Do the thing, yo.

“You should care far more about your current trajectory than your current results”
James Clear

It seeps into my thoughts time and time again.
Just do the thing.

I think about it constantly. The results are never significant by themselves. Results only show themselves over the long run.

“Whether it’s money, relationships, or knowledge, all the returns in life come from compound interest.
Naval Ravikant

It doesn’t matter how we feel or the state we’re in or what we ate. It’s pretty simple.

Either you do the thing or you don’t. Either we make progress or we don’t.

“It feels good to earn the day”
Joe Rogan

“Ethics is long term greedy”
Naval Ravikant

All the returns. All of them. They’re all long term. Months. Years. Decades.

What’s the Plan, Stan

I’ve come to appreciate long term thought as one of the most influential parts of being human. They say there was a tremendous evolutionary step when sea creatures came on land – They were literally able to SEE much further. So when predators would attack, they could see them coming from a mile away relative to the few feet in water.

Our perception of time allows us to see even much further. We have the ability predict things well in to the future… and pivot accordingly. The further we can train ourselves to think, the better we’re able to navigate our lives.

I’ve found my ability to plan 6 months to multiple years in advance has seriously impacted how I spend my time. Sacrifices aren’t quite so large because I’m creating a Life I want to live.

“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”
Taylor Swift (thanks T. Swifty)

Day to day problems also seem to melt away. They don’t seem so significant in the long run. Perspective grows.

A fun one that I return to:
Over 90% of Warren Buffet’s wealth was earned after the age of 70.
Compound interest, baby.

Do the thing.

Working out is the same.
Long term goals, the same.

Greed, gluttony, pride, laziness.
We fall victim only using short term thinking.

Matter of fact from a Catholic perspective, all of the 7 Deadly Sins are merely a result of short term thinking.

Greed is often impatience with wealth.
Gluttony is impatience with food.
Lust is impatience with relationships.
Laziness is the result of insufficient discipline for long term goals.

The Ego is the Enemy… but only if in the short term.

I’ve found that channelling ego in to long term projects (months & years) has improved the quality of work as well as my relationships as a byproduct.

Patagonia’s founder Yvon Chouinard attributes much of their success and environmental friendliness due to being a private company. They were not beholden to a quarterly shareholder meeting dependent on profits. Remaining private allowed them to retain long term vision.

Jeff Bezos has spoken similarly, even building a 10,000 year old clock to emphasize the long term vision.

Do the thing.

The long term vision, I’ve found, has allowed me to take immediate ego out of whatever problem I’m trying to solve – miscommunication, process breakdown, equipment failure – and let us to actually solve the problem over egos.

Biology & Ego

Being the social animals that we are, we crave to be a part of the tribe, and often times validation. I used to be so afraid of my own rejection that I remained in short term thinking.

I was concerned with what people thought, how they perceived me, if I said the right stuff… trust, still do. But the long term vision has allowed those perceptions to fall to the wayside.

“Character is like a tree, and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.”

Abraham Lincoln

Egos are always in the way. I’ve got coworkers unwilling to admit mistakes for fear of failure… that ‘failure’ is only short term. Extend it out a few weeks and months and that failure becomes growth.

Understandable. But short term results.
So just do the thing.

When people admit faults, particularly in front of a group, I’ve found myself trusting them more. They’ve accepted a short term ‘loss’, sacrificing personal ego for the resolution of the problem. They are not afraid of the short term failures.

It’s all short term vs long term, man.

“Play long term games with long term people”

Naval Ravikant

The long term are rewarded with Trust. That is invaluable.

Do The Thing by Chris Williamson stands out.
It isn’t particularly enjoyable to do the thing. Matter of fact, it can actually be fairly annoying.

But as Jocko Willinck says
“Discipline equals freedom”

And I think that’s sort of the point. There are no outsized returns for the short term pleasures of taking naps, watching movies, or eating ice cream.

There are for Marathons and multi-year projects.
Netflix, Apple, and Amazon are all living proof.

“If you have a 10% chance of a 100x return, you should take that bet every time even if it’s going to feel bad 9 out of 10 times.”
Jeff Bezos, Last Shareholder Letter

These results only happen with long-term thinking.
And long term thinking is hard.

“Rome wasn’t built overnight”
Do the thing.

1 Last Example to Bore You

I recently found out that cathedrals frequently used to take more than a hundred years to build. La Sagrada Familia, for example, by Antoni Gaudi has been under construction for over 140 years.

Yet, how many of these long term projects take place in modern day?

I dunno, man. It doesn’t seem like that there’s much long term focus. Nearly all of our problems and desires seem like they can be solved with a mere 5 year time horizon.

I guess that’s why they ask “where do you see yourself in 5 years”. It’s obviously impossible to know, but if we haven’t taken the time to psychologically carve out who the hell we want to be, we’re obviously not going to get there.

The Vision is half the battle.
Doing The Thing is the other half.

It’s never that hard, it just requires tiny bits of effort over such a long period of time. Not that many are willing to endure.

Do The Thing.