Does The Long Term Have A Death Date?
You will often hear people telling you to play the long game or that all great things take time. You may stop and wonder what do people mean by the long game. How long is the long game? How many months or years defines the long game?
The Earth is almost 4.5 billion years old and it is said that life first came into existence somewhere around 2.7 billion to 3.5 billion years ago. Since then, life has continued to exist in some form or the other while countless species have come and become extinct. Life, by all means, has been trying to play the long game all along.
The long game is about doing the right things without an end date in sight. It is about continuously becoming better, avoiding risks of ruin, becoming resilient, and creating redundancies.
Playing the right set of long game is probably the most important. You do not want to be doing things that brings your death date near. To begin with, you must chose the right role models. The 90 year old smoker who is still alive probably should not be your role model. Do you know why? Because there many who died way earlier and did not become part of a statistic.
How to pick the right set of long games that you can play? I would probably break it down between your health, wealth, relationships, career and interests or hobbies. Each area requires its own set of strategies and work that needs to be put in place.
There is a very famous saying about Warren Buffet, who is the promoter of Berkshire Hathaway, a conglomerate of businesses in the United States, that he reads more than 500 pages a day and has been doing it well into his 90s. Buffet started investing at the age of 11 and has now created a giant with a market cap of 750 billion dollars. He didnt have to continue after the age of 60 when his net-worth was 3.8 billion dollars. Enough for multiple generations. Reading every day for a number of hours requires considerable effort and he didnt need to do it after a certain point. He did not stop working because his long game does not have an end date. There are downsides to this strategy though. Warren never prioritised his health. He would eat a Burger and drink coke almost every day. It is his luck that probably played a big role in his life having him live for more than 90 years and still ticking. You may not want to be like him then probably.
Ed Thorpe is almost 90 years old today but probably looks like 60. This is because his life long regimen of staying in shape and taking good care of his health. In an interview with Tim Ferris he said "I tend to be a long-term thinker. You might say, “Oh, if you’re 89, how can you be a long-term thinker?” Well, I have children and grandchildren and I also am feeling pretty good and staying in good shape, so 89 may not be all that old at this point".
I hope you get the drift. It is about continuously playing the right set of games. I am often asked by people how many years should they be investing for? You can only get so far when you are investing just to meet your goals. You go farther when you are investing to create wealth. Ever farther when you want to create generational wealth. A writer never stops writing. He may reduce the speed at which he publishes but he continues. A marathoner never stops running. The goal post keeps moving. I have run a reasonable number of half-marathons and i am now preparing for a full marathon.
The preparation must never stop.
