Your journey is more important than you think
Today’s post is about your journey, how it’s shaped, and how you’re defining it at this very moment.
Here’s the thing about life.
You’re always going to experience challenges. Career challenges, interpersonal challenges, financial challenges, environmental challenges, health challenges, you name it - life has always tossed everything at you since you entered this planet.
At this point in time, we’re all experiencing some level of duress. Whether it’s maneuvering through the pandemic, the rise of anti-Asian hate crimes, or concerning situations relating to loved ones, every human is being challenged with something. Maybe now more than ever.
What most people don’t know is that those challenges are the opportunities that define us.
How you respond to those challenges is what shapes your personality and your destiny. It writes your story. It guides you down your path. It shapes your journey.
The formula is pretty simple.
When a challenge arises,
Respond well; be rewarded
Respond poorly; suffer the consequences
By responding well to each of life’s challenges, you’re shaping your personality to one that is resilient. You’re strengthening your mentality. You’re ensuring the next time a similar challenge happens, that you’ll make the right choice. Inevitably, making the right choice over and over again will guide you towards a more favourable path.
By responding poorly to each of life’s challenges, you’re adding bad personality traits into your system. Mental toughness turns to mental weakness. You’ll push the good people away and retain the bad people. Inevitably, making the wrong choice over and over again will put you down a dark path towards self-destruction.
How do you know whether you’re responding well or responding poorly?
Ask yourself this. Is my response equally respecting myself and everyone on this planet, or is it only helping myself?
If the answer is the latter, you may want to review the full definition of assertive communication.
Assertive communication is the ability to express positive and negative ideas and feelings in an open, honest and direct way. It recognizes our rights whilst still respecting the rights of others. It allows us to take responsibility for ourselves and our actions without judging or blaming other people.
At birth, we’re typically encoded with animal-like responses - defensiveness, greed, selfishness, pride to name a few. Everything opposite to being assertive. Our authority figures are usually the ones in charge of helping discern right from wrong, and will hopefully grant us the opportunity to establish critical thinking.
In Batman Begins, even father-figure Alfred shared to a young Bruce Wayne: Why do we fall sir? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up.
Our human responses can sometimes make responding positively hard to do. But in the long run, it’s worth it.
Your journey is important. It’s a culmination all of life’s ups and downs. The challenges you’ve faced in your life, and may face in the future, will be the milestones in your story. The decisions you make when a challenge occurs, will decide where your journey goes.
Your journey is also meant to help others, especially young people, on how to overcome their own challenges. Regardless if you’re sharing it with your friends, teaching it to groups of people, or simply teaching it to your children, your journey matters.
Learning from the Stoics is a good place to start when it comes to taking the high road. I’d recommend most books by author Ryan Holiday, such as Ego is the Enemy, Stillness is the Key, The Obstacle is the Way, and his Daily Stoic email if you’re looking for easy reads.
Where the head goes, the body follow. Perception precedes action. Right action follows the right perspective.
—Ryan Holiday
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Your Investments 🚀
Something obvious occurred to me a few days ago while we were watching some YouTube videos on stock investments. None of the following considers inflation, nor should be considered financial advice. It’s just an interesting observation.
Since the S&P 500 was first created in the 1920s, on average, it has provided a 10% annual return. So if you invested in the roaring 20s, in over a century, you’ll see nearly 1000% in gains. If you account for a standard work life at 18 and retiring at 65, that would amount to about 470% in gains. Sizeable and steady.
Bitcoin is volatile; we get it. However if you ignore the daily fluctuations, and instead focus on the average annual return since its inception in 2008, it returns an annual average of 140% in gains.
Essentially, Bitcoin does in one year what the S&P 500 offered in 14 years. Or, up until this point, Bitcoin has nearly doubled what the S&P 500 has achieved over 100 years.
Of course, this is based on a small data set: 13 years of Bitcoin data vs. 100 years of the S&P 500. Also, this doesn’t account for Bitcoin potentially plummeting to oblivion. There are significant risks associated to cryptocurrencies. And you can safely stash your stocks and ETFs in a TFSA, where as Bitcoin will always be taxed. However, Bitcoin does have its advantages like supply scarcity and that it isn’t an owned entity (and therefore isn’t subject to human flaws), giving it long-term shelf life vs. certain stocks or industries, and allowing the market to shape it (much like an index fund).
What I’m not saying is to invest everything in Bitcoin (< 10% is probably safer). However, what I am saying is that if you do consider Bitcoin as an investment, don’t pay attention to the daily, weekly, or even monthly fluctuations. Just buy it and ignore it. Pretend like it doesn’t exist. Come back to it a few years from now and see how it’s going. You’ll feel less stressed from the volatility, and if it all works out, you may come out green each time.
On the flip side, if you believe in Bitcoin’s utility as a payment option, spend it on things without paying attention to the price. In the long run, it’ll all balance out anyway.
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#StopAsianHate,
Reggie