Welcome back to the 1st Law Newsletter - Friday Edition.

In this email:

• Long term games

• Complete the day

• Big Brother is distracting you

Expanding Time Horizons

To change your thinking, expand your time horizons.

For example, consider how a corporation is structured. The higher levels of management you reach, the longer time periods that you must think in terms of. Regular workers think in terms of days to weeks (or paycheck to paycheck); managers in months to years; while CEO's must think in terms of decades or lifetime of the company. On the extreme side, visionaries think in terms of centuries and millenniums, they think in terms of changes that they may start, but that will continue long after their life is over. "A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit."

This is how your life should be conducted. If your skill development is not at the pace you expected... wait. It takes 10 000 hours to master a skill. So why would you be unsatisfied with your progress after less than 100 hours? You're not even 1% there! When reflecting on progress in your life, consider not just where you were last week or last month, but how far you've come in the last year, the last 5 years, or even your whole life! This will fill you with much more perspective and appreciation for the progress you are making. Cliche but 1% a day over 365 days is not just 365%, it's actually over 3700% (37x improvement) over the year due to the compounding.

Same goes with your money. Investing is a long term game that should be played by long term people. The shorter your investment time span, the higher risk you incur from volatility, plus you are now competing against short term institutional investors who have access to more accurate and quicker information than you. The most likely way to win is to zoom out. The longer your time horizons are, the more likely you are to ride out short term volatility and take advantage of long term economic growth. If you are retiring in 5 years, you may want to play it safe and put money in bonds or even hold cash. If you have decades until retirement or are planning on passing the assets to your children, almost any investment can work! What is going to be worth less in 100 years?

Ideas from here.

Meditation Technique - Completing the Day

Each day is filled with opportunities and decisions. Sometimes we take advantage and sometimes we don't. Sometimes upon reflection, we realize we should have acted a different way. This meditation technique can help you understand where you missed the chance to complete the day perfectly.

Osho says, "There is an intrinsic mechanism in each and every thing that compels it to become complete. A seed wants to become the tree, a child wants to become a young man, the unripe fruit wants to become ripe, and so on and so forth. Every thing wants to complete itself: it has an inbuilt urge to complete. And that is so about every experience. Every night before you go to sleep, finish that day. It is finished in existence; now it is futile to carry it in the mind. Just be finished with it. Say good-bye to it... Start from the morning and finish everything that has remained incomplete. You will be surprised that it can be completed. And once it has been completed you will fall into sleep."

Before sleep, go over the day from morning until night. Remember every moment where you had to make a meaningful decision, remember every opportunity that you had, and in your head act how you wish you acted in the moment. Mentally complete any tasks you did not finish and correct any mistakes you made. Act how your best self would act. This will give you peace before you sleep and will help you recognize the opportunities to act well tomorrow.

Quote I Want To Share

I think this hits harder every year. Like I said in a previous newsletter, attention is everything. Your attention is the most valuable commodity in the world and where attention goes, money flows. Just think about all the distractions we have; Phones, laptops, TVs, gaming consoles, the news, each one of these is a multi-billion dollar industry and they are all vying for your attention. Just 100 years ago, none of these existed except the newspaper. Have you ever stopped to wonder what your grandparents or great-grandparents did for fun when they were your age?

Thanks for reading!

Lucas