Hey, Friends –
Welcome to The Saturday Slack, a list on what what I’m pondering and exploring with a short summary for those too busy to dive in.
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A concept that I’ve named “the aimless pursuit of more” has been on my mind recently.
For me, the “more” has always been career and financial success. When I achieve a goal, I feel aimless until I have a new and bigger one.
This non-stop cycle of discontentment has been weighing heavily on me and was exacerbated by a close friend’s unexpected loss of his father.
What am I doing it all for? Why do I need more? Will it provide what I’m looking for?
Although I know that the highest title achieved, the % return realized, and the net worth built will be for naught on my death bed, it is excruciatingly hard for me to live it in practice.
My deepest fear in life is getting to the end and meeting the person I could have been. But, I ask myself, why does that person always have more money, power, and prestige?
I don’t want to come to the end of my days (or my loved ones last days) wishing for more time to focus on what matters most, depth of relationships.
We are given plenty of time in life…we just waste so much of it chasing frivolous dopamine hits.
Spend as much time with those that matter most and do it as soon as possible.
The value of time isn’t constant. It has diminishing returns caused by decreasing health and mobility. An hour spent with your dad in his 60’s will provide more depth than a day spent with him in a nursing home in his 90s.
Don’t wait. Make the call. Take the trip.
Quotes of the Week
The most meaningful way to honor those we lost is to live with honor…being grateful for precious time that too many were denied. – Adam Grant
After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, love, and so on — have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear — what remains? Nature remains. – Walt Whitman
“What really makes people happy isn’t nicer weather or having a little bit more money, but more vibrant relationships. And I’m placing my bets accordingly. You should too.” – Nick Maggiulli
Chart of the Week
Articles
What Really Predicts Happiness? | Of Dollars and Data
The most comprehensive study on human happiness came to the conclusion that the quality of one’s relationships was more predictive of happiness than any other factor, including money, power, and security. When making financial and career decisions, make sure relationships is what you weight most heavily if you are looking to optimize happiness.
Pair with Wait But Why’s The Tail End.
Walt Whitman on What Makes Life Worth Living | Brain Pickings
After suffering a stroke that left Whitman half-paralytic, life thrust into his lap a ledger and demanded that he account for his life, for who he is, what he stands for, what he has done for the world and how he wishes to be remembered by it. An assignment we all will one day be asked to complete. For Whitman, he had accomplished his principal object of life, “devoted friends.” When something is true in science (see above) and in real-life experience (Whitman), we should take close note of its truth.
A Number From Today and A Story About Tomorrow | Morgan Housel
Forecasting, vision, strategy is a story about the future given data about the present. Per Housel, “in finance this point is made with the quip that more fiction has been written in Excel than in Word.” It is important to understand this truth. It doesn’t discount forecasts and “vision” completely, but it does but them in the appropriate bucket.
Videos
Adam Grant @ TedX: How to stop languishing: If you’ve felt a persistent, low grade malaise over the past year, you are not alone. That feeling could be better described as languishing. You are not burnt out. You are not depressed. But something is not right and you don’t quite feel like yourself. In his talk, Grant describes why we are languishing as a culture and what we can do to solve it.
Cheers,
Ben