It was a challenging year in many ways, and the stock markets had to digest a significant shift in interest rates, which negatively influenced almost all asset values. 2022 is now over, and I can lock this year up in the far corners of my memory where it becomes history and hopefully sits still and does not come back to haunt me.

I just completed a real estate transaction and am now the proud owner of another piece of land. And you know what is so cool? It is adjacent to where Snoop Dogg, the famous American musician, and rapper, bought his mansion. I marvel at the chance to waft the smell of my famous slow-cooked BBQ ribs over to Snoop Dogg and entice him to come over and join my party. I have been eying this lot for more than two years, but I could never convince myself to put the monies down. My discontent grew as the asking price almost doubled in a few months, and I told myself how crazy this was to let it go. I convinced myself prices would fall again, a reverse to the mean sort of thing.

A daily glance or two in a mirror softens the transforming and deepening grooves of our life’s journey on our skin. The changes are subtle and hardly noticeable on a daily basis but there is no fooling ourselves in the long run. Change is inevitable and surely quite visible.

Change is a constant in all that exists: our universe, our planet, our nature, our families, our careers, our companies, our work, and ultimately our lives. Most of us prefer a status quo, the same, it is predictable, it is easy, and does not require a lot of mental energy – routines have become automatic and known. Staying in our comfort zone is so much easier, so why change?

Who would have thought we would be talking about meme stocks and who would have thought that the stock market could become an entertainment platform for not only the weekend warrior investor but for everybody who is not on Zoom doing something semi-serious, armed with a Robinhood API and fully loaded with Reddit and Twitter accounts ready to go to battle?