Investing has become increasingly important over the years, as the future of social security benefits becomes unknown. The overall purpose of investing is to create wealth and security, over a period of time.
It is important to remember that you will not always be able to earn an income… you will eventually want to retire. If you want or need to make a lot of money fast, you would be more interested in higher risk investing, which will give you a larger return in a shorter amount of time.
If you are saving for something in the far off future, such as retirement, you would want to make safer investments that grow over a longer period of time.