Nothing Happens Next
I’m of the age when I’ve been thinking more about retirement. That inevitably leads to spreadsheets, odd discussions about how long you think you might live, and one of the most remarkable forces in finance: compound interest.
Warren Buffett famously called it “the eighth wonder of the world.” Maybe that’s an exaggeration, but the underlying principle is undeniable. Small, consistent investments made over a long period of time produce extraordinary results.
The catch is that, at first, almost nothing seems to happen.
In our culture today, however, we are tuned to look for rapid results. Start a diet and you’ll be weighing yourself daily looking for weight loss. Start exercising and you’ll be tracking your weight lifting PRs or your VO2 max gains. Start learning a language and you’ll be frustrated when you're not fluent in a few weeks.
Meditation is especially cruel in this regard because the payoff rarely shows up while you're meditating.
There’s a classic New Yorker cartoon, shown above, that expresses this perfectly. I love the caption: nothing happens next.
Exactly.
We naturally assume that if meditation is working, we'll notice it while we're meditating. So when the mind keeps wandering and we continue getting distracted, it's easy to conclude that nothing is happening - or worse, that we're doing it wrong. We may even decide to give up the practice altogether.
But you are looking in the wrong place.
The effects of meditation rarely show up on the cushion. They show up in the grocery store lane when you notice yourself getting annoyed. They show up sitting in traffic when you catch yourself building a story about the slow driver in front of you. They show up at the dinner table when you catch yourself reaching for your phone without even realizing it.
Compound interest is barely interesting when viewed day by day. Most days, the numbers barely move. But years later, the accumulated effect can be life changing..
Meditation is much the same.
Every time you notice you’ve drifted into thought and begin again, you’re strengthening a habit.
On its own, it seems insignificant.
But over months and years, those moments compound into something much larger: the habit of noticing.
My mind still moves like white-water rapids, whether I'm out in the world or sitting on a meditation cushion. Even though I have been practicing for decades - and teach this stuff - I still judge almost every session.
That was a waste of twenty minutes.
Man, I still suck at this.
The difference isn’t that those thoughts have disappeared.
The difference is that I recognize them for what they are: just more thoughts.
These days, I ask a different question.
Not: How was my meditation?
But: How did I meet the rest of my day?
That’s where the returns show up.
-Scott
This was a lovely read, and that last reframing is so powerful. I think, just like finance, behavior change is so complex and discouraging because it’s highly akin to that compounding interest.
This year has been about accepting that “what is, is right.”
I’m rooted in the present and meeting the energy where it is… but there’s still a vision for my future.
I appreciate your insights.
Discipline is where the vision starts to compound.