Life Is Just a Result of the Compound Effect of Our Choices

Your choices decide whether your life is a success or is it a failure

If we try to boil everything that happens to us down to a single thing, a single core-controlling factor of all the results that take place in our lives, what will it come down to?

It’s only one thing that determines whether you are going to live in a luxurious apartment or a slum, live the life you wanted to, or live the life you are being wanted to. It all comes down to choices. The choices you make every single time.

It was my choice of not abiding by what my dad said about not playing too aggressive sports during the time just before our transfer that resulted in the breaking of my arm. Though it’s fine now, the scar of the surgery still reminds me of the day my dad saying to me, “Don’t go aggressive with your game in any sport, we are leaving this city in a week.”

Me here, writing stories on Medium, is also a result of choice between binge-watching all the web series sitting in my backlog and doing something productive that could help me get better during the lockdown.

And not just that, your whole life is a result of the accumulated, compound effect of the choices you’ve made throughout your life up to this moment.

Right now, your waistline is the result of the compounding of choices you’ve made up to this moment. Your business, your bank balance, and the intimacy in your relationship, all can be traced on the lines of the compounding of your choices.

Success isn’t a result of a heroic feat

Nobody you see on the cover page of a magazine is a result of something heroic (though there are some exceptions, let’s not talk about exceptions, they aren’t meant to be understood, they’re supposed to be accepted as they are).

Success is a result of small, seemingly insignificant, moment-to-moment choices.

The only thing that makes them stand apart is the effect of that compounding effect of their choices, which resulted in the dramatic difference in the result. These minute differences in choice can add up to a big, gigantic difference in results.

If you were given a choice between picking a penny that doubles everyday for 31 days and picking a bag of a million dollars, which one would you choose?

Let’s say you believe in the compounding effect and you chose a penny that doubles every day ignoring the comments of the people around you speaking, “You dumb! can’t you see that a penny stands no freakin’ chance against a million dollars?”

If it doubles every single day, i.e., it goes according to powers of two, so you’ll easily beat that million dollars on the 28th day itself, with 3 more days left to double, and you know what will it be on 31st day, it will be more than 10 million dollars.

Moreover, the most interesting thing about this compounding effect is you’ll see so little result in the beginning that you’ll feel like, “What kind of swamp I’ve put myself in?” In fact, on the 11th day, your penny would have become just 10 dollars, and on the 21st day, 10k dollars, but on the 31st day, you have crossed 10 million dollars.

Compound Interest is the 8th wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it; he who doesn’t, pays it. — Albert Einstein

Compounding is the 8th wonder of the successful world. Stop looking for shortcuts, there are none, no quick-fixes, nothing. He who climbs the ladder starts at the bottom, and that’s the choice one needs to make to reach the top.

You are going to go through a minefield, day in and day out, of hard freakin’ work and sacrifices because success is earned one day at a time. Every day you get up, go to work, and at night decide whether it was a success or was it a failure. You are either moving forward or stepping behind, one step at a time. It is one decision at a time.

Choices and Consequences

The moment you make the choice, the outcomes, the results, the consequences are not known, in fact, it’s invisible for a significantly long time, seeming like your choice is not affecting the outcome.

This can easily let you get faked out if you aren’t foresighted enough. You see, every single choice can have a “Butterfly-Effect”. One little itsy-bitsy choice can lead to a tsunami, either positive or negative, in 10–15 years.

In such circumstances, you need to have patience, need to believe that what you are doing is right (condition applied, you don’t choose the option you know is going to f**k you up). Once the choice is made, the compound effect is already ignited, and all the future choices fuel it, and it’ll stretch itself over 10–15 years before it is going to present you the result.

Get rich quick schemes are for losers

We are constantly being bombarded with all these sensational marketing gimmickries with claims like get fit, get rich, get younger, get sexier all overnight.

Overnight success comes to those who make the right choices over a long period of nights.

These marketing gimmicks are the blue pills of real life. They’ll lead you to a world of ignorance by asking you to join a community that is a lot successful with little to no effort. But the truth is, there’s no silver bullet, no special pill that will provide you an overnight success. And hey, there’s another choice in front of you, take the blue pill or live by your own will.

There’s no silver bullet, no special pill that will provide you an overnight success.

Success is earned, not won, you win only lotteries, and that process of earning success in itself is very mundane, frustrating, and defeating. But these stories don’t make for commercials, and will never make ever because we don’t love them, and if we don’t love it why would commercial companies spend a penny on them.

You can never own success

Never stagnate too long in your victory because you can’t ever own success, you can only rent it, and the rent is due every single day, I repeat, the rent is due every single day.

It’s not what you know that determines the results in your life, it’s what you do with what you know that determines the results in your life. There are a lot of smart people, but financially broke because they can’t take that knowledge to the bank and exchange it for money, it’s only the action that produces results.

There’s a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.

In life, you’ll suffer two pains, the pain of discipline or the pain of regret, and as Jim Rohn says, The pain of discipline weighs ounces, going to the gym, attending the meeting, saying you’re sorry, weighs ounces. But the pain of regrets weighs tons, bankruptcy, loneliness, divorce, these pains can’t be described in a few words.

So as you’re out there making your choices, ask yourself, “Which pain do I want to suffer, the pain of discipline, or the pain of regret.” And that’s the irony, your desire and choices decide which pain you will suffer in the future.

The Takeaway

• The choice is the steering of your life, and you, the driver, decide which direction to turn.
• The power of compounding is immensely powerful, so always back your decision with the right reasoning.
• Choices can have a butterfly effect, and that can be enormously devastating if went wrong.
• There’s no special pill for success, you need to work your ass off every single day.
• Success is earned, not won, and the process is very mundane and defeating.
• You can never own the success, the rent is due every single day.
• There’s a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.
• You need to choose between suffering the pain of discipline and suffering the pain of regret.

So you see, how the small choices we make every day result in a big difference over a long period of time.

I hope you enjoyed it, thanks for reading!!

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