Forums are going to be posts obsessed with index comparisons, peer comparisons...full of envy, excitement-of-the-moment...laden with those claiming expertise. Our forum is less so, but still we do endlessly compare all things at all times to the index, one index or another.

Investing can mean a lot of different things to a lot of VERY different people with VERY different tolerances, goals, timelines, and personality response to what others may bring to the discussion. It is very hard to provide something of value if you are 72 years old like me to someone who is 30 or 40, or even 50...someone with completely different focus that me.

I am heavily invested in insurance via Berk, Fairfax; and insurance brokers; aggregates; exchange indexes; waste disposal; building supplies both via stocks and partial direct non-exchange traded business ownership; real estate; beverages; snacks; a few of the NEW NEW things (that are now getting long of the tooth) like Meta, Google, Amazon; railroads...even asset managers.

But I am "in" stuff where I think and feel that "I am in business" not "I am going to beat the index no matter what it takes so I can post up and rant a bit ." I'm oblivious to the comparison and not one post I've ever put up now 30 years of forum participation mentions keeping up or "beating" something. Keeping up? Meaningless to me. Beating the index obsession? Not me, I've seen most fail in this effort and I'm not one to think I'd be the single digiter percentage guy to be the special one.

Time bails me out every time it seems with my bland non-competitive withdrawal.

I do have one goal when I invest in an asset. My goal, it is this on and only this, and it has been this way since 1975, is to try to exceed the returns I'm getting with my short term cash investments like (over time the vehicles have changed) treasuries, cd's, or something similar.

And that's all I do.