Stability Erosion

On a long enough timeline, everything is sand.

Let’s say you’ve got “it” all figured out, whatever “it” is. The process works. It gets the results you want. The ROI is great, the effort is minimal, and everything just clicks. You run the play over and over, and it puts points on the board every time.

Maybe not as many points as it used to, but still – points!

And okay, not every time anymore, but more often than not.

Well, maybe less often than not these days, but it’s still reliable and…

…and then it isn’t. What happened?!

Everything is always falling apart, that’s what happened. Problems don’t stay solved. Entropy increases and the world spins, and if you keep doing the same thing over and over the returns diminish.

Success is a platform to jump from, not an end state that lasts forever. Just as no failure is permanent, neither is any success – life keeps going, and you need to go with it. If you’ve been running a successful play for a while, it’s time to re-examine it, because it won’t work forever.

It’s all hills and valleys. For better or for worse, nothing is permanent – so keep going, my friend.