Compound Emotion
Weekly essays on wealth, decision making, and long-term compounding
Read time: 3 minutes
I came across a question recently that stopped me:
Is this a problem that a younger version of me was once dreaming about?
The more I thought about it, the more uncomfortable it became, because the answer was often yes.
There was a period when my primary goal was simply getting a full-time job in New York. I was focused on building a career, paying my bills, and creating some stability for the future.
Today, many of my stressors look very different. They're often about balancing work responsibilities, family, writing, speaking opportunities, and everything else competing for attention.
These are real problems. But if I had described them to my younger self twenty years ago, he probably would have considered them signs that life was going well.
I noticed a similar pattern recently with my book.
For years, publishing a book felt like a distant idea. Something I hoped to do someday.
Now the book exists. And occasionally I find myself worrying about newsletter growth, Amazon rankings, reviews, marketing, or whether enough people are reading it.
Those concerns are real too. But they're also problems that only exist because something I wanted for years finally happened.
One thing I've noticed is that progress changes our problems faster than it changes our perspective.
The old dream becomes normal. The normal becomes expected. And eventually, the expected becomes something we complain about.
Not because we're ungrateful. Humans simply adapt remarkably quickly.
I think people in finance are especially vulnerable to this. Many of our goals are measurable: compensation, promotion, assets, performance.
The target moves, then moves again, and again.
Yesterday's dream quietly becomes today's baseline. And today's baseline becomes tomorrow's frustration.
Lately, I've been trying to pause before complaining about a problem and ask:
Would a younger version of me have been excited to have this problem?
The answer doesn't make the problem disappear. But it often changes how I see it.
And sometimes, that's enough.
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One of the strange things about wealth is that when it works, we stop noticing it.
Financial stability becomes normal. Career progress becomes expected. Flexibility and choice quietly become part of everyday life.
That's one reason I wrote The 7 Pillars of Wealth. Not just to talk about building wealth, but to think more carefully about what wealth is actually supposed to do for us once we have it.
If you're curious, you can find it here: http://amzn.to/4tTl5gL
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See you next Tuesday.
Bill