I have never invested in cryptocurrency. Yet, it feels like I already have. Just before the holiday season, I needed to go to my local electronic store; the one where everyone wears a blue shirt. I went into the store looking for a specific item for our cabin up north. I needed a VHS player. I thought perhaps I could get one there, until I realized that I couldn’t. As I was going through my search, I happened upon one of the sales reps, who tried to help me. We thought there may actually be a single unit that was for sale at the store. I found out later that it was something entirely different. It was a DVD player, which I also understand nobody uses anymore because everything is on a streaming service.
As I was speaking to this young sales representative about the VHS player that I needed, the sales person looked like she was wondering what I was even talking about. I asked if she had ever used one of these. A blank stare came to her face. Obviously, this shows why my hair color is gray, because I can remember that that was a very important system used with my children some 25-years ago. It was very important to have around your house at the time because it kept them focused without any parental attention. So, I humorously said loudly so some older people around me could hear, “So, you probably don’t have any visual cathode-ray tubes here either.” Of course, she had that look on her face again, and there was a bunch of chuckles around me because all the older people knew what I was talking about. I was talking about the old-fashioned television set that had a single display tube. It just shows how so many things have changed over the years. We no longer use cathode-ray tubes televisions either.
What does this have to do with cryptocurrency? All of a sudden, I realized I have something that has little or no value what-so-ever. That would be the hundreds and hundreds of VHS tapes that were mostly from Disney that are now impossible to find a VHS player to actually watch them. I had this idea to go to the cabin and our kids could visit while it would be fun to watch some of these old movies from Disney and other family movies that we probably spent thousands of dollars for, back in the day. Back in the days when we didn’t have the money, but everybody now has all these movies, that you can’t play because you can’t get the right machine. So, the real value of all these tapes is kind of like cryptocurrency. I bought those tapes at a high, when everyone had to have them. Now, I could probably not even give these things away.
By the way, I did solve my problem. I found in the closet at the office a very, very old, yet working VHS tape player. We use this about once every three years. We have a few old training tapes that we will sometimes use as a group project here at the office. In fact, we used one recently, and I basically got moans and groans from the rest of the team because they could not believe that I was playing an analog tape in a digital world.
What’s the takeaway from this? What we believe is going to be hot right now, typically is not going to be hot later on. You have to keep on changing what it is that you’re doing, and how you’re doing it. If you’re not growing into the future, then you are basically living in the past. At some point in time someone, probably much younger than you, is going to be shaking their head back and forth and wondering what you are even talking about. When you look at planning for your own life, you need to look to the future. You may be thinking that - here we are in 2023 and things can’t get that much better. Things cannot improve that much more. The technology can’t change that much! But, look back in time and see where you have come from within your lifetime.
As you’re planning your retirement for today, don’t plan for 2023, plan for 2033, or 2043, or 2053. If you don’t plan for the things that have yet to be created, if you have not planned yet for those things yet to be invented, you will freeze your life now in 2023. It will then seem like you own a retirement made of crypto-currency, and we know by looking at 2022 how that worked out.
It’s the start of a brand-new year. It’s time to start thinking ahead.
