Page 131 - Ray Dalio - Principles

CHAPTER 8

LOOKING BACK FROM A HIGHER

LEVEL

As I look back on my experiences, it’s interesting to reflect on
how my perspectives have changed.

When I started out, each and every twist and turn I
encountered, whether in the markets or in my life in general,
looked really big and dramatic up close, like unique life-or-

death experiences that were coming at me fast.
With time and experience, I came to see each encounter as

“another one of those” that I could approach more calmly and
analytically, like a biologist might approach an encounter with
a threatening creature in the jungle: first identifying its species
and then, drawing on his prior knowledge about its expected
behaviors, reacting appropriately. When I was faced with types

of situations I had encountered before, I drew on the principles
I had learned for dealing with them. But when I ran into ones I
hadn’t seen before, I would be painfully surprised. Studying
all those painful first-time encounters, I learned that even if
they hadn’t happened to me, most of them had happened to
other people in other times and places, which gave me a
healthy respect for history, a hunger to have a universal

understanding of how reality works, and the desire to build
timeless and universal principles for dealing with it.

Watching the same things happen again and again, I began
to see reality as a gorgeous perpetual motion machine, in
which causes become effects that become causes of new
effects, and so on. I realized that reality was, if not perfect, at
least what we are given to deal with, so that any problems or

frustrations I had with it were more productively directed to
dealing with them effectively than complaining about them. I
came to understand that my encounters were tests of my
character and creativity. Over time, I came to appreciate what
a tiny and short-lived part of that remarkable system I am, and