Maintenance matters most. 🔧

The cliche that got a lot of people mad at me at the end of 2022 was saying, “years don’t really matter much, decades matter much more”. To make people even madder at my, I pointed out years are only meaningful in how they contribute to the decade. A whole is the sum of it’s parts. But that’s so true.

One thing I’m seeing over and over about healthy eating, it’s much like investing and personal finance. Each little investment isn’t that much in the grand scheme of things, you will never have a secure future or retirement with one investment. But over time, that buck or two here and there, every day adds up. Likewise, each calorie consumed adds on to the waistline, each unhealthy food eaten leads you closer and closer to an untimely death.

Future goals are big and distant, as they are the sum of so many parts. But each part is meaningful as it contributes to the future. It’s true that life is like a flywheel in an engine, an occasional misfire here and there won’t add up to much. But that should not be an excuse for operating an engine that is regularly misfiring, as damage accumulates. People often think it’s okay to give excuses for occasional misdeeds or misfires — that occasional slice of cake or cup of store bought coffee– some liberties to lighten life up, but that is a dangerous practice.

There are things out of your control that you can’t address — like the a downturn in the market or that cup of coffee on the road you need to stay alert to drive home safely. Maybe you have to go out and have an unhealthy meal with some friends. But you should avoid incidental bad behaviors whenever possible. Misfiring in an engine is harmful, as it to your goals. Just because you can survive an occasional misfire, doesn’t mean you should build into your life.

The best thing when it comes to self-improvement is automation. I have a set investment and savings plan, I rarely look at it or give it much thought. A few times a year, I’ll check on my net worth but normally the money comes out of my paycheck and is invested. Each morning I go for a walk at 6:15 AM and each evening at 7:00 PM, regardless of weather, because it’s important to get my default 10,000 plus steps in. Likewise, I just make it the default option to buy healthier foods, and follow the one bowl or plate rule. As I don’t eat out often at all, whatever I buy is what I end up eating. I continue to learn to be a better cook and eater, but it’s not because I intend to be thinking about it non-stop, but because I want to make sensible defaults that make eating healthier the default option.

A lot of people think it takes willpower or effort to do the right thing. But that’s not the truth. If you want to do something, it’s best to automate it and give it as little thought as possible. And just move forward.