Travelling — whether here or overseas — is a wonderful experience. You learn new things, meet new people, experience different cultures.
I was fortunate enough to spend a year working in London a decade ago. It was a great stepping off point to see Europe, and I took full advantage.
Of course I hit all of the highlights — the major cities and the tourist hotspots — but some of the lesser known attractions were among my favourite experiences.
One that stayed with me is the impressive Strasbourg Cathedral. Strasbourg is in the north-east corner of France, in a region that has been both French and German territory at different times over the last century or more. The imposing cathedral sits at its heart.
It's a wonderful building, and beautiful in its own right, but what struck me while I was there was just how long it took to build. If you didn't know, and if I asked you to guess, I could make a lot of money taking bets.
From start to finish, the cathedral took 263 years. No, that's not a typo. No there's no decimal point missing.
Or maybe you've been to the German city of Cologne. Work on its cathedral began in 1248 and ceased, incomplete, in 1473, before 40 further years of construction saw it completed in 1880. That's over 260 years' work across 6 centuries.
And then there's Barcelona's famous Sagrada Familia, begun in 1882, and soon coming under the auspices of the famed architect Antony Gaudi. It's still not finished.
Other than a cook's tour through some of the more impressive cathedrals of Europe, there's a greater point to this story.
Building your own cathedral
We live in an age of short-termism. Where I was once cold-called by an investment 'expert' and told 'oh, we're long term… we invest for up to 12 months'. Where government policies (with some notable exceptions) seem to have far less to do with the good of the country than with the electoral cycle.
Just today, Jessica Irvine's great article titled 'Yesterday's budget jam risks leaving the cupboard bare' is a wonderful illustration of same.
And still on politics, while no-one wants to pay more tax than they have to, it beggars belief that with government coffers showing the wear and tear of sequential budget deficits, Treasurer Hockey is talking about more tax cuts, while Assistant Treasurer Frydenberg has been championing the reduction of pensions.
In life, in politics, and yes, in investing, there is a simple exchange between now and later. Short term pain, long term gain. Short term gain… well, the future's not pretty.
Now, none of us are building cathedrals. But governments and investors have a responsibility to the future. And frankly, it's a responsibility that's being abrogated (and neither governments nor oppositions seem any better).
We can make our voices heard every few years at the ballot box, but as investors, each day is a new opportunity to focus (or re-focus) on the long term.
Look to the future
And no, not for the next six or twelve months, but for the truly long term. Over weeks and months, share prices can do anything. Its over a period of years that investment returns truly become impressive.
Your job is to find great businesses, pay reasonable prices and let time do its thing. That's how true legacies — like huge cathedrals — are built.
(On a related note, today is Legacy's Badge Day. If you have a chance, please support the families of ex-service personnel who are no longer with us. Thanks.)
