Let’s be honest. Life is getting shorter every second. In many ways, life will continue to get harder as we go on. No one is exempt from sickness, old age, and death, no matter what your title is, how much money is in your bank account, or how many friends liked your recent IG post. These things are coming for you. So how will you work with them when (not if) they arrive?
Compound Interest
Definition: Compound interest is interest accumulated from a principal sum AND previously accumulated interest.
Just as compound interest offers significant benefits for investments, regularly practicing activities like meditation, working out, or journaling over long periods can yield substantial gains. Each experience builds on the previous ones, creating a snowball effect.
Recently, I celebrated 23 years of sobriety, and I’ve been reflecting on how practicing a “spiritual way of life” for that long creates compound interest. In my experience, daily living becomes easier each year, despite life’s inevitable ups and downs.
“Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it … he who doesn’t … pays it.” —Warren Buffett
I’m not suggesting that bad things cease to happen with long-term sobriety or an established meditation practice. On the contrary, I think life itself gets tougher as we grow older. We lose parents and friends, we start to worry if we have enough money to retire, and our bodies start breaking down on us before we’d like them to.
However, having some enduring practices has made navigating life’s challenges significantly easier.
By consistently practicing meditation, recovery, or daily journaling over extended periods, we really start to peel back layers of the onion, understanding ourselves and how we show up in the world in new and more comprehensive ways.
Running serves as a simple example. Most of us have tried running, and many have quit because the initial experience kinda sucks. Your feet and knees ache, you’re out of breath, sweating, and desperately wanting to stop and walk the rest of the way back home.
However, if you’re among the few who commit to persevering, running becomes easier. You start running farther and faster, and the experience of running becomes one of pleasure and fulfillment instead of a full-on sufferfest that you try to finish because you’re hoping to lose five pounds before your trip to the beach.
If you spend any time on YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok, you’ve undoubtedly been bombarded with videos promising quick results for wealth, weight loss, romance, stress reduction, and muscle gain.
Yet, we all know better. Few truly good things in life come quick. They require time, patience, and the ability to endure periods of dissatisfaction while we wait for the benefits to kick in.
But if we stick with these practices for an extended period, the compound interest effect becomes evident. We run farther, make better food choices, save money instead of buying unnecessary crap, and yes—find peace and contentment through meditation, in spite of all the hard things life IS going to throw at us.
In my experience, the key is to become engrossed in the process and take it one day at a time. I recently finished a novel I had been working on for four years. I often felt frustrated about not being done sooner, but I knew from countless writers’ experiences that I needed to focus solely on my daily word count.
If my goal was 2,000 words a day, that’s what I did. The quality didn’t matter initially—I would address that later. The goal was not to be done but to establish a writing practice, as that’s the only path to becoming a writer.
This philosophy applies equally to those seeking sobriety (or recovery from various issues). The old adage “One Day at a Time” may sound cliché, but it’s effective. All we have is the present day or moment. By focusing on that repeatedly, I’ve completed a novel, achieved 23 years of sobriety, and developed a deep, calm, and satisfying meditation practice.
Consistency over time proves far more powerful and sustainable than the extreme initial effort that we’re often sold on social media. So settle in and don’t worry about what comes later. You’ve set your goal; now just sit down every day and bring that goal to life. Slowly. And watch as it gets better and easier over time!