Daily Dose of Positivity – Compound interest in life

 What’s the most powerful force that we as human beings, both as individuals and groups, can potentially harness towards achieving our ends in life?

Albert Einstein said, “The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest.” But that’s not all he said about compound interest. He not only said that it’s the most powerful force in the universe, he said it’s the greatest mathematical discovery of all time. He said it’s the eighth wonder of the world. And he said that those who understand it get paid by it and those who don’t pay for it.

We can say that compound interest is persistent incremental constant progress over a very long time frame.

The problem that human beings have is we don’t like to be constant. If you can be constant, you can achieve anything in your life.

Daily Dose of Positivity - Fear of being misunderstood

 “We create fear or make fear go away depending on what story we tell ourselves…”

The key observation is that as long as you are right, being misunderstood by most people is strength - not a weakness.

If you're not seeking approval, they have no power.

The right thing to do is often obvious. It’s not the choice that’s difficult so much as dealing with what the choice means.

We have to have a hard conversation. We have to break someone’s heart. We have to do something hard.

We have to break out of the prison of how other people think we should live.

The price of avoiding these things is making yourself miserable. While the pain of dealing with reality is intense, it’s over rather quickly. The suffering of miserableness never really goes away.

The choice of being miserable is the bargain you strike with yourself to avoid pain.

Daily Dose of Positivity: Intrinsic motivation- Media effect

 Once upon a time, just the act of experiencing or accomplishing something was enough to make us feel good about ourselves, without any external validation. These moments gave us intrinsic satisfaction; happiness or enjoyment that comes from within us, not from anywhere else. Pictures we could share wouldn’t even arrive for months.

However, the omnipresence of social media—enabled by equally ubiquitous smartphones—has dulled this intrinsic reward. For many of us today, it has become difficult to enjoy something beautiful, exciting or fulfilling in the moment. Rather than absorbing these moments for our own benefit, today, we reflexively share them with the world, seeking public affirmation of our lives, actions or achievements. 

More concerning, these public announcements demonstrate a growing cultural dependence on extrinsic motivation, where we require affirmation and accolades from others to feel good about our choices or accomplishments. Unlike intrinsic motivation, which comes from our internal drive for things we want, extrinsic motivation is not sustainable. If your satisfaction comes from others’ approval, you will always need more of it. 

We do things not because they bring us satisfaction, but because we are seeking attention and approval from others. Then, those same people who approve of our posts often feel they are missing out on the very things they see us doing. 

Ironically, many are disappointed that they aren’t experiencing our staged highlights, which we are not even fully enjoying in the moment. (It may create hatred or jealous about us which creates trouble in relations)

In what’s become a very public world, we desperately need private moments. Moments where we simply enjoy ourselves or share the moment with others who are present. Moments to praise in private, moments to celebrate and reflect & Moments where the moment itself, and our enjoyment of it, can be enough. 

-       Robert Glazer
Founder & CEO, Acceleration Partners

“The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness.” – Abraham Maslow

Daily Dose of Positivity: Express yourself- Don’t wait for others to understand you.

We all have weaknesses, and all know hardship. But it’s difficult, even on a good day, to admit we are struggling, to ask for help or to apologize when we are out of line.

Many of us have become even more familiar with feeling vulnerable and have grown adept at avoiding difficult conversations. We may blow up to let off steam, for instance, and not take responsibility for the harm our actions cause. Or we may sulk when people close to us fail at guessing our needs. When setting clear boundaries is in order, many of us may say “yes” to everything only to end up resenting everyone—including ourselves—for having too much on our plates.

Often, the best way to break these cycles is to admit our difficulties to others. That step can be excruciating and frightening, but keeping problems to ourselves can create even more long-term complications. After all, unacknowledged feelings and frustrations rarely stay under the rug. That is why it is important to figure out how to openly articulate one’s feelings or thoughts even when that form of expression leaves us feeling exposed or uncomfortable.

Confessing romantic feelings, for example, could provoke a painful response if these sentiments are not shared, whereas declaring one’s love for pizza is simply an authentic, low-stakes statement.

Daily Dose of Positivity: How to spend time effectively

When employed correctly, time becomes an amplifier. When spent without consideration, it becomes a persistent source of regret.

 Investing in Learning: The upfront costs are real and visible and, like any investment, the future payoff is uncertain. So we tend to skim the surface, thinking this will “save us time” versus doing the real work. Yet this surface-based approach leads to no improvement in our ability to make decisions. In fact, it may harm us if we think we’ve learned something for real. Thus, surface learning is a true waste of time. It’s just that the link to our bad learning is unclear, so we rarely identify the root cause.

 

Relationships: We’re often too “busy” to spend time with the ones we care about. The very parent at the park playing on his iPhone while his children run around playing and laughing is the same one, who, when you fast-forward the axis of time, wants those precious moments back. Likewise, the “busy” 30-something who can’t make time to see their parents wishes to have them back after they’re gone. They wish for more time with them.

 

Time is invisible, so it’s easy to spend. It’s only near the end of our life that most of us will realize the value of time. Make sure you’re not too busy to pay attention to life. 

Wealth is created not by spending your time making money but rather by saving your time to make money

-          https://fs.blog/2017/03/seneca-on-the-shortness-of-time/