By Geoff Tan

TURN the pages of any newspaper, log on to any news portal, tune in to any news channel, and chances are you will be inundated with stories of the economic meltdown in the United States.

This is one event which has extremely serious repercussions on the whole world. Asia has not been spared from this financial tsunami.

Stock markets have been battered and bruised, investor confidence is at an all-time low and staff layoffs are expected. The current economy has been both shaken and stirred.

What lies ahead is anyone's guess.

Have we reached the bottom of the spiral? Have we seen the worst of it yet? Or is this the dreaded storm before the massive quake?

Well, I am certainly no crystal ball-gazer but one thing I know for sure: My investment is not in stocks or bonds, but in the people around me.

These include my family members, my relatives, my friends, my colleagues, my church mates, my golf partners, my tennis pals, my drinking kakis - the list goes on.

This circle of family and friends is, by far, the most treasured possession I have. They are more important to me than any investment I have made.

For many of us, our human nature has been so badly tainted by the values of the world that our priorities have become somewhat warped.

Blogger Randy Robison shares an example of this. He said: "If I spotted a $20 bill in the gutter, I?d stop and pick it up. But I have passed right by a person lying in the gutter without any second thought."

When I first read that, it jolted me into reassessing the things in my life that matter most.

I realised that, unconsciously, many of us tend to take our lives for granted and before we know it, would have thrown a good 20 years or more into merely building our careers and bank accounts.

Although you may think that you can gain much as a result of this "investment", in actual fact, you would have lost.
You could lose the opportunity to cultivate your marriage and see it bloom into a fulfilling relationship. You could lose the valuable chance to relate and bond with your children in their growing- up years. You could also lose many moments of connecting with your friends, and miss having these regular encounters grow into lasting comradeships.

And, just when you have attained all that wealth and success, your kids would have grown up, leaving you with an "empty nest".

Along with that, your relationship with your spouse may have been strained beyond the point of remedy, and your genuine friends may number fewer than the fingers on one hand.

It's sad, but for many of us, it's true.

That is why if you want to be rich, invest in the people around you. There is nothing better than depositing your time, effort, concern and love into someone's life. Therein lies the real treasure. The lasting relationships created will pay you greater dividends than any stock you can possibly invest in.

Hold these things close to your heart, and you will truly prosper.

The writer is a senior vice-president of the SPH marketing division and the general manager of SPH NewMedia for Zapcode.

This article was first published in my paper on Oct 14 2008.

For more my paper stories click here.