Take these lessons to heart before it’s too late.
Note: I wrote this artile in 2022 but is still just as valid today.
In 2000 I was 19 years old and thought I was going to eat the world, and the world ended up eating me.
I fell into smoking.
I fell into alcohol.
And I made all kinds of bad decisions.
And it’s funny because if I had known some of the lessons this year had taught me, maybe none of that would have happened.
These are three simple but powerful lessons that make you take life differently.
I hope these lessons help you.
Let’s dive in.
1. You are lucky, but you don’t see it
After two years of losing so many things and loved ones to the pandemic, I have learned a valuable lesson this year.
It hurts to lose something or someone.
Losing what you have fought so hard for.
Losing that partner you have loved so much.
Losing everything that made you happy.
I know it first hand.
It hurts a lot.
But at least you breathe (think about it).
They say that every day 150k people die in the world, 55 million a year.
How many of those people are children? (5 million)
You are lucky. You are alive.
2. Love sometimes s*cks, but you have more chances
This 2022 I have learned a lot about falling out of love. And about how to get back on my feet, listen carefully.
Suppose your ideal type of person (your soul mate) has such unique characteristics that they are one in a million.
Well, in this world, there are eight billion souls.
8.000.000.000/1.000.000 = 8000 soul mates.
And I dare say the characteristics of a good partner are in one person out of a hundred.
8.000.000.000/100 = 80.000.000 soul mates.
Is a lot of people for you to lament, saying things like, “no one understands me.”
You haven’t looked hard enough. Or you got tired too soon.
But matching your soul mate is not enough.
When you get one soul mate, you must invest in the relationship.
The problem today is that when something breaks, we replace it with something (or someone) new instead of fixing it.
And that’s not going anywhere.
The love bank is like the effect of compound interest.
If you invest periodically in the love bank for 40 years, you will get a tremendous exponential return in loyalty and confidence.
It is like calculating your compound interest for a monthly contribution of $1,000 for forty years in the S&P 500 at a 0.25% annual rate of return but imagining that they are love points instead of dollars.
If you save 1,000.00 (love points) per month, your savings may grow to 505,945.98 (love points) after 40 years. This includes a starting balance of 1,000.00 (love points) and a 0.25% annual rate of return.
On the contrary, if you start a new relationship every time you get tired of someone, you lose all the compounding effects. And you have to start all over again.
This is hard but true.
3. You need to be drastic to be effective
As Titus Livius wisely said, “When the situation is adverse, and there is little hope, drastic decisions are the safest.”
You can’t put everything off to the last minute or stick your head in the sand, assuming that time will put everything in its place.
And it is not enough to have attended self-help classes and know how to say NO.
Making decisions is much more than just saying no. You have to discard it. And that goes one step further than just saying no.
Discarding is taking things out of your life so you can travel light and climb the mountain you set out to climb.
And it is vital to learn it because if you go too loaded, you will never climb to the top of your mountain, and you will surely freeze halfway.
In 2022, we are no longer in a position to give second chances to fourth-class people.
We have to lighten the baggage quickly.
If that business partner doesn’t work, get that associate out of your life.
If that friend doesn’t contribute anything to you, get that friend out of your life.
If that romantic partner doesn’t fight as a team with you, get that person out of your life.
There is no time to lose; there never was, but in 2022, even less because we are playing the game extra time, dear friend.
A virtual hug
AG