0 Success is very slow process

_7.3.2021_ Naturally success is slow progress. If you plant a tree and you check every day how it grows, you will realize that it's very slow. It is indeed. People do not understand this principle. They want it fast. It won't happen as they wish. I exercise lifting barbell every day, I can't see that my biceps and triceps are growing daily. It's probably yearly process. Only if I do it every single day for years it will start getting noticeably bigger. The same as learning language. I learn Chinese language, daily it seems I make no progress, but this year is much better than last year. The key of success is working hard every day and be patient to see the result. I won't be able to see the result in ten years. Success never happens suddenly. It's a luck. It doesn't exist in nature. You can't plant a banyan tree and the next day suddenly it grows ten meters tall by luck. It's struggling and toiling every day for years, ten to fifteen years to reach ten meters tall. Nature is always fair for all. It's never violates its own law. I do not notice this until just recently. If I keep lifting barbell every day for the next ten years, that time I will notice my arms are bigger than most people's. It's ok that no one notice my progress. The most important thing is that I know it's happening gradually. I never notice that I change every day from a little baby boy into an adult. It's happening in the background no one can see it. To be successful at anything I just need to make sure the daily little progress. Most people fail to be successful because they stop before it's visible. They neglect the tree they planted because it doesn't seem growing at all. They have no patient to wait for ten to fifteen years. Not only waiting, they must work hard every single day for that, for the growth they unable to see. If they truly measure it, they will be able to see the tiny progress over some period of time. It's measurable and happen with high certainty. I wonder why no one ever told me at school. I had wrong expectation about success and I gave up in the middle of the way most of the time because I thought if I couldn't see it sooner, it was a failure. Years ago, I studied Japanese. I stopped doing it because I couldn't speak Japanese fluently after I studied for several months. I gave up with a conclusion that it was difficult language, I couldn’t master it. I failed. I didn't make another attempt. Now I know if I just study the language for one hour every day and keep studying for ten years, I will be able to master it. It's very slow progress. Giving up is not an option at all. One hour seems so hard at the beginning, but after one hundred times, it becomes easy. After one thousand times, it becomes natural. I know I can do it. Everyone can do it either. It's easy with the right strategy. The first step is to build the habit, atomic habit. Start with tiny time and energy every day. Once the habit is established, then improve it gradually. Create the habit first and never think to improve it before the habit is rooted strongly. Most people are impatient to see the result and then they start with big. When they don't see the result, they give up and try something else. They are destined to fail with such attitude. It's the ideal story of success. In reality it's rare. Most people do not make progress even after ten or twenty years doing the same thing. The reason is that they just reach the first stage of success, establishing the habit. They do the same thing over and over again, but they do not step forward. They master the first level but they do not step to the next level. They do not challenge themselves. People are afraid to do what they cannot do yet. Doing what they cannot do means certain fail. It needs a lot of failures before it becomes easy. After that, continue to another challenge. Unwilling to fail is unwilling to improve. Most people just want to look good, to save their face and to impress others. They do not aim to be real good and capable. To be real good, one must put himself in a position as failures every day for years because he keeps moving and doing what he cannot do yet. Once he masters a level, he goes to the next level to experience another thousands of failures. I never meet a person who gets his or her strength and success from luck. He suddenly wakes up one day and find one million dollar, or he wakes up one day and suddenly speaks Mandarin fluently without ever toiling every day to master it. It never happened before and will never happen in the future. Maybe one person is lucky enough to win a lottery, but it also needs effort. To win a lottery, maybe he has bought the lottery routinely for years. Even dumb-luck happens not without a reason at all. "Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready” (Ernest Hemmingway, "The Old Man and The Sea"). Edison said, "Success is ninety nine percent hard work and one percent luck." It's always hard work that counts. We do not want to hear this simple truth. We'd rather have a shortcut, the easy way to get there as fast as possible. This mentality is the mentality of weak and lazy people. They hope they won't encounter with big problems, and success will come easily to them. Millions people keep that dreaming from the siren song. Success is like a black swan, it's a rare event that happens to those who truly look for it. To be able to find it, one must aim to be anti-fragile. Anti-fragile means to embrace problems, uncertainty, obstacles, variations, volatility in life. The typical journey is losing and suffering every day until one day finding the black swan, a success encountered. Typical people choose the opposite way, the turkey way. It gain little every day but one day bad luck happened, it's killed for thanksgiving. An entrepreneur works hard every day and experience loss after loss after loss until one day he becomes successful, normal worker gets monthly salary for years until one day he gets fired for some reason. That's the black swan way and the turkey way.