Yesterday I was pedaling away on the exercise bike while flipping through some old newspaper sections. While I didn't make any resolutions, I made a pact with myself that I would throw out more magazines and newspapers every week than arrived at the PB Manse. The natural result of this, over time, is that at some point the magazine and newspaper count would probably reach zero at least for a moment. Your holdings increase/decrease by X-Y where X is what you acquire and Y is what you divest yourself of.
It occurred to me that so much in life is like this simple bit of math. Your weight increases/decreases by X-Y where X is the energy acquired from food and Y is the energy expended. Your net worth increases/decreases by X-Y where X is your income and Y is your spending. (We won't talk about the ups and downs of your assets.)
X-Y=Z is one of the simplest equations imaginable and even those who shirked Algebra usually comprehend it. And yet so many of life's seemingly hard dilemmas can be reduced to that.
Well, no resolutions, but here's hoping it's a year of negative Z for possessions and weight change and positive Z for net worth. It's just simple math after all.
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