Ultimately it gets to the point of, is the risk higher than the risk of money in a bank account.
Given that (at least in the us) money sitting in a checking account is 100% risk with guaranteed negative returns (over time inflation will outpace interest), there are investments that can generally be considered safer (bonds, tbills, etc) than just holding dollar bills.
But term is all relative, long term means something different for everyone.
A four week t-bill has the same term as a hugely out of the money long call on a meme stock, and yet one is a tried and true investment strategy and the other is very clearly gambling.
The difference isn’t the time, it’s the risk profile.