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<\/figure>\nA couple of quick announcements before I begin today\u2019s post.<\/strong><\/p>\n 1. My new book,\u00a0Boundless<\/em>, is now available for ordering: <\/mark><\/strong>After a wonderful response during the pre-order phase, I finally have the book in my hands and am shipping it out quickly. If you\u2019d like to get your copy,\u00a0click here to order now at a special discount<\/a> (available till 10th May).<\/strong>\u00a0Plus, I\u2019m offering a special\u00a0combo discount<\/strong>\u00a0if you order\u00a0Boundless<\/em>\u00a0along with my first book,\u00a0The Sketchbook of Wisdom.<\/em>\u00a0Click here to order your set<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n 2. Relaunch of Value Investing Almanack:<\/strong> <\/mark>I have relaunched my premium newsletter, the Value Investing Almanack (VIA)<\/strong>, which subscribers have called \u201c\u2026the best source in India on Value Investing, for both beginners and experts.\u201d Click here to read more and subscribe to VIA at a special launch price<\/a> (available only for the first 100 subscribers). Also, if you wish to check out the March 2025 VIA issue before deciding to rejoin,\u00a0click here to download<\/a>.<\/p>\n There\u2019s something uniquely tormenting about looking back at a decision you made years ago, one that you made with good intentions and maybe even a little excitement, and realising that today, you\u2019d choose differently.<\/p>\n I\u2019d been wrestling with that feeling a year ago, every time I entered an apartment I bought in 2018. It was my second apartment in the same building, just a floor below the first one where we lived. At the time, it seemed like a sensible and exciting step. Our kids were growing up, space was always tight in Mumbai\u2019s famously matchbox-sized homes, and I imagined this second apartment as a seamless extension of our current one. It had a beautiful view too: a big garden and a hill in the distance, which is a rare sight of calm in this noisy and cluttered city.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n So, I went ahead and bought it. I funded the purchase by selling some of my stocks and mutual funds. That part, in hindsight, stings a little more. But back then, it felt like a meaningful milestone, as I was trying to create a better life for my family.<\/p>\n Then life, as it often does, moved in directions I hadn\u2019t planned for. We lived in that apartment during the pandemic, but in 2022, my next-door neighbour in the original apartment (a floor above) offered to sell his flat. It was a rare opportunity to knock down the wall and combine two flats into a larger one. Still a matchbox, but at least a bigger one, and all on the same floor.<\/p>\n After much thought, I said yes. And just like that, I became the accidental owner of three apartments in the same building.<\/p>\n Anyways, here\u2019s where the mind plays its little games. That second apartment, the one I once saw as an \u201cemotional extension\u201d of our home, quietly changed categories in my head. It was no longer \u201cextra space\u201d or \u201chome office.\u201d It had become an \u201cinvestment.\u201d And once that mental switch flipped, I couldn\u2019t help but start calculating its returns, as though it had always been a portfolio decision.<\/p>\n The numbers weren\u2019t kind. Seven years later, the expected market price would give me a total return of not more than 15%. Not CAGR or annual return, but 15% cumulative, over the entire period! And that\u2019s before subtracting maintenance costs and property taxes. If I added those in, the return dropped closer to 10%, point to point. Not exactly the kind of return you\u2019d want after locking up a chunk of capital for seven years in India\u2019s commercial capital, and when, in hindsight (ouch!), you realise that you could have doubled or trebled that money by just staying in equities.<\/p>\n So, if you had asked me early last year whether I regretted the decision from 2018, you probably wouldn\u2019t even need a response. My face would have told you everything. I was frustrated at myself.<\/p>\n But some gears shifted in my inner<\/em> engine in 2024 while I was working on my second book, Boundless<\/a>. As I researched for the book and dove into ancient philosophies, spiritual texts, and the timeless wisdom of thinkers across cultures and centuries, I began to see \u201cregret\u201d in a new light.<\/p>\n One recurring idea that stood out was that regret is not a flaw of our minds, but a feature of our freedom. That to live a conscious and intentional life is to occasionally look back and wince. And not because we failed, but because we cared enough to choose. We weren\u2019t passive recipients of life but were active participants. And participants, by definition, sometimes stumble.<\/p>\n As Seneca wrote in On the Shortness of Life<\/em>:<\/p>\n The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today. You are arranging what lies in Fortune\u2019s control, and abandoning what lies in yours. What are you looking at? To what goal are you straining? The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n And Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote:<\/p>\n Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The Stoics often said that we cannot control outcomes, only our choices. The Gita speaks of acting without attachment to results. Buddhism teaches the impermanence of all things, that both joy and sorrow pass, and our suffering often comes from clinging to what could have been.<\/p>\n Over the years, I have come to see these as not just lofty spiritual ideas, but practical reminders that regret loses its sting when we stop treating life like a formula that can be perfected and start honouring it as a process or a journey filled with learning, detours, and redirections.<\/p>\n And so, the apartment? Yes, it didn\u2019t work out the way I imagined. I am now looking to sell it off, but I have stopped looking at it with regret. Instead, it has become part of my curriculum. It taught me humility. It reminds me that even with experience, we never graduate from the school of decision-making.<\/p>\n Every phase of life asks new questions. Every decision brings its own unknowns. Regret, then, isn\u2019t a verdict, but a signal\u2026that we lived, that we learned, and that we\u2019re still evolving.<\/p>\n Isn\u2019t that the strange and beautiful thing about freedom? That it allows you to rewrite your understanding of the past. And you don\u2019t do this to change the facts (you can\u2019t), but to change the meaning you assign to them. And in that reimagining, regret can soften. It shifts from being a tormentor to becoming a teacher.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve also learned that even the most carefully made decisions come with risk. The best plans still encounter surprise detours. We don\u2019t get to rewind the tape. All we can do is forgive the version of ourselves that acted with sincerity, and understand that wisdom often arrives late, usually after it\u2019s no longer useful for that specific decision.<\/p>\n The challenge is not to live a life without regret. That\u2019s impossible. The real challenge is to not let regret harden into cynicism or self-blame. To see it, instead, as part of the price of living a life with agency. A life where we get to choose, to act, and to risk being wrong.<\/p>\n I won\u2019t pretend the sting is gone entirely. It still surfaces, especially when I see the opportunity cost in numbers. But I try to meet it now with less self-judgement and more curiosity. I remind myself that the very ability to reflect, to feel, to learn, and to grow is its own kind of wealth.<\/p>\n So, if you\u2019re living with a regret of your own, maybe about money or a career move, a relationship or a risk you took that didn\u2019t work out, I hope you take a lesson from my lesson.<\/p>\n The very fact that you could choose means you were alive to the moment. You were engaged and not sleepwalking through life.<\/p>\n Regret may stay with us, but it doesn\u2019t have to define us. It\u2019s simply part of the landscape we cross when we choose to live freely. It\u2019s like a quiet companion on the road we walk when we decide, again and again, to live life on our own terms.<\/p>\n And I\u2019d rather have my bruises and all, than a life where I never got to choose at all.<\/p>\n This is a masterpiece. <\/p>\n \u2013<\/strong> Morgan Housel, Author, The Psychology of Money<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n That\u2019s all from me for today.<\/p>\n Let me know your thoughts on this issue of The Almanack of Good Life <\/em>newsletter, and ways I can improve it. Also, if you have ideas or resources you think I can share in future letters, please email them to me at vishal[at]safalniveshak[dot]com.<\/p>\n If you know someone who may benefit from today\u2019s post, please share it with them.<\/p>\n If you are new here, please join my free newsletter \u2013\u00a0The Journal of Investing Wisdom<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 where I share the best ideas on money and investing, behavioral finance, and business analysis to help you secure your financial independence so you can live the life you deserve.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/safalniveshak.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Boundless-Form-Banner.jpg\")
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\nThe Price of Freedom<\/h2>\n
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\nThe Sketchbook of Wisdom: A Hand-Crafted Manual on the Pursuit of Wealth and Good Life.<\/h2>\n
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