The faulty choice of Choosing pleasure over pain. Keys to expanding the quality of your life.

Albert Einstein is reputed to have said, 'Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it; he who does not, pays it. In the bible, we have the principle of Sowing and Reaping. As a man soweth that shall he also reap. It also states that reaping will be greater and more impactful than the initial sowing. This can be have a positive and negative outcome depending on the circumstances. I would like to take a few minutes of your time to discuss the graph featured in this post. On the timeline of life, the X axis (left and right line), we have our current self on the left and our future self as we move further to the right. On the Y axis (up and down), we have pleasure as we move up the chart and pain as we move down the chart. Then there are a few diagonal lines on the chart, the red diagonal is the instant gratification line. The instant gratification line is high in pleasure, low in pain for current self but low pleasure and high in pain for your future self. The emotional high of purchasing a new car usually last a short and then it just becomes a car. The delayed gratification line, shown in green is high in pain, low in pleasure for current self and the opposite for future self.

I love the idea of finding hacks to life. The ultimate hack based on this concept would be finding pleasure in the pain of not living out your best vision of your life now. Finding pleasure in the pain of studying for a degree for 8 -12 years. Finding the pleasure in the pain of waiting until you can fully pay for a vacation to go on a vacation. Saving for a 20% down payment on a home.

Life is filled with many pleasures and to be wealthy in life (i.e. happy, content, great relationships, meaningful existence, financial success) it may behoove us all to consider the decisions that we make on a daily basis that compounds over time for a large magnitude positive impact on our lives.

If I provided an example of this concept in would look like the following. Mr. and Mrs. Instant Gratification decided to finance a brand new 100-inch flatscreen TV from Best Buy, update their furniture to look nice with the new TV. They wanted their seating arrangement to give the comfort of going to a movie theatre. This was very important because entertaining was big for them and anything they can do to make their guest happy helped them to feel happy. Mr. Instant Gratification is a big sports lover and is looking forward to watching his favorite sports team on a bigger screen. Mrs. Instant Gratification misses working out in the gym and believes a big TV coupled with her online fitness subscription will help with the motivation to stay in shape. To finance this TV, it would add another $100 to their monthly budget for 10 years or $15000 interest included.

It just so happens on the same day, Mr. and Mrs. Delayed Gratification had their monthly financial meeting because it was their habit to maintaining a healthy budget. Their ultimate goal of early retirement packed full of great life experiences including vacations and opportunities to give of their time to help those in need. Mrs. Delayed Gratification had the habit of reading financial blogs and came across a financial hack that she shared with her husband. They came up with a plan that would cost about the same amount as a flat screen TV and upgrade to their furniture of 15 K. This hack would help them change their electricity bill (a liability) into an asset overtime without placing solar panels on their roof and having to worry about the cost of maintenance or the loss of curb appeal for non-tree huggers if they decided to sell their home.

This is just one example from two different outcomes in life. If Mr./Mrs. Delayed gratification practiced the art of finding pleasure of the pursuit of their ultimate goal as a virtue for their relationship then it will more than likely reap a great final reward. Often times people who make smart plans and think long term would compound these behaviors and habits with good habits. The compounding of these habits as Einstein would say about interest is the 8th wonder of a successful life.

You have now reached the end of this blog post. I hope that there was something written that will help you in your journey in life. For healthy discussion, please share what healthy habits are you compounding? What not so healthy habits are you thinking about changing? Are you the typical Mr. and Mrs. Delayed Gratification or Mr. and Mrs. Instant Gratification also known as You only live once couple?

If you desire to learn more about habits and improving some of the behaviors that has lead you down your path. Please consider the book Atomic Habits by James Clear. I have read this book and it was an eye opener in to making some small changes for a large impact later. If you are interest in compounding good financial habits. Please CLICK HERE to learn how to start making some investments to reduce your financial stress as a part of holistic living.