I believe that this is the book that I have read in the shortest time. I’ve finished it in around 3 days. The reading is good and smooth but I had time on the plane and on vacation to finish it that fast.

I was familiar with most of the concepts of the book as I’ve read almost all of Morgan Housel’s posts on the Collaborative fund and also listened to his podcast. Also listened to some podcasts interviewing him (all links on resources at the end). But is nice to have all of them together in the book.

Let’s now see more about the book Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes.

This post is part of the series Learnings from books where my goal is to share what I learned from the book that I read. It is a mixture of review and summary with a bit of my opinion and point of view. But, as reviews, these learnings can say more about me than the book itself, so I trust that you the smart reader will take it with a grain of salt.

Learnings from Same as Ever

The book brings short stories about 23 things that never changed and in theory will never change in the future.

As the author puts it: “History is filled with surprises no one could have seen coming. But it’s also filled with so much timeless wisdom.”

The whole concept of the book is really nice: Instead of looking for the new shining thing, the book focuses on what tends to be stable over time, and due to that it tends to be dismissed by everyone.

The book is full of learnings, but to not be a too-long post, I will share the 5 most important learnings from the book.

everything is so fragile

The idea that everything can change because of a small thing is so powerful and changed the way I think about things. The idea is that some of the big changes and important things in history happened because of a small random thing.

I am sure you can think of instances in your life like that, one time when one small decision (or a random event) changed everything. For example, I met my life on a double date with my roommate, if I got sick, or decided not to attend that date, I would not have married the same person and my life could go in a totally different direction.

you can’t predict the unpredictable

We are aware that we are very bad at prediction, even people who live out of predicting things are not that well (check the weather forecast or the “best stocks” for next year and you will know what I am talking about). But what caught more attention was Morgan’s point about what the things that really matter (the biggest) events are the ones that no one predicts. The biggest risk is our lack of imagination of what could happen.

As well written in the book: “The biggest risk is always what no one sees coming, because if no one sees it coming, no one’s prepared for it; and if no one’s prepared for it, its damage will be amplified when it arrives.”

A great example of this is the COVID-19 pandemic. No one predicted it and it was one of the most impactful events in our lives in recent years. When planning for 2020, I thought about some risks, like losing my job, some accidents, etc, but I never thought that my life would change and I would have to spend most of my time working from home.

low expectations is key to happiness

I always say that having low expectations is key to happiness for my wife, not sure where I get this from (maybe Morgan or Charlie Munger) and I totally believe in this. Our happiness is reality less expectations, so the lower the expectation, the happier you are with reality.

Low expectation is not complacency in my view, it is giving my best always but without attaching the happiness or the accomplishment with the result, but more importantly with the process. Like, I read a lot to improve myself, I listen to a lot of podcasts, etc.

The goal is to have an expectation goalpost to stop moving and we will be happier and happier with the outcome as the gap between reality and expectations increases.

good stories are better than facts

I am not a very good storyteller, but that is something that I have to work on as the book nicely points out “Not the best idea, or the right idea, or the most rational idea. Just whoever tells a story that catches people’s attention and gets them to nod their heads is the one who tends to be rewarded.”

Humans evolved by telling stories, not by telling facts. Being able to tell good stories is more important than knowing facts.

optimism for the long run, pessimism in the short run

In the long run, things tend to get better but in the short run, things are a lot more volatile. So, we should prepare for the worst in the short run (have an emergency fund, for example), but also be optimistic that in the long run, things will get better, as they almost always do.

Most of that is because good things take a long time to compound so will harvest the result only after a few years. For example, college takes a year but usually, you are better off after. Professional experience is the same, as you accumulate experience, things tend to get better. Investing is the same, compound interest takes time.

As the author points out: “The trick in any field – from finance to careers to relationships – is being able to survive the short-run problems so you can stick around long enough to enjoy the long-term growth.”

Favorite quotes

These are my 5 favorite quotes from the book.

  • “People don’t want accuracy. They want certainty.”
  • “A successful person purposely leaving gaps of free time on their schedule to do nothing in particular can feel inefficient. And it is, so not many people do it.”
  • “A good summary of investing history is that stocks pay a fortune in the long run but seek punitive damages when you demand to be paid sooner.”
  • “The most important things come from compounding. But compounding takes awhile, so it’s easy to ignore.”
  • “Long-term thinking is easier to believe in than to accomplish.”

Other resources

This section is extra and here I compliment the post with content from other sources that resonate with the book.

These are my learnings from the book Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes written by Morgan Housel. A special thanks to Vancouver Public Library (VPL) for allowing access to the book for free.

Happy learning!