Something to Keep
“The essential thing ‘in heaven and in earth’ is, apparently… that there should be long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living; for instance, virtue, art, music, dancing, reason, spirituality—anything whatever that is transfiguring, refined, foolish, or divine.”
Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
A Second Look
Success is the result of “long obedience in the same direction”, as German philosopher Nietzsche wrote. That’s how you make use of the compound effect. Small insignificant actions, when repeated over time, lead to huge rewards. So the idea is to develop good habits and be consistent with them. In the end, our lives are the accumulation of all the choices we have made.
The obvious example involves investing. You invest the same amount of money every month, but you also get interest. As time goes by, your interest also generates interest, and this snowball effect leads to huge sums of money. The results aren’t linear but exponential. The fascinating thing about the compound effect is that this applies to other areas of your life, such as relationships, health, and happiness.
We see success as something insurmountable, while in reality it’s just doing the right thing over long periods of time. Anyone who’s done anything remarkable (including comedians, artists, or athletes) has done so by exploiting the compound effect. Your job is to figure out what’s worth doing and keep doing it for as long as you can.
Something I Liked
The last couple of weeks have been interesting. I’ve been reading on a variety of topics, including home interior design, music, and health. When I review the articles I’ve read, the topic that stands out the most is manhood, though.
I’ve been reading several articles from The Art of Manliness blog, which has been around for almost two decades (another example of long obedience in the same direction and something that inspired this very article). As I said, I read many articles, but the one that stood out the most is Semper Viriles: A Roadmap to Manhood in the 21st Century.
As the title suggests, the long-form post tries to articulate what it means to be a man in the modern world. Although I don’t agree with everything said in the article, there are some fascinating ideas that everyone should know about (not just men, but women as well). The idea I liked the most is that men are supposed to take the hard option whenever possible, especially now that we live in a world of comfort.