Chasing the One Percent

As some probably noticed, I have been going on a bit of a personal journey of late, looking at improving my position in life across the three core parts of myself, the mental, physical and the emotional. There are many things to dive into, but one of the aspects I have recently reminded myself of, is my own personal philosophy that I have lived by for over a decade.

A bit at a time, the world changes

This is not some newage nonsense, it is just fact. All movement is progressive, and time is just a way to track the motion for us to make sense of it. Of course, if we actually were to take a true snapshot of a particular point in time, there would be no motion, but in that moment, time doesn't exist anyway. But that is a case for another day.

Essentially though, everything is made up of tiny movements, some kind of action, reaction, followed by an endless cycle from the beginning of movement, to the time where everything stops again. We of course only live in a sliver of the grand movement of all things as an individual, yet we are also part of the meta, able to make minute shifts in the universe.

That does sound newage-y

At a practical level though, this means that we are able to shift course, change our direction, do something different. And any move, has consequences, up, down, left, right, forwards, or backwards. We can get improvement upward, or we can slide downward. However, similar to rolling earnings of an investment back into the investments or across into other generative income streams, actions can compound. This means that marginal gains across many areas, can have dramatic effects over time.

This works in reverse too.

So, rather than focusing and going "all in" on a specific item of improvement in my life, I am looking to spread my investment wider, and look to improve multiple areas incrementally, simultaneously. There are risks in this, because it can lead to nothing happening if not paying attention, as well as "disappointment" because especially at the start, not much happens. This is easy to visualize with money.

For example, if you were to save 100 dollars a week for a year when you were 20, you would have $5200. If you were to invest it at 10% for the next year, you would have $5720, a gain of 520. Easy. However, even if you didn't add anything more to it, if you kept getting 10% for the next 45 years and retired at 65, there would be $379,000 in that account. But, if you let it sit for another 2 years and retired at 67, there would be $459,000. Not too shabby.

But, this is how it works with everything, yet we aren't always going to be able to get large gains from everything we do. But, if we do enough of the right things and make gains in those, over time, we can be in a completely different situation than the trajectory we had been on prior to making the changes. And, it doesn't take much.

For instance, making a small dietary change like skipping a snack or eating something healthy for a snack instead each day, will make a significant change to the body over the space of a year. Doing an extra set or one more rep at the gym, or going for an additional 10 minute work on a lunch break, compounds with the change in diet to bring inflated benefits.

What affect does it have on the mind and emotions?

Perhaps we feel a little bit better about ourselves, just for doing something we believe is in our best interest. Perhaps in a few months we look in the mirror, and notice a change, and then maybe we build our appreciation of ourselves a little and then add a longer walk, or change the dinner menu also. We could even become slightly more confident, a little happier, a little more social, a little less victim.

Who knows.

Like an investment, the outcomes are not guaranteed. But similarly, it is is pretty predictable to know what the outcome looks like when no investments are made. People often laugh at those whose investments fail, like all those people who revel in the crash of Bitcoin. And then revel again when it drops "down", without recognizing that it is also up 10x on when that same person chose to laugh at the stupid investors.

Small amounts add up.

Abd fir me, I am hoping that if I can stay attentive, if I can maintain awareness, I will be able to make small, consistent investments into parts of my life that matter, in the same way that I have done it on Hive. It has been a lot of work of course, and at times it "wasn't worth it", but those small amounts add up, compound, and become part of something much larger, something that opens new doors, new opportunities, new relationships.

We never know what the future holds.

As said, there are no guarantees, but it is likely that if we don't take care of ourselves, we are going to degrade at an increasing rate. Even if we do take care of ourselves, it doesn't mean we will improve, but it might slow the slide. But more than that, when we feel okay, when we are happy with ourselves, confident in what we are doing, we are more likely to be in the right frame of situation to take the opportunities that will help us further our cause.

One percent.

It doesn't seem like much. But compound interest returns some crazy numbers. Like if starting with 100 dollars and getting 1% a day, the first year would see $3,778, the second $142,758, and the third $5,393,917.

Getting 1% a day on the crypto markets doesn't seem to hard, does it? But every day, over and over, rolling in every time - that i the challenge. It is far easier to look for the big score, the massive spike, the life changing moment - instead of recognizing that our life is changing constantly.

Whether we do something.
Or we do nothing.

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]