Killing Time? You Are In Fact Attempting Chronic Suicide

At face value, you would like to think there is nothing to fret about if you only manage to regress by 10% within a year. However, it would seem pretty significant at close to 35% (0.9^10) overall after accumulating for 10 straight years straight. Using the same analogy, it wouls seem there is nothing remarkable if you only strive to improve by 10% every year. On the flip side, you would have vastly surpassed your current self by 259% (1.1^10) given 10 years of consistent improvement effort. That is already more than twice of where you are as of now. 

There is something even more astounding with this: 259 / 35 = 761%  !

That is a whopping 7.6 times over that self that has continually regressed over the same span of 10 years in another parallel universe. In other words, your daily effort to improve yourself may have yielded little result of 10% in just one year. It may not be something worthy of mention but everything will only be clear in 10 years. One is in heaven and another still planted on earth, and the gulf can be immense. 

However, working hard in advancing yourself is akin to finding your way in a dark maze, slowly making sense of what's in front of you, and your mind is full of hesitation. You will grind to a halt most of the time, spending time instead in self-doubts, thinking to yourself if all these efforts are even worthwhile at all; thinking to yourself if you will ever find your way out of the maze.

Along the way, the majority of the people failed to keep up their momentum into their second or third year after failing to see any glimmer of hope at the end of the maze and dropped out of the challenge. It can certainly be quite a pity that their effort all this while to come to a halt.

There are mainly two categories for those who cannot seem to figure out their vibes after a period of time: The first being those who seem to always want to take the path of least resistance and hate putting in the extra effort to get of of the rut; the other being those who seem to always going round in circles, putting in the hard work at first but then only to see their efforts bringing them back to where they started. The latter group is putting efforts that brings little to no results, which would be deemed as "Low-level Effort". 

As a matter of fact, the gap starts to pull apart significantly after the fourth year. The difference between 0.9 and 1.1 is significant; 0.9^4 yields 65.6% and 1.1^4 yields 146.4%. In other words, striving to improve by 10% for four years would make you more than TWICE as better than you are if you were to regress at 10% over the same period of time. In imle mathematical terms, it can be shown that as long as you keep up your progress consistently for 4 years, you will finally be able to see a glimmer of hope at the end of the tunnel. This is a result of what I deemed as: The Compounding Effect. 

Albert Einstein once said, "Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world.", and one classic example of this compounding effect is that of the investment or savings returns over time. The initial returns from your returns may be very negligible at first, but if the notion of "Time" is being considered, your returns can be astounding the longer the time horizon being considered.

The "J-Line": The exponential growth

Your hard work may literally yield very insignificant improvements during the first 3 years, and this would probably have waned off every little confidence that you originally have over this period and bring a sense of hopelessness hether all the effort is ever worthwhile. 

However, something magical can happen once this tough period is over. As you gradually move into the fourth and fifth year of persistence, everything around you seems to conspire to work for you and the light at the tunnel seems all clear. You realised your growth begins to behave in an explosive manner, and that is what the "J-Line" is all about. 

To Kill Time is to Kill Yourself

Whenever we observe those who are successful in the eyes of society, there is alway a common realm that these people live in, and that is being an ADVOCATE and very mindful in making use of TIME to their advantage. Time is vitality so to kill time is to slowly kill yourself off, and to neglect Time is to hold no hope for Life itself. You have wondered what you have achieved for the whole year at the last day on every 31st December and looked back with disappointment and regrets on some parts. Most, if not all, of us would have been through this process and oftentimes, the disappointments have always remained through the years. 

With regards to Time, there is one final question; what is your personal opinions about Time? The "J-Line" is a good tool that I believe would be one of the greatest gift here. Whenever you feel like giving up, ask yourself: Have you put in enough effort in it? Has all the effort and results accumulated so far enough to bring you across that point of breakthrough? Will your continued persistence from now on be able to send you on the ride on the "J-Line", and hence enjoy the amazing ride which this compounding effect will bring to you?