“Imagine walking along a sidewalk with your arms full of groceries, and someone roughly bumps into you so that you fall and your groceries are strewn over the ground. As you rise up from the puddle of broken eggs and tomato juice, you are ready to shout out, 'You idiot! What's wrong with you? Are you blind?' But just before you can catch your breath to speak, you see that the person who bumped into you is actually blind. He, too, is sprawled in the spilled groceries, and your anger vanishes in an instant, to be replaced by sympathetic concern: 'Are you hurt? Can I help you up?' Our situation is like that. When we clearly realize that the source of disharmony and misery in the world is ignorance, we can open the door of wisdom and compassion.”
― B. Alan Wallace, Tibetan Buddhism from the Ground Up: A Practical Approach for Modern Life
Anger or any dissatisfaction with others is your ego screaming from the inside, wanting you to feel relevant and superior. Once you subdue it and put yourself back into awareness, you connect to a superpower, going beyond the space-continuum of time we live in, also known as clock-time.
As reincarnated souls, the time spent on this planet is a tiny fraction of all the lessons we ought to learn. The earth plane is a fertile testing ground for our evolution as one species. Once we die, we shall all rot in the same fertile ground we came.
I often talk about death and long-term alignment. I realize that it is a powerful concept since it provides tranquility to pursue the highest degree of achievement while breathing before reacting in anger.
Learn to respond to life circumstances. Be aware. Someone might disagree with you or is unaware of the potential consequences of their actions, for a multitude of unrelated reasons.
People rapidly forget the dead. Stop living to impress others or even be over preoccupied with how they perceive you. If you can rest your head in your pillow, knowing that you acted with virtue and gave your absolute best, you are fine.
Combine it with the fearlessness of death, and you will transform into an unstoppable force of nature.
In my world of Venture Capital and startups, some say that if we are not failing frequently, we are not taking enough risk. That is true. When you look back in the history of humanity, most innovation, revolutions, and creative thinking came from resolving initial conflict towards those that unaware of their immaturity. Investing requires patience. Everything worthwhile requires patience.
Every time I face short-term thinking towards an investment that isn’t going well, I ponder, accept, and work on making myself being present. Knowing that right now, life is perfect.
Startup investing at the earliest of stages requires virtue, patience and long-term thinking. Different than public markets, when folks literally “dump” a stock.
Life is not fair, and you will have to deal with complex matters with other people frequently.
Be grateful to God that you have such small problems that require resolution and evolution.
"The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise."
― Tacitus
"Today I have got out of all trouble, or rather, I have cast out all trouble, for it was not outside, but within and in my opinions."
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book IX
I came to Minas Gerais for the wedding of Felipe Lamounier, a dear friend and founder that we have backed via Atman's most recent fund.
In today's episode, I chat with Rodrigo Teijeiro, founder of RecargaPay, a leading mobile payments fintech in Brazil that has reached more than 3,5M users.
I’m building something new. I will no longer send emails via the Stoic Capital brand or this Substack account. More to come, soon.
