"Same As Ever" by Morgan Housel

The book's premise is simple: everything changes, but some things are more constant than others. As one of the book's quotes says, the candy bar with the most sales 40 years ago was Snickers, and so it is today. The same can be said about human behavior and psychology. The author dives into various stories representing the core principles that rarely change throughout history. Some ideas are as eye-opening as understanding the concept of base rates.

• Expectations rule the world: the less you expect, the less disappointed you are when it doesn't happen, and the more happy you are when it does happen. The same applies to stocks, population happiness, etc.
• Accumulated fortune leads to more risk-taking, which leads to losing the fortune. Markets become over-optimistic, and then the bubble busts lower than ever.
• Panic, shock, worry, and anxiety drive innovation. Good times don't produce moon landings in 12 years. Fear does.
• Progress is gradual and, hence, invisible to the naked eye. We ignore a 1% decrease in poverty year to year even though the number of people raised from objective poverty is enormous.
• Long walks and periods of downtime produce creativeness. Being bored increases the mental capacity to work on problems in the background.
• Hardship is the price we pay for progress, even though we rarely see this as the "price" in a monetary value. The price can still be anxiety, stress, opportunity cost, etc.
• Long-term thinking is beneficial but enormously difficult to implement. Short-term goals drive humans, and it takes effort not to eat the cake today to get slimmer next year.
• Information can be permanent or expiring. Permanent information is general rules about the world—e.g., the greediness of markets. Expiring information is like Nvidia stock doing great. Focus on why it is doing great, not on the fact that it is.
• People forget things but are shaped by experience. A person might have different points of view from you, not out of malicious intent but because they have had an experience that differs from yours.

I loved reading "Same as Ever"; it explained a few concepts in a new light, helping me understand them better. This book is as revealing as any economics or behavioral psychology book.