The Price of Success
On the Price of Success, The Way of Chuang Tzu, Reading Recommendations and What I'm Doing
Welcome to the Tenth edition of the ‘Read. Learn. Enjoy.’ letter.
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The Price of Success
An essay on the price of success.
Onions: 4.00 per bag.
Success: ?
Everyone wants Success
Each of us is unique and each of us has had a unique journey in life. Hence, what is success for me, may not be success for you and vice versa.
As a result, success is not zero-sum. You can be successful in your own way. I can also be successful in my own way.
Everything has a Price
One thing is universal: everything has a price.
To obtain something you want, you have to pay its price.
Some prices are well defined and visible, for they are expressed in money.
These prices are explicitly labelled on the goods and services you buy.
Determining what is the price and deciding whether to pay it is easy.
But some prices are not expressed in money.
These non-money prices are not explicitly labelled on your desires.
Determine what is the ‘real’ price and deciding whether to pay it becomes tricky.
Success has a Price
The price of success is expressed in time, failure, stress, discipline, perseverance, being uncomfortable, uncertainty and sacrifice.
Because the definition of success is unique to each individual, the price of success varies for each individual. To achieve ‘x’ success, I may have to pay ‘y’ price while you may have to pay ‘z’ price.
But the bottom-line is:
There is no success without sacrifice.
To move ahead you have to leave something behind.
A few examples:
Usain Bolt - He spent 20+ years practicing but spent less than 2 minutes on the track to win 9 Olympic medals. The price he paid to be a world class sprinter is the 20+ years of time spent training and the persistence to fine-tune every single stride in his sprints.
Elon Musk - Tesla and SpaceX are his two key successes but both of them had a string of failures and were near bankruptcy at some time in their journey. Musk worked multiple shifts and slept in the factory to address these issues. Musk himself thought that the odds of both companies being worth zero was more than 90%!
Warren Buffett - Known to be the most successful investor of all times, but 99.7% of his wealth was made after the age of 52. His string of failures is quite long, but not as well-known - Waumbec Textile Company, Tesco, Dexter Shoe Co., ConocoPhillips, Lubrizol Corp., not investing in Amazon, and recently investing in airline stocks that he sold in the aftermath of COVID19.
That’s the power of time, discipline and perseverance through the boring parts of the journey and learning from failures.
What we see as overnight success involved hundreds of unsuccessful attempts and decades of effort. These unsuccessful attempts are not visible to us and we get amazed by the 'overnight' successes.
Success demands a price every day.
Its price is:
Time
Failure
Stress
Sacrifice
Discipline
Uncertainty
Perseverance
Being uncomfortable
…
If you want to be successful, find the price, and pay it.
Recommended Reads:
Reading Recommendation
The Way of Chuang Tzu – Translation by Thomas Merton
Chuang Tzu (commonly known as Zhuang Zhou or Zhuangzi) was an influential Chinese philosopher who lived around the 4th century BC during the Warring States period, a period corresponding to the summit of Chinese philosophy, the Hundred Schools of Thought.
Through parables Chuang Tzu connects us to the direct existential grasp of reality.
Krishna’s advice to Arjun in The Bhagvad Gita exhorts us to focus on action, not the results of actions. Similarly, The Way proposed by Chuang Tzu is not the accumulation of virtue and merit taught by Ju, but wu wei, the non-action, which is not intent upon results.
Some key takeaways:
On Joy
Perfect joy is to be without joy.
On Winning
The effect of life in society is to complicate and confuse our existence, making us forget who we really are by causing us to become obsessed with what we are not.
On Self-Improvement
All deliberate, systematic, and reflexive “self-cultivation,” whether active or contemplative, personalistic or politically committed, cuts one off from the mysterious but indispensible contact with Tao, the hidden “Mother” of all life and truth.
Most Read Essays and Book Summaries
Take a look at the popular essays and book summaries on my blog till the next edition of the newsletter.
Essays:
On Children by Kahlil Gibran – My interpretation of the meaning of Kahlil Gibran’s beautiful poem On Children from his book The Prophet.
How to Measure Your Sleep Health – An essay on self-assessing your sleep health.
Be Water, My Friend – An essay on my takeaways from this beautiful thought from the martial art genius, Bruce Lee.
Book Summaries:
Zen: The Art of Simple Living by Shunmyo Masuno – The book is about “subtle shifts in your habits and perspective that’s all you need to live simply.” Zen style.
On the Shortness of Life by Seneca – This short book is full of practical wisdom on how to live, how to value your time, tranquility of mind and focus on living a simple, stress-free life. Must read for anyone interested in Stoic Philosophy or practical advice on living.
The Art of the Good Life by Rolf Dobelli – The book outlines fifty-plus heuristics or mental models that will assist you in making better decisions and increase the probability of leading a good life.
What I’m Doing
What I’m doing now and what’s coming up next.
NOW
Reading 📖
The Almanack of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jorgenson
Thinking 🤔
You never find happiness until you stop looking for it.
Writing ✍️
Only this newsletter.
NEXT
A hint of what’s coming up in the next few editions.
Book Summary of Charting and Technical Analysis by Fred McAllen.
Book Summary of The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel.
Thank you for reading till the end!
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Until next week,
- Satyajit
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I like it that you provide reading recommendations, I really enjoyed this post and it only encouraged me not to give up :) All the best!