The Rice Grain and the Chessboard

 

Once upon a time, there lived a mighty king. He was impressed by the intellect of one of the scholars in the kingdom and wanted to reward him. So, he said, "Wish for anything you want."

The scholar said, "Kindly take a chessboard and place one rice grain on the first square. On the second square, place two rice grains. In a similar way, do it for all the squares on the chessboard. The number of grains on the next square should be double the number on the previous. I request you to give me the amount of the rice that ends up on the last square."

The king laughed. He thought it was a very ordinary request. He ordered his councilmen to begin the counting of rice grains using a chessboard.

As the king and the scholar waited, one of the councilmen came running to the king. "Your Majesty! Our royal rice treasury is nearly empty!"

The king was shocked. The scholar smiled.

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Through this story, we can clearly see the power of compounding. It started with one rice grain on the first square ー a seemingly insignificant amount. As the quantity kept doubling, we ended up with 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 grains ONLY on the last square (read as= nine quintillions, two hundred twenty-three quadrillion, three hundred seventy-two trillion, thirty-six billion, eight hundred fifty-four million, seven hundred seventy-five thousand, eight hundred and eight. On the entire board, we get 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 grains! Woah!

Just imagine you start with one minute of meditation every day. You'd end up doing 365 minutes (=6 hours and 5 minutes) of meditation in total in a year. Just imagine you learn one word a day from one new language. You'd learn 365 words a year, enough to hold basic conversations in that language. If you read just one page a day, or write one sentence a day in your journal, you'd end up finishing a 365-page book (and average novel or non-fiction book), or you'd end up with a journal that contains 365 entries.

There's a saying that goes: You overestimate what you can do in a day but underestimate what you can do in a year.

People act out of a sudden impulse on January 1, the start of every year. 100 push-ups a day, one hour of meditation, and other solid goals which seem good when the motivation is burning like a strong flame, and extinguishes when regular responsibilities creep in. Although motivation is a valuable spark, there may be days where it fails. And it's not to say that you can't do all this in a day. You absolutely CAN! But how about use the power of gradual habit-building to your advantage - by starting small, and increasing the amount daily? Day one - One minute of meditation. Day two - Two minutes. Day three - Three minutes. On Day 60 - you'll reach one hour. And you can still increase as much as you want to! :D

The benefit is that you'd be able to sustain through your dream routine even on those days when motivation seems to have gone on holiday. You won't need to depend on motivation all the time, as your own habits and automaticity will guide you. 

All the best, dear readers! 😇