Early Retirement Extreme Forums

I came across this very interesting comment on Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/getdisciplined ... t/mc2j67x/

Like many of you, I consider myself a deep thinker. I often get stuck in overthinking and analysis paralysis, while I see other people, perhaps less analytical, simply taking action and steadily building their lives, without over-studying or overthinking every step.

I wasn't like this from birth, infact, I've started this from age 20. I was completely the opposite in my teens.

I believe a good ratio for life would be 20% thinking and 80% action. Yet, I’m sure many of us have gone through phases where it’s been more like 80% thinking and only 20% action.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.
Specifically, I’m curious how the ERE lifestyle, which positions itself as anti-capitalist, anti-hedonistic, and more focused on intentionality and simple living, has influenced your ability or willingness to act. Has it created limitations when it comes to pursuing what capitalism defines as “wealth accumulation”?

For instance: after buying one house, you buy another, then a building, then land, and so on, always something bigger, always new projects, always something more.

It’s not necessarily about satisfying a craving for novelty or pleasure (hedonism), nor is it about the boredom or existential crises that come from too much thinking or too much free time. It’s more about understanding why inaction can make us feel bad, why perfectionism can become a trap, and how that mindset often leads to nothing meaningful.

Also, one thing that the post says help, is to have a fixed appointment every month with your relatives to actually talk what you've done in the meanwhile to reach your goals.
This look like therapy, and I personally think can be a good thing to do!

One thing I do hate about working with a computer is that we have the illusion of taking action, but we are not actually acting in a real world, but just in a virtual one.

Not only that, there is all this commotion about how reading books can make us better people.
But what is the right ratio? Reading 10 minutes a day?
All the rich people will tell you read books, reading is good for the mind.
We agree with that. But what are they telling us? That we are wasting our time reading?

With our thinking ability, I thought that we could create a plan, so just like we do with spreadsheets, with Excel for finance, develop systems, to get used to respecting certain habits that make us act, that lead us to action, and create moments, so schedule moments in which we compare ourselves to see how our actions went.

If I may paraphrase a few notions of ancient wisdom: "To think without acting is a waste. To act without thinking is dangerous."

There are endless debates about the proper ratio between the two. This mainly comes down to differences in preference and capability and not recognizing or accepting that other people have difference preferences and capabilities.

Someone who is really good at strategy needs less tactical capability because they can foresee and avoid any problems long before they happen. Likewise, they can devise a strategy so that good outcomes are practically inevitable no matter what they do right now. They already won the game 15 moves ago.

Someone who is really good at tactics needs and perhaps prefers less good strategy because they can react well to new situations as they come up as well as act to create new opportunities. Like paddling down the rapids, you don't need a map if you're really good at paddling.

Either works! Unless you're one and incorrectly believe you're the other. Or you read advice on the internet claiming that everybody ought to be the same way.

You've started very many threads here that are practically all about optimizing some status marker in pursuit of wealth or women asking "if you were in this situation, what would you do ..." At this stage in your life-development asking yet again is not going to get a more precise answer. Any answer will come with some unstated uncertainty: People will say 73% but they forget to mention that's +/- 20% so that the actual range of outcomes is 53%--93% depending on your individual situation where neither they nor you know the details. If you keep searching for the kind of precision that doesn't exist without acting, you will waste your time. Settle for "good enough". Then you will have more experience to choose again.

Both your strategic and tactical capability will benefit from life experience which only comes from actually doing something AND then thinking about what went right and what went wrong. My main advice to your would be to make a decision but stick with the kind of decision that is reversible. Consider "what is the cost if I have to get out of this in case I made a mistake". When it comes to buying a house, that may be 5-7% of the price. When it comes to love interests, don't instantly marry the first person you fall for.

Think of that price as TUITION COST. Then ACT according to what you can afford. And don't forget to LEARN from it. Many go through life acting w/o learning. They only serve as a bad example for others to avoid.