Foresight and fortune

What's in a name? Obviously, a whole lot of money. Think pizza.com and you get the picture. A man from Maryland, USA, recently sold the web domain name for a whopping sum of $2.6 million. Considering that he bought the same for a mere $20 around 14 years ago, this windfall can be considered the granddaddy of lucrative investments.

What is even more striking is the fact that he didn't make the purchase hoping to make a killing when the time was ripe. He bought it hoping to persuade a pizzeria to do business with him. Nothing more, nothing less.

This success story underlines the truth behind great expectations. Normally, when someone like you or me decide we're going to get rich overnight, we resort to buying raffle tickets during mega events such as the Dubai Shopping Festival or Dubai Summer Surprises. Convinced that this will unlock the door to untold riches, we go about this exercise with some forethought. This includes taking into consideration intangibles such as lucky numbers. We do the maths and come up with the magical figures that we are convinced will bring us fortune.

Please note the deliberate omission of the word "fame" as in the phrase "fame and fortune". We're not really interested in this just like the winning bidder of the domain name who has chosen to remain anonymous. He, like us, is mindful of the danger inherent in revealing one's identity. Such a revelation can facilitate a situation wherein one is inundated by friends and relatives with the disconcerting habit of popping out of the woodwork at the slightest sniff of money. This can lead to self-doubt over whether one's sudden popularity is a long-overdue recognition of one's sterling character or a reaction to monetary sterling.

It might seem naïve to even consider the first option but self-delusion is a common human failing.

So, there are two approaches to accumulating wealth - the calculated risk and the impulsive action born out of a sudden desire. The first is almost always doomed to failure. I can vouch for this. Witness the countless raffle tickets bought based on a blind faith in numerology with nothing to show for it.

Fortune

I remember a short story in which the protagonist is a man who realises he can make his fortune buying antique furniture dirt cheap and selling the same for astronomical sums. He has done his homework and knows there are many unique pieces lying about in old farmhouses whose owners are oblivious to the wealth they are sitting on. So, he starts touring and makes many valuable finds. To cut a long story short, he comes to a sorry end. The moral here is vaulting ambition usually precedes a great fall despite the leap of faith.

On the other hand, sometimes one stumbles upon a gold mine without actually having planned the whole scenario. This is not luck or premeditated action but a result of doing the right thing at the right time, albeit unknowingly.

But human nature being what it is, one is only temporarily sated. The initial euphoria and the I-can't-believe-it-happened-to-me line of thinking are soon overtaken by more grandiose thoughts, such as "what if I'd done this too, I could have been that much richer". This inherent weakness seems to be present even in our friend from Maryland, whom we now know well enough to refer to as Chris Clark. He is believed to have remarked that he now regretted not buying more domain names in the 1990s.

I know what you're thinking. Isn't $2.6 million more than enough? Sadly, our hunger for material riches is insatiable, a bottomless pit. As soon as one desire is fulfilled, we are onto the next, looking for or thinking of ways to lay our hands on more.

I am sure there are many altruistic beings in whose minds such ugly thoughts have never reared their head. Yet is wanting more really so bad? Remember the immortal line from Browning's Andrea del Sarto: "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp..."