The Secret of Wealth Created by Time

The Disease Called Impatience

Friend, have you ever wandered through such darkness? Asking yourself, “When will I finally be free from this exhausting worry about money?” It’s a shadowy question that lives in all our hearts.

When you visit a bookstore, “the fastest way to get rich” books tempt us, and when you open social media, stories of people whose lives changed overnight flood your feed. Each time, a corner of your heart burns black with impatience, and you’re overwhelmed by the anxiety of falling behind.

To you, I want to take a moment to share the story of an old man. One of the richest people in the world, yet seemingly the most relaxed person—Warren Buffett. Can you believe that over 99% of his fortune, which exceeds 130 trillion won, was made after he passed 50, mostly after 65?

What does this mean? Even for the world’s greatest investment genius, wealth was not a sudden “event” sparked by a flash of inspiration, but the result of a long, monotonous process walked quietly over time.

From observing many people struggling with money, I realized one clear truth: our pain doesn’t start from lacking money, but from a mind that cannot endure time.

Now, let’s embark on a deep and honest journey to understand why our minds find long-term investing so difficult and how we can turn time—the greatest giant—into our ally.

1. The Quietest Magic in the World, “Compound Interest”

“Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. Those who understand it earn money; those who don’t pay it.” – Albert Einstein (attributed)

Why do we fail to properly use this powerful magic right before our eyes? The reason is surprisingly simple: our brains cannot intuitively imagine this magic.

Imagine a small snowball just starting to roll down a hill. At first, no matter how hard you push, it barely grows. Your arms ache, and you doubt, “Is this even working?” Most people give up at this point.

But the miracle begins after enduring that boring time. Once the snowball passes a critical point, it starts growing rapidly with just a few rolls. This is the magic of compound interest.

Warren Buffett started rolling this snowball at the age of ten. His recorded average annual return in the low 20% range was “excellent but not impossible.” The real wonder is that he kept it up for over 70 years. He started earlier and rolled longer than anyone else.

This is not a fairy tale. There was such a magician among us. Remember Ronald Read? A very ordinary man who worked as a gas station attendant and department store janitor all his life. Yet when he passed away, he left over 9 billion won in inheritance, surprising everyone. His secret was simple: for decades, he quietly invested part of his salary in good company stocks, watching his snowball roll steadily through market crashes and booms alike.

The lesson these two stories whisper is clear. The formula for wealth is not “return × time” but closer to “return^time (return to the power of time)”. Time is a magical wand far more powerful than we imagine.

2. The Strongest Enemy Is Within

“Okay, I get that compound interest is important. But why do I check my stock app every ten minutes and feel my hands tremble wanting to sell whenever the market wobbles?”

Friend, it’s not because you’re unusual. It’s a perfectly normal reaction. In fact, it’s harder not to feel that way. Our brains have evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to react immediately to “immediate threats.” Our ancestors who heard rustling in the distant forest probably didn’t survive by pondering their survival odds ten years later.

This survival instinct has become our “inner enemy” leading us to failure in modern financial markets.

• Present Bias: Our brain loves “small immediate pleasures” far more than “great happiness in the distant future.” The temptation of “1 million won now” feels much stronger than the promise of “100 million won in 10 years.” So we easily trade future abundant fruits for a small candy right now.
• Loss Aversion: Psychologists found that we feel the pain of losing money more than twice as strongly as the joy of gaining it. Even a slight drop in stock price triggers our brain’s primitive fear circuits screaming, “Danger! Stop bigger losses!” As a result, we lose rational judgment and panic sell everything.
• Social Proof and FOMO: When you hear a friend made big money in stocks, a siren blares inside you: “I’m falling behind!” This is a primal instinct from ancient times when following the group was safer than deciding alone. Social media amplifies this instinct, turning us from calm investors into anxious chasers.

In the end, the scariest opponent in the stock market is not other investors or the fickle market, but our own brain demanding immediate reactions—our “inner enemy.”

3. The Siren Song Targeting Your Wallet

External enemies attacking our primitive brain are becoming smarter and craftier. Especially investment apps turned into social media and games are like sweet “siren songs” eroding our patience.

“Finfluencers” show only their flashy returns, whispering, “You’re a fool if you miss this chance!” But they never tell about countless failures or painful losses. We see only their carefully “edited success” and fall into the dangerous waves believing we can be like them.

What about investment apps? Every time you buy stocks, fireworks go off, and instead of complex analysis, they encourage simple button clicks—like mobile games. This is a sophisticated trap that silences our deep-thinking “rational system” and stimulates the impulsive “emotional system” to trade more often. Remember, their real goal is not your long-term wealth growth but the commission fees from your frequent trades.

In this noisy world, “doing nothing” has become a great act requiring more courage and conscious effort than any action.

4. The Sage’s Prescription: A Map to Peace

So how can we overcome all these inner enemies and external temptations and make the magic of time work for us? Here are some practical “prescriptions” based on Warren Buffett’s philosophy and behavioral economics for you.

1. Build a system in place of emotions (automatic investing) The most powerful and certain method. Set up automatic transfers of a fixed amount from your paycheck to your investment account on a set date each month. This completely blocks emotional doubts like “Should I buy? Is this the right timing?” Don’t blame your willpower; create a system where mistakes are impossible. The system will quietly roll your snowball for you.

2. Attach a “time label” to your money (distinguish investing from speculation) Ask yourself honestly, “When will I need this money?” If it’s for a wedding fund or rental deposit within 1–2 years, it shouldn’t be in the volatile stock market. That’s closer to speculation than investing. Only money you can part with for at least 5, preferably 10 years should enter the world of investing. Once you attach a time label to your money, you can free yourself from short-term market noise.

3. Consciously block out noise (information diet) Stop watching daily stock market news and unfollow investment communities or social media accounts that fuel your anxiety. Hide your stock apps deep in your phone folders. Sometimes the best information is “no information at all.”

4. Steer your own ship (focus on what you can control) Whether the market goes up or down tomorrow, or the economy improves or worsens—these are matters of fate. Spending energy on uncontrollable things is like shouting at the sky to stop the rain. Instead, focus only on what you can fully control: how much you save (savings rate), what expectations you set (expected returns), and how you react (your emotions). Especially increasing your savings rate will lead you to wealth more reliably than any flashy investment skill.

Conclusion: The Treasure We Truly Seek

Friend, as we end this long journey, here’s what I want to say. The ultimate reason we must endure time and invest long-term is not just to grow the numbers in our accounts. It’s to find the real treasures of life: “freedom” and “peace of mind.”

A life spent watching the market daily, swinging with every rise and fall, losing your direction chasing others’ success—what meaning does a little more money have in such a life?

Believing in the power of time and quietly rolling the compound interest snowball is not just a money-growing skill. It’s a process of mental training to protect your center from external noise, uphold your principles against short-term temptations, and learn to trust the process instead of rushing results.

Just like Warren Buffett and janitor Ronald Read, we can do it too. The courage to choose the surest path, not the fastest, is the greatest gift time gives us and the only true road to wealth.

Now, let go of impatience, and let’s walk far and steadily hand in hand with time, our strongest partner.