remain undamaged. In other words, the loss would be less as compared to a situation where all the assets are in one wallet.
The lesson is not just about keeping assets at different places but also about diversifying our investments across different projects. If one project fails, the other are not affected. In this way, the damage is bearable.
In conclusion, both the traumatic incident that my family endured and my personal encounter with theft taught me a crucial financial principle of diversification. Be it physical money, digital assets or investment, spreading them across multiple locations or projects reduces the risk of significant loss.
Image is generated using Bing AI
This post is my entry for Hl-featured contest.