Stopping to think helps one make slightly better choices. The improved outcome across one decision is not material, but across a lifetime is immense. Another example of the power of compounding.
So the habit of stopping to think is what’s important. My whole life I’ve been in search of one solution. Looking for that one outcome that would catapult me into absolute prosperity. But, for the most part, life is a battle between minute improvement and attrition.
How strange that we hope for instant gratification, something to rob us of all the fulfillment that life has to offer.
Maybe the younger me would be open to this idea of stopping to think and long-term reward. But, by definition, progress is impossible to track because there are only lagging indicators of it when playing a long game.
Now I know that stopping to think has utility once you reach a meditative calmness about decisions to be made – it bestows resolve. Now I know what this feels like and that’s the advantage of age.