I kept a balance sheet for every person I knew. On the asset side I was tracking nice words, support, good advice, help, time spent together over drinks and laughter, large as well as small presents.
On the liability side I kept track of all the pain people have caused me. And I was valuing my friends based on their equity that resulted from deducting liabilities from assets. Every person was allocated Goodwill the first time I met her. You can’t start a friendship with zero equity.
Over time I lost all my friends as their equity became negative. It took me a while to figure out what happened. Fact is, I can hardly forget if I’ve been hurt. I was keeping liabilities at face value. But it was just so much harder to remember all the good that was done to me.
My fiends had a hard time to balance their liabilities with assets. But that’s how deflationary environments work. Today I don’t need to keep balance sheets anymore.
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