The Power of Cumulative Knowledge

14th July 2019

Dr Lennon’s Sunday Musings

If you were offered a choice of £1 million pounds as a one off or £0.01 that doubles daily for a month (31 days), which one would you choose?

Most people would choose a million pounds for it is an obviously massive amount and available immediately. Einstein has said that cumulative interest is the eighth wonder of the world. That is why banks and mortgage lenders exist and that is how they make money, by cumulative interest. Same for property owners, both accruing rent and property value increasing over time.

However, if you take a look at the picture in this article, you will find that after 31 days of doubling one penny, the end product is more than £10 million pounds, 10 times more than the first offer of a million pounds. There lies power of cumulative interest.

I would like to challenge you with the idea of cumulative knowledge. When learning a new skill, entering a new job or learning a language, the initial stages are devastatingly hard. To introduce a new concept and willing your mind to pick up new thoughts, new ideas or a new mind-set, it can be painfully alien and difficult. Even if it seems that you have been doing it and practicing it for a long time, it can still seem as though nothing has changed and nothing has improved.

Looking at the picture again, at Day 7 (£0.64), Day 14 (£81.90) and even Day 21 (almost £10,500), the amounts seemed like nothing compared to the instant gratification of one million pounds when gotten at the start. So, if we were to use a month (31 days) to compare with the journey of mastery of a skill, a job or a language, even at three quarters of the way, we may still feel we have not learnt anything at all and god forbid, some of us may give up then, thinking that it was not meant to be, that we were not meant to excel at whatever we are learning.

That would be a grave mistake, for if we had persisted on, we would have seen the fruits of our labour at the last stretch of the journey. It is only at Day 30 and 31 where we would see how far we had come, what we have learnt and how much we know now compared to when we started. If only we had persisted till the end.

Sometimes it is easy to despair and give up especially when we are not seeing the results we were expecting. Do not give up. Never give up. Look at adversity in the eye and know that by persisting, we will gain the outcome of cumulative knowledge. We need to show grit, resilience and fortitude in achieving our goals and dreams.

‘We tend to over-estimate what we can achieve in one year and under-estimate what we can achieve in ten years.’

Comment below when was the last time you gave up and regretted…

#cumulative knowledge #nevergiveup #stubbornpersistence #einstein #thisisamity

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