Worst Advice I Ever Got
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b7bgtu2O4E
Status quo = stagnation = Losing ground.
Seems like a slippery slope but here are my morning gym thoughts.
The worst advice I ever got was “why don’t you grow up and just settle.” What? Stop fighting for that inch? Stop trying to improve my position and just accept that “this” is the best I’ll ever have. Or was the advice really saying that the effort for that next inch isn’t worth the effort, stress, resources? Not a good investment based in the projected ROI?
Hindsight is 20/20. BUT, by the time you realize that your position wasn’t the best place for you, it’s too late to do anything about it. Time is a fleeting commodity.
Unrealized gains. I can’t stand excel spreadsheet millionaires. People that project out their “guaranteed” 5-7% compounding annual returns. Of course, they don’t account for taxes, market volatility, fees, and life. If cash is king then why salivate over unrealized gains as if you’ve made it already? You can’t sit back and just assume your generic mutual fund 401k is going to get you to the golden years promise land. Too many studies can better articulate that just isn’t going to happen. With the majority of my generation saying they don’t think they’ll ever retire then why have so many stopped living and just existing with one foot in the grave?
Living is tough. Adulting is harder. Fighting for a better future for you, your family, and your kid’s future IS fighting for that next inch, unless you and they aren’t worth fighting for?
The status quo is like studying trajectory in high school physics class (which I failed). (I also failed advanced calculus, my fifth year in Spanish, and advanced European history). All those failures kept me from college admission two years in a row. Life gave me hard knocks and I learned to fight for a future. Funny that I went on to get a BS from an engineering school when a fine arts degree was my backup plan. I regress.
Trajectory.
We learn all about it but with the caveat that it’s in a vacuum without consideration for external influences like humidity, temperature, winds at different elevations and even the rotation of the earth (thanks, inset sarcasm, US Army Field Artillery for those classes in METT data).
Status quo is like high school physics. It sounds good, in theory, but life happens. Technology, innovation, culture, values, supply chains, politics, competition, etc. all influence the environment and your trajectory.
If you fail to adapt because you settled for the status quo then in reality you’re in the realm of unrealized losses. When you finally do look back, you’ll see that you did indeed lose, had more than one foot in the grave having built your own coffin while laying down in it. By the time you realize it, it’ll be too late to do anything except regret. Good luck with that.
For me and my family, we fight. We might not get that inch but we won’t look back and wonder, “what if?”
"On this team, we fight for that inch. On this team, we tear ourselves, and everyone around us to pieces for that inch. We CLAW with our finger nails for that inch.
Cause we know when we add up all those inches that's going to make the fucking difference between WINNING and LOSING between LIVING and DYING.
I'll tell you this in any fight it is the guy who is willing to die who is going to win that inch. And I know if I am going to have any life anymore it is because, I am still willing to fight, and die for that inch because that is what LIVING is." Al Pacino - Any Given Sunday