Fortune is of sluggish growth, but ruin is rapid

You might have seen this too many times: An enterprise or artist begins from the bottom, getting to slowly make a network, a respectable body of work, reaching mastery in what has to be learned and creates spectacular things, finally getting the so appreciated success they sought. Then, as time comes by and they get more accustomed to this "master" status, they get complacient: They stop learning about ways to improve and new discoveries in their particular field, and their actual knowledge gets more and more outdated as the world moves faster than ever. Before they realize, a lot of new individuals come into the field and push the boundaries, while creating new movements and leaving the old one as a piece of old story, being "out of his/her/Its prime". Well, in all these cases you might be in presence of the Seneca Effect, a mathematical model proposed by the author and professor of physical chemistry at the University of Florence, Ugo Bardi. Let's begin by explaining what conceptually this model depicts.

What is the Seneca Effect?

What basically the Seneca Effect points to, is a phrase to which It dues Its name, written by the Philosopher Seneca whilst writing a letter to a friend: "Fortune is of sluggish growth, but ruin is rapid". What this means is that going up and making advances on anything requires a great deal of effort and time, though for all to go down It might take less than a fraction of what It took building It.

Why This Happens?

As everything, even subjective things are developed upon a great series of subsystems that are interconnected, all formed by little elements that are carefully disposed for the functioning of the whole system and that are equally as important for Its proper development. So, by taking a part of It that is of sum importance as many others, and that took not more than a single digit percentage of setting the whole endeavour up and break It, you will prevent the whole system from working and can even bring Its destruction.

How to avoid the Seneca Effect

As this can affect anything that is making Its progress, you can be sure that the main thing that describes Its powerful downward effect is the fact that everything that doesn't grow, just goes downhill. So, the way to prevent this from happening to you is to avoid the danger of getting satisfied and carried by your ego, in this way you will also be made think by yourself that you are better than you really are at something or just stop learning because you know everything that has to be known. A true solution is to be proactive and have as an objective to acquire new knowledge in a humble way, not believing that you shouldn't go through constant processes of updating to keep yourself on the top. To summarize It: See the world in terms of growth and learning, not of concrete and plain success

I hope that with the information presented you can know more about what the Seneca Effect is and how It can affect our development, making us more aware of the fact that If we don't make progress, we'll just move backwards, being a thing of the past and also to make sure that you have to keep all your matters in check in order to grow constantly. Thank you for your support and good luck!