The other day an odd thought popped into my head. “Its harder to undo something than it is to do it.” At first I wasn’t even sure what I meant by that (and I was the one thinking it) but it eventually started to make sense. Think forest fires.

Forest Fires

The most visual example I can think of is a forest fire. It literally takes 2 secs to strike a match and throw it in the woods but takes 100′s of workers, 1000′s of hours and millions of dollars to undo the resulting forest fire. Even then, sometimes its not really an undo, since the damage may be irreparable.

Applying this thought to everyday life, its really something more like “its harder to undo the consequences of our action or lack of action than it is to do the right action in the first place”. Obvious enough, but I wanted to explore how widespread this thought was and was very surprised at how easy it was to come up with examples in every category I could think of. Here are just a few.

Health

It takes just 20 mins a day, 3 days a week and a good diet to maintain your health but most people hate going to the gym or eating healthy. When they get a bit older and the consequences of this laziness manifests itself in the form of disease, they are rarely left with a real remedy to fully undo the damage they have caused. Sometimes major surgery costing tens of thousands of dollars is necessary to regain health. Wouldn’t it have been easier to just, well, be a little healthier each day?

Relationships

In modern times, a relationship of complete trust and love is truly something to marvel at. It only takes a few hours of indiscretion to make a mistake that will result in one’s partner losing all trust. No matter how long you’ve been together, it will take a very long time for that trust to be re-established again and even then it will never fully leave their minds. Wouldn’t it have been easier to just spend a few minutes a day actively working on the relationship instead of waiting for things to get out of hand?

Career

Many young people new to the work force take first impressions for granted and slack off early on in their careers thinking its an easy fix down the line. First impressions not only last, but are almost impossible to change. Their careers suffer in the form of missed promotions and reduced pay increases. Good luck changing your boss’s opinion of your work ethic after seeing you slack off for 2 years. Wouldn’t it have been easier to just get to work on time each day? Is it really that hard to set an alarm?

Financial

It may seem like retirement is a long way away, but if there is one thing you should learn about retirement, is that its not an event, its a process. You didn’t start saving early and now you are faced with working well into your 70′s just to cover your bills! It will now take a windfall of cash or major financial sacrifices later in life to catch up if this habit of saving is delayed just a few years. The law of compounding interest is a force to be reckoned with. Wouldn’t it have been easier to just take a few minutes to sign up for your company’s 401k and to get the company’s match, i.e. free money?

The Easy Answer

Unfortunately the answers to these questions are not clear cut. Sure you would have been better off if you made the sacrifices early on, no argument there. What I find amazing is how easy it is for us to miss the easy answer. Take the retirement example above. That’s just a no-brainer. A 7 year old could do that math.

But the real reason we don’t come up with the right answer is because we never really asked ourselves the question in the first place. Many simply go through life “experiencing” it, or more accurately ”reacting” to it. If we were to truly think about our actions in a logical way, we’d realize that small sacrifices up front have big time pay offs down the line. Its all a matter of timing, being disciplined and doing an honest personal assessment. Here’s to hoping one little blog post helps you realize big gains for yourselves when it truly counts.