If you had the worst timing in the world and bought $100,000 of (VTI fund) on Oct 9 2007, you would have received a 101.9% return as of Sept. 22, 2017 and now have $201,900

The vast majority of humans are not lazy, and don't just feel sorry for themselves.

To be honest, I would disagree. Why does procrastination exist, it should be against human nature right? It only wastes time, but it's still very present in just about every human. Why is motivation a thing, surely we should all just do what we have to do, what we know is best for us? How many people in the general public are good with their finances? Very few, most just spend all their money and act surprised and upset when they don't have enough money for stuff they want. How common is it to see people bringing up sob stories and trying to feel sorry for themselves, to get attention and sympathy? Attention and sympathy shouldn't be something people try to get from others, but many, many people do, don't they? I would agree that in theory lazy and defeatist humans should all have died out and these traits should be very rare now, but sadly from my experience it seems to be the opposite if anything. Why do people commit suicide, surely that would go totally against human nature, right? But so, so many people still do it. There is no shortage of these bad personal traits amongst people, even if logically there should be by now.

That's great that you would get up and do something about that. Good for you man, I like to think I would too. But a very significant proportion of people wouldn't. Maybe I did assume that the previous commenter hadn't been hit by a bus and lost their limbs, but I think that's reasonable, as the chances of that happening are incredibly low, and the chances of them being lazy or just feeling sorry for themselves are extremely high.

Yes people can work hard and complain, but there's a time and place. Totally unprovoked in a relatively unrelated reddit thread? That's the actions of someone searching for pity or validation, they don't add anything to a conversation, hence the downvotes, and they are just searching for others to pat them on the back. If I was visiting one of my friends in a hospital bed after they got hit by a bus, I sure as hell wouldn't start lecturing them if they complained. But as for people clearly searching for pity randomly on reddit, I find it pretty safe to assume that they don't have a very constructive attitude.

/r/investing Thread Parent