Compounding, Relationships & Weekend thoughts

Compounding is the eighth wonder of the world – Albert Einstein

While the above statement, on the face of it, doesn’t add up. I mean, the seven wonders – being magnificent physical structures – are man made entities, on the other hand, Compounding (interest on interest in simple terms) is an abstract concept, seen in our lives in the areas of financial investment, relationships, construction. However a deeper thought reveals that, these seven wonders – ancient and modern – are not something built overnight. They are the products of compounding. Yup. The Great Wall of China is the result of consistent work done little by little over a long period of time. The same goes for Taj Mahal and all other wonders.

So then, compounding is not the eighth wonder, but its the wonder behind all the seven wonders and all other wonders of the world. As the saying goes, Rome was not built in a day. And a journey of thousand miles begins with a single step.

I just finished the manuscript for my first creative work. Its not huge, but its not something that can be finished in a couple of days. I remember, I wrote the first line, exactly three months ago. Then line by line, page by page, chapter by chapter, I finished the full book. There were days when I couldn’t sit in front of computer. But then it didn’t stop. What was a big hurdle for me, is not sit everyday for an hour or two to do my work, but the act of starting itself. Most of the times, the barriers are mental – imagined difficulties, opinions of someone, lack of focus, inability to zoom in on a particular topic. Before I began to work on the book which I just completed, I was working on some other book. Then I had to drop it. Then I was thinking on some other topic. So it took me three more months to just arrive at a particular subject on which I’ll be working on.

Enough introduction to the topic. The focus is not on wonders of the world, nor my work, but even more abstracter than the concept of compounding – relationships. More specifically the Compounding in Relationship. Meaningful, genuine, strong Relationships are built over a time. A long period of time. The foundation of such relationships- trust – takes time to build. The term Trust, like Reliability can’t be used in the shorter context of time. If a thing works a once or twice or thrice, we can’t say it’s reliable. It has to work every single time. Just like Toyota cars!

Every single act of gesture -in friendship, love, business transaction – either adds or substracts trust. The trust that keeps adding every single time, becomes bigger than the previous one, just like the interest added annually, is much bigger than the previous one. However the marginal effort it takes to build that trust, becomes lesser and lesser with every gesture.

“All the returns in life, whether in wealth, relationships, or knowledge, come from compound interest” – The Almanack of Naval Ravikant.

I, lament at times, that I didn’t invest in those relationships, that had the potential to go long-term. It’s not often you come across relationships, worthy of developing trust. But once you find the right thing to do, when you find the right people to work with, invest deeply (Almanack of Naval Ravikant). Just as one famous blogger remarked,”In the initial years, compounding tests your patience and in your later years, your bewilderment”. One has to be mature enough to overcome the minor hiccups in relationships initially. Not everyone are perfect, the world is not perfect. Don’t know how many would be wonders of the world, didn’t see the light of the day, because of the initial steep curve.

To summarize-

1. The longer the relationship, its that difficult to break
2. The longer the relationship, its that easy to work with
3. Its not easy to build long-term relationship, just like being stay put in long-term investment