Same as Ever: Timeless Lessons on Risk, Opportunity and Living a Good Life

by Morgan Housel

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos once said that he’s often asked what’s going to change in the next ten years. “I almost never get the question: ‘What’s not going to change in the next ten years?’ ” he said. “And I submit to you that that second question is actually the more important of the two.” Things that never change are important because you can put so much confidence into knowing how they’ll shape the future. Bezos said it’s impossible to imagine a future where Amazon customers don’t want low prices and fast shipping—so he can put enormous investment into those things.

What is not going to change in 10 years is more important that what MAY change!

Montesquieu wrote Two hundred and seventy-five years ago, “If you only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier than other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are.”

Keep up with the Joneses

So the comparatively lower wages than those of today felt great because everyone else earned a lower wage too. The smaller homes felt nice because everyone else lived in smaller homes too. The lack of health care was acceptable because your neighbors were in the same circumstances. Hand-me-downs were acceptable clothes because everyone else wore them. Camping was an adequate vacation because that’s what everyone else did. It was the one modern era when there wasn’t much social pressure to increase your expectations beyond your income. Economic growth accrued straight to happiness. People weren’t just better off; they felt better off.

We judge the quality of our lives through the lens of how we judge our contemporaries

Psychologist Jonathan Haidt says people don’t really communicate on social media so much as they perform for one another. You see the cars other people drive, the homes they live in, the expensive schools they go to. The ability to say, I want that, why don’t I have that? Why does he get it but I don’t? is so much greater now than it was just a few generations ago.

Instagram effect!

My friend Brent has a related theory about marriage: It only works when both people want to help their spouse while expecting nothing in return. If you both do that, you’re both pleasantly surprised.

From Money to Marriage.. same advice!

One day, I realized with all these people I was jealous of, I couldn’t just choose little aspects of their life. I couldn’t say I want his body, I want her money, I want his personality. You have to be that person. Do you want to actually be that person with all of their reactions, their desires, their family, their happiness level, their outlook on life, their self-image? If you’re not willing to do a wholesale, 24/7, 100 percent swap with who that person is, then there is no point in being jealous. Either you want someone else’s life or you don’t. Either is equally powerful. Just know which is which when finding role models.

Naval is today's Vivekanand, maybe even Buddha.

The influence of a good story drives you crazy if you assume the world is swayed by facts and objectivity—if you assume the best idea or the largest numbers or the correct answer wins. There’s a devoted group of Harari critics obsessed with showing how unoriginal his work is; Musk is viewed with the same mix of confusion and contempt. In a perfect world, the importance of information wouldn’t rely on its author’s eloquence. But we live in a world where people are bored, impatient, emotional, and need complicated things distilled into easy-to-grasp scenes.

Influence of good stories.

Perhaps no one has mastered the art of storytelling better than comedians. They are the best thought leaders because they understand how the world works, but they want to make you laugh rather than make themselves feel smart. They take insights from psychology, sociology, politics, and every other dry field and squeeze out amazing stories. That’s why they can sell out arenas while an academic researcher who discovers a great insight about social behavior can go unnoticed. Mark Twain said, “Humor is a way to show you’re smart without bragging.”

Comedians v/s researchers

Paranoia leads to success because it keeps you on your toes. But paranoia is stressful, so you abandon it quickly once you achieve success. Now you’ve abandoned what made you successful and you begin to decline—which is even more stressful.

Only the paranoid survive!

The 1930s were a disaster, one of the darkest periods in American history. Almost a quarter of Americans were out of work in 1932. The stock market fell 89 percent. Those two economic stories dominate the decade’s attention, and they should. But there’s another story about the 1930s that rarely gets mentioned: it was, by far, the most productive and technologically progressive decade in U.S. history.

Driving knowledge work in the ’30s was the fact that more young people stayed in school because they had nothing else to do. High school graduation surged during the Depression to levels not seen again until the 1960s. All of this—the better factories, the new ideas, the educated workers—became vital in 1941 when America entered the war and became the Allied manufacturing engine. The big question is whether the technical leap of the 1930s could have happened without the devastation of the Depression. And I think the answer is no—at least not to the extent that it occurred.

President Richard Nixon once observed: The unhappiest people of the world are those in the international watering places like the South Coast of France, and Newport, and Palm Springs, and Palm Beach. Going to parties every night. Playing golf every afternoon. Drinking too much. Talking too much. Thinking too little. Retired. No purpose.

A 2010 Yale study showed that one of the leading causes of the increase in obesity is not necessarily people eating larger meals; it’s eating more small snacks throughout the day.

Snacking leads to obesity

Someone once asked Charlie Munger what Warren Buffett’s secret was. “I would say half of all the time he spends is sitting on his ass and reading.” He has a lot of time to think. The traditional eight-hour work schedule is great if your job is repetitive or physically constraining. But for the large and growing number of “thought jobs,” it might not be. You might be better off taking two hours in the morning to stay at home thinking about some big problem. Or go for a long midday walk to ponder why something isn’t working.

Work doesn't mean just action, it also need time to reflect and think.