The belief that compound interest in everything you do will make you exponentially better… is a numbers and perceptions manipulation.
There. I said it.
That investment —whether financial, physical, relationship, or anything else— is worth more at a date in the future.
Our future self cashes in on that value.”
That’s just bullshit.
Here’s why.
It assumes you do have —with certainty— a positive return, a gain, a profit.
And here comes the most important part: since you have certainty of a gain, risk is zero. There are no trade offs. Only upsides.
Any, ANY, kind of investment involves a degree of risk. Assuming that “just because you invest” you get a profit in the long run is as toxic as thinking any decision is riskless, everything happens for a reason or if you want it bad enough, you’ll get it.
The cherry on top: it takes for granted that ANYTHING is worth less now than in the future (which is a lie.- Economics and Financing 101: the value of anything now is worth more than in the future. Any future value needs to be discounted to the present time to see if the potential profitability of a project is positive NOW or not. → In short: is it better to use that opportunity now or in the future?)
Here’s the thing.
You want to get better? Cool. Get better. Do better.
You won’t be able to quantify everything (and for sure you’ll be shit at it or even get worse at times). This, however, doesn’t mean you’re not improving.
Waste is required to innovate. You need to suck at it sometimes so that you know what works and what doesn’t.
Knowing what you need to do is about seeing the trend line, than the point itself.
And know that there are risks —tradeoffs.
Just know that.
And make your right call.
You can do better. Just don’t buy into that 1% compound “security” that they sell you.