Be a player

In the capitalist economic system such as ours, it is very important to have capital (duh). That’s how it works. You literally cannot survive without it. We trade our labor, working a job for money in return, just so we don’t starve and sleep on the streets. Equally important then is to avoid squandering all of the capital we toiled so hard for. Having adequate savings is how we thrive.

It’s incredibly calming to know that you’ve got enough money in the bank to cover any surprises. I cannot imagine the stress of living paycheck to paycheck. A sudden, unplanned cash event can turn into a downward debt spiral. A Sisyphean hole that you keep shoveling stuff in, but never fills completely.

If anyone were to accuse me of being privileged to not have to live paycheck to paycheck: get the French out of here. My parents of a combined $2,000 income - for a household of four - managed to save enough to buy me a brand new car when I graduated from high school. I’ve read enough Reddit posts to know that lots of people out there - of all income levels - have a spending problem. No matter how much you make, you should spend less than that. It’s not a value judgement, it’s math.

Because our surplus money can then be used to participate in the capitalist system: by investing it. That money becomes capital for others to turn a profit - by serving the needs of the customer. The return on our investment gets continuously reinvested towards other ventures, thereby compounding the growth. That is how we thrive in this economic system.

Don’t hate the game; be a player.

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Margins are important.

450 words per day

It’s been said that the Ernest Hemingway only wrote about the 450 words a day. I’m far too lazy to research whether he actually did do that or not (excellent journalism being done here), so I’m just going to take that at face value.

450 words a day isn’t all that much, isn’t it? My daily blog posts are about 400 words on average (shout-out to the built-in word counter in Microsoft Word), and they take about half an hour to write. Obviously I’m not penning a great American novel, only merely writing down what I’m currently musing on, so the amount of imagination and creativity required is significantly less than Mr. Hemingway.

Nevertheless, it’s still only about a page a day, and for the rest of the time Ernest gets to chill and hangout at his leisure. It’s no wonder he chose a tropical paradise like Cuba to live in. It’s hashtag goals, as the kids say these days: write for a few hours at most, then the rest of time drink coffee and smoke cigars to the heart’s content. What a super low-stress way to make a living; I bet he would’ve lived quite a bit longer, had Hemingway not committed suicide.  

My ideal locale wouldn’t be a third-world country near the equator, but rather a cottage nestled in the hills and forests, somewhere in our northwest region. As I grow older I’ve really come to appreciate ultimate peace and silence. To attain that, being away from the cities is a must. As long as that cottage has a solid Internet connection, I can make a living doing creative freelance, or like Hemingway, write 450 words a day to someday form a novel.

The lesson here is that life is about consistency and solid habits over a long period. It’s rare and difficult to be a sudden viral sensation or hit something big overnight: good things take time to create, and it’s contingent on the creator to keep at it and coming back to it day after day, month after month. For sure on some days the progress will be excruciatingly slow, but even tiny bits of forward momentum, if done consistently, can compound into something great.

The other lesson is that this thing of ours is indeed marathon, not a sprint; don’t overwork yourself: be sure to take some time to enjoy being alive.

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A road to joy.

People don't want the daily grind

Few days ago this piece of advice popped onto my twitter feed:

Trifecta

-Read 1 hour a day

-Write 1 hour a day

-train 1 hour a day

Do that for 3 years, and you’ll be world class at whatever you apply yourself too

— Alexander J.A Cortes (@AJA_Cortes) July 14, 2018

This reads super familiar because it is precisely what I do. Everyday I've got a checklist of things to accomplish and it's the process of doing them for a prolonged period of time that personal progress materializes. It's hard to believe it's been two years since I've started studying Korean. The daily grind of hitting the books really escapes me from the macro view. 

Read the last (only) sentence of that tweet. For most people doing an hour of each of those three items isn't a problem; it's the need to continuously get after it for three years that proves to be an impenetrable barrier. In our modern times of instant gratification and constantly chasing dopamine hits (hello, Instagram), where promises of fast weight-loss diets still get bought, and short cuts and life-hack articles get tons of clicks, three years might as well be an eternity. 

They want the baby but not the labor pains. 

I can empathize with such sentiment. Indeed some days are difficult when the pay-off (so to speak) is years away. There are days I'd really rather not write on this blog, and I have to fight against all counter momentum just to put down some words - any words. Because not doing so stunts the progress, however micro it may be. 

I'm currently saving up for my next car. I'd be lying if I say the process isn't at moments excruciating. 

Success takes a bloody long time. The public only see the veneers of victory and not the hard battle fought for it. Jeff Bezos is in the news for being the richest man on the face of the planet, but lost in the commotion is the fact he spent multiple decades toiling at Amazon to achieve that status. 

So get after it. Every day. It'll be tough, and the rewards won't be for many years, but it's the only way. 

Perks of being a wallflower. 

The 'long-cut'

I was reading a transcript of the The Tim Ferriss Show when he had on Seth Godin, and the part that particularly struck me was when Seth talked about the 'long-cut'. The opposite of a short-cut, the long-cut is the paradigm that success takes proper amount of time to achieve. The contemporary Internet world is full of charlatans selling life-hacks, short-cuts, and methods aimed at getting at success more quickly, and it's all bullshit.

Underneath all good results are years of hard-work and nose on the grindstone. 

But most people don't see that. All they see is the party at the end and figure the planning part took no time whatsoever. Add in an unhealthy dose of instant-gratification culture and it's no wonder those lists with tips and tricks like how to lose weight quickly (for example) are so popular. Nobody wants to be told it'll take a massively long time and the work will be tedious and draining. 

Charlie Munger of Berkshire Hathaway fame was once asked what are the methods to his success, and he replied the person asking the question merely wanted to know how to arrive at Charlie's achievements but faster. He cautioned even with his distilled processes it's going to take a commensurate amount of years and decades. 

I can certainly commiserate with the instant-gratification crowd, because some days it's difficult to concentrate when the end of the tunnel is so bloody far away. I believe success in life is achieved via compounding, where it's the little things done consistently everyday that will pile up into something remarkable after a prolonged period of time. The daily interest of a savings account is rather minuscule but after a few years it'll be a nice chunk of change. 

The long cut: I shall remind myself constantly of this. As the back-cover of Jocko Willink's 'Discipline Equals Freedom' book says:

"There is no shortcut. There is no hack. There's only one way. So get after it." 

An afternoon enjoying an augmented reality tour of Apple's new 'Spaceship' headquarters.