About shiny object syndrome
TL;DR: Shiny object syndrome can fu*k up your life
Now most of higher level outcomes we get in life are obedient to the law of compounding. You get away with what you're putting in. Lots of times this process is not exponential, meaning your future self may get massively affected by your present self without a sound correlation.
Now most of the effort you need to maintain positive compounding is to just beat shiny object syndrome. Shiny objects can come in many forms, ranging from material (clothes, food, things) to concepts (work, relationships) to people.
Lots of times you can see people responding to shiny object syndrome after they have identified an object as shiny. This is denial, and all what denial is capable of doing is keep dopamine hitting for a little longer. When in denial, people tend to take strange moves, the kind of moves that can slowly damage their quality of life.
focus
The most important lessons in finance are always tied with resisting the next shiny move: The shortest direct path to minimize liabilities and capitalize on assets. If you managed to fight through the discomfort of missing out on lots of shiny things, that's the only chance any type of growth can happen.
At any point in your life, your monetary net worth is a function of your income & your expenses. The key for compounding is that you don’t upgrade your lifestyle as your income increases, again, just resisting shiny object syndrome.
“The first rule of compounding is to never interrupt it unnecessarily.” —Charlie Munger
From a happiness perspective, he who wants nothing is equal with he who has everything.
Identifying something as shiny takes a real moment with yourself. The latest iPhone is not a shiny object when you’re already about to buy a new phone. The latest iPhone is a shiny object if you’re in the habit of getting the latest, a.k.a acquire-to-impress. Again it takes one moment to figure this out.
Remember that comfort is shiny and that acquiring all the shiny objects (100% comfort) will deem your life empty. This connects with the concept of limiting your desires in order to live a happy life.
distraction
I like to think of shiny object syndrome as a bigger-scale attention deficit disorder.
The normal cult is always directed towards the next thing.
Much of the existing world order is designed upon DISTRACTION.
You’re at your weakest when you’re distracted. And that’s a perfect opportunity in many contexts. Think of it from a perspective of a higher-level leader: A leader in a fast food chain management, a movie-making industry, a media outlet or a lifestyle brand.
Lots of people are obsessed with eye-opening works like "The Social Dilemma" as awareness about the importance of data is rising. But the concept behind this does not just apply in the online world. Much like the documentary made you think of yourself as a node in an algorithmic system, the offline world has its systems too that become stronger as you get weaker and more distracted.
If you don’t believe it you can check how many of the trending news today are related to politics, celebrities or sports:
This is the type of shiny news that get to steal your time & money.
For them, the process of you getting weaker and more distracted needs renewal & shininess. That's when "Shiny object syndrome" sneaks in. For you, “shiny” hurts compounding, which means hurting your freedom. That's mainly because most of what's shiny is trash, e.g trash food, trash commercials, news for views, etc.
As a matter of truth, you don't beat the shiny object syndrome, you just pick your "shiny". Meaning it will almost always exist and you'll always be attracted to shininess, but you pick the "shiny" that maintains your control.