Compound interest of Good choices, and Bad

Every choice has an outcome, a consequence. Every workout, every meal, every new relationship, habit, project, and even an entertained emotion one dwells on. Some of these outcomes are obvious, some, much more subtle. 

This idea is both blatantly obvious to most of us, yet seemingly impossible to grasp, if we truly evaluate our day to day choices. Compounding effects are often brought up in the context of money.

Let's say an investment with 10% annual gain on $100 gets you $10 in year one. Now if that profit +original amount is then reinvested for 1 more year ($10+100), then in year 2 you make 10% on $110, which is $11. Stick around for year 3: 1.10x(100+10+11) and now your 10% earns you $12.1.

The reason why you are making more interest in years 2 and 3 is because you had the willpower to keep your profit AND REINVEST it, instead of just spending it. Let me say this again. Compound interest works for you only if you let your gains also do the work for you. 

Sweet, but the absolutely insane thing about humans, is that while this concept is widely understood in theory,  not only do most people ignore it when it comes to explicit examples like money, as evidenced by widespread credit card debt (allowing compound interest working exactly the opposite way, against the borrower), but we are even worse at applying it outside the realm of money, although it would do us a huge favor.

Let me explain.  Humans are creatures of habit. We find comfort in known, familiar. The biggest predictor of how one acts in a certain situation, by far, regardless of context, is how that person acted in similar circumstances in the past.  If you typically "snooze" the alarm, you'll probably do it tomorrow as well. Every time you make an excuse to eat less healthy, skip a workout, not put in effort on that one thing you know needs to be done, you'll find it easier to do so again, and again.  

I get it. That's fucking daunting.  Life is hard, most of us are not born to privilege, shit piles up and it's impossible not to think along the lines "I'll think about [starting a running practice, skipping sugary drink, reading that book, etc] ... "once I" [have a bit more time/get a new job/fix that one problem]. None of us are immune to this, regardless of unique individual circumstances.  Let me bring this back to "compounded interest of actions" though. 

Physical exercise is an amazing example of a cheat code of life. I'm not talking about striving for vanity-based "ideal body",  you don't need single digit body fat % to be "fit", but let's be real, if you had to guess, ”Who will have more enjoyable 50's, 60's and later - would it be the weekend running group members, or a group of obese "body positive"  friends "supporting" each other in their invariably damaging choices?” You either know the answer is the "runners", or you should probably go back to doom scrolling social media. 

"But exercise doesn't pay my bills" . No, but discipline does. Lucky breaks do. Unexpected connections with other ambitious people, do. All of those concepts have one thing in common - the likelihood of them actually happening is close to zero if you don't expose yourself to the correct environments . "Opposites attract" only in shitty relationship advice, real life operates much closer to laws of attraction. Fit people gravitate to fit people, kind people hang out with other kind people, rich people's habits gravitate to rich outcomes. 

Turn the truly magical power of compounding in your favor. The important math is always simple. Compounding the good will generate more good. Compounding bad habits will generate more excuses.