So I was having a coffee after lunch, telling lame jokes and showing my colleagues stupid movie trailer parodies on YouTube. A friend and I started talking about investing (I super appreciate this, because HARDLY ANYONE likes to talk about investing when you’re Asian and young. My friends usually just call me a weirdo and run away).

We started chatting about the usual stuff like what assets to invest in, how to invest with limited capital, etc, when my colleague said something that I found really interesting: “I’m willing to accept a lower rate of return, but I just don’t want to lose money.”

The academic, know-it-all douchebag within me would’ve corrected him in an instant, lecturing him about how his money will be eroded by inflation, that stocks have proven to be even safer than bonds over the very long run, etc, but it probably wouldn’t be ...