Rich or Broke, Do This One Thing More — The ROI Is Insane

Recently, while hanging out with friends, we got to talking about the time a group of us went to a concert years ago:

“Waking up early to put on a beautiful face of makeup, rushing to the venue impatiently hours before the show, covering the entrance with colorful merch, and tone-deafly screaming the lyrics to all the hit songs at the top of our lungs…”

As we were talking, someone suddenly sighed: “Some experiences really get more flavorful the more you look back on them.”

Even though it’s been ten years, every time I open my phone gallery and scroll through the photos and videos from back then, that beautiful memory comes flooding back, and I even feel happier than I did in the moment.

I believe many people have felt the same way. On social media, netizens call this phenomenon “Memory Dividends.”

This term was originally a concept introduced by American investor Bill Perkins in his book Die with Zero. The general idea is:

Life is a continuous process of collecting memories, and in the end, memories are the only thing that will accompany us. Therefore, he encourages people, when conditions allow, to invest more time and money into things that bring “memorable experiences.”

Because these memories won’t fade with time; instead, every time you look back and share them, they are re-infused with new emotions and meanings. They can even become the most solid source of strength to accompany us through low periods.

So, creating more “memory dividends” in your life is something with an incredibly high return on investment. Today, Kelly will discuss with you all: What exactly are memory dividends? What kind of power can they bring to our lives? And how can we create them?

Memory Dividends ≠ Spending Money on Enjoyment

It Is the Trail of You Living Life Seriously

“Memory dividends” are not equivalent to expensive consumption or travel, nor do they need to be earth-shattering. All traces of you living life seriously, as long as they are specific and genuine enough, can become “memory dividends” when you look back.

Generally speaking, memory dividends can be divided into two types:

1. Rosy Past Memories

These memories come with their own soft-focus filter—gentle, bright, storing the most emotional and beautiful moments of life. They are often hidden in intimate relationships, pure passions, or an unexpected moment of being moved. For example:

• The afternoons when your child still clung to you, and you built blocks together, read picture books, and ran wildly on the grass;
• After the cat that accompanied you for years passed away, no matter how exhausted you were dragging yourself home, you could still recall the warm image of it squatting by the door waiting for you;
• At a concert in pouring rain, singing that song etched into your youth together with strangers, drenched but tears welling up in your eyes;
• A lazy evening, a good book, a cup of hot tea, and chatting with a close friend under the covers until dawn…

Psychology calls this nostalgia for beautiful past experiences “Nostalgia.” Many people see this nostalgia as a sign of “getting old” or even as indulging in the past. But in reality, contemporary psychological research has redefined nostalgia as an important adaptive psychological resource[1]. Appropriately looking back at those certain, warm days allows the brain to briefly return to that safe and beautiful moment, thereby enhancing our present sense of well-being.

2. Resilience Memories

The other type of memory isn’t so sweet, but it is heavier and more powerful. These are the marks left after you’ve wrestled with difficulties, such as:

• Getting through a project crunch period when you almost wanted to give up, and ultimately delivering a brilliant result;
• Persisting with your choice when no one believed in you, and ultimately proving yourself with the results;
• A bold attempt in childhood that actually succeeded with the encouragement of family and friends, from which point you believed you “could do it.”

There is a concept in psychology called “Psychological Resilience” (Resilience), referring to a person’s ability to adapt and bounce back after experiencing stress, setbacks, or uncertainty. It is not innate; like a muscle, it can be strengthened through acquired exercise. The more you train, the stronger it gets. These “resilience memories” are the traces left after each of your “workouts.” When they happened, they might not have been pleasant at first, but time will slowly let them settle, eventually bringing you unexpected compound interest.

How Much Life Force Can Memory Dividends Bring You?

Psychologist Alfred Adler wrote in The Science of Living:

“The experience itself is not important; what is important is that these experiences will remain in memory, and people will decide what meaning to give to life based on these memories. Every memory is a souvenir of life.”

Those memories you have seriously accumulated will become supporting forces that reward your life on the following three levels:

1. An Emotional Foothold During Low Periods

In 2015, a research team from MIT published a study in the academic journal Nature showing that activating the neurons storing “positive memories” in the brain can inhibit and alleviate depression behaviors caused by stress[2].

The scientists pinpointed the group of cells storing positive memories in the mouse hippocampus. After precisely activating them through optogenetics, those originally lethargic mice became more energetic, less anxious, and began to actively explore new environments. Although the study used mice as subjects, it provides an important reference for human emotional relief: positive memories continuously awaken dormant reward circuits, secreting pleasure neurotransmitters that soothe emotions, helping us build a psychological safety foothold.

Just like in Inside Out, the protagonist Riley’s brain stores a large number of memory orbs—some are warm and bright happy memories, others are low and bitter negative memories. When Riley falls into dilemmas like separation, loneliness, and frustration, wanting to shrink back and escape, her brain automatically retrieves those treasured happy memory orbs, helping Riley stabilize her mindset and step out of the gloom.

A very important reason we need to create memory dividends is that they will silently hold you up in countless moments when you want to give up, helping you overcome the painful dilemmas in life.

2. Building a Stable Self-Identity

American narrative psychologist Dan McAdams pointed out that a complete personality is composed of three levels: the first layer is dispositional traits, the second layer is personal concerns, and the third layer is the “life story”—this is also the most important and integrative layer of personality[3].

McAdams believes that identity is essentially a story. We understand “who am I,” “where do I come from,” and “where am I going” by telling our own life stories. When you fall into hesitation, retreat, or confusion again, recall those memories of you actively overcoming difficulties and achieving success—for example:

• The first time you bravely refused someone’s unreasonable demands;
• The first time you learned a new language from scratch;
• Bravely trying a new field in your 30s, starting over, and successfully changing careers…

These memories will help you piece together a stable and coherent self-image in your mind:

• “I’ve done something so brave before, there’s nothing to be afraid of now.”
• “I’ve solved such complex problems before; these current problems can’t stump me either.”
• “I have always been someone who dares to break through and reinvent myself.”

Once this self-image is established, you will have a clear inner compass every time you feel lost. You know who you are and what you have accomplished. Every time you successfully do something, you can gradually accumulate more “self-efficacy.” The stronger your self-efficacy, the more confident you will be in coping with the unknown difficulties in life, rather than being easily crushed by them.

3. Reshaping Your Cognitive System

When you tell others about the “feeling of getting something done”—once, twice, ten times, fifty times… the memory will become thicker and thicker. Because every telling is not just a simple replay, but a cognitive reconstruction. You will stand at your current height and look back at the self who gritted their teeth and persisted back then; new perspectives will give it new meanings.

Li Dan said something very apt in The Wonderful Journey: “A memory, by the time you savor it for the tenth time, might actually have more flavor than the first time.” This is the compound interest of memory. Every memory of living seriously will eventually be internalized into your experience, vision, and way of thinking, quietly reshaping your cognitive system. If you have passionately pursued something, been warmly caught at certain moments, or gritted your teeth through a tough time, these experiences will not be in vain. They will settle into a real, perceptible force that will be awakened and utilized by you someday in the future. Even when you are completely unaware, it has already silently supported you for a very, very long time.

How to Reserve Memory Dividends with a Super High Life Return Rate?

Seeing this, you might think: If my 20s and 30s were lived plain and ordinary, without accumulating any memorable memories, have I missed out on this wave of memory dividends? Of course not. The starting point of memory dividends is never your biological age, but the day you start living consciously. Today can be that first day. The following three methods hope to help everyone gradually build their own “memory asset portfolio.”

1. Regularly Take Stock and Sort Out Past Beautiful Memories

Do a systematic sorting of the past experiences that have continuously brought life force to you, then record them in any way you like—photos, text, videos—to form positive reinforcement. The process of sorting is also a self-affirmation: those beautiful things really happened, and they shaped the mature, brave you of today.

2. Starting Now, Save “Memory Principal” for Your Future Self

Don’t wait until “I have time” or “I have money” to start. Memory dividends don’t discriminate between occasions, nor do they care about grandeur. It can be the tears when you first cross the marathon finish line, the sunrise you see after your first morning run, or the first time you take a walk with someone you like at sunset, the first time you hear your child call you “Mom”… These moments are small, but they are real. What matters is not doing something earth-shattering, but that you were seriously present and wholeheartedly invested. Every moment of living seriously is a “memory principal” you save for your future self. By then, you will thank yourself for having lived so fervently and sincerely back then.

3. Actively Create Meaningful Experiences at Different Stages of Life

Die with Zero provides a very inspiring method[4]: you can plan your experiences just like planning your finances. You can roughly divide life into several stages, such as ages 20-35, 35-50, and after 50. Then ask yourself three questions:

• What is suitable to do when young?​ You can take advantage of good physical strength and abundant curiosity to try things that require body and courage, such as mountain climbing, diving, or living alone in a strange city.
• What is suitable to do in middle age?​ You can take advantage of relatively ample finances and a mature mentality to do things that require accumulation and investment, such as deeply learning a field, accompanying your children’s growth, or devoting yourself to a project you are truly interested in.
• What is suitable to do in old age?​ You can take advantage of freer time to do quiet and long-term meaningful things, such as writing memoirs, revisiting meaningful old places, and sharing the experience accumulated in a lifetime with young people.

At the same time, you can set 1-2 “annual memory anchor points” for yourself each year. They don’t have to be expensive, but they must be things you genuinely want to do. Of course, this is not to stipulate that you must do certain things at certain ages. There is no standard timetable for life; anytime you want to start living attentively and creating beautiful memories, it is not too late.

In Conclusion

“Most people don’t have that much spare money. Instead of纠结 about financial management skills, it is better to return investment to life itself. In terms of your return, one of the best returns is memories, because memories can be consumed repeatedly, and the older you get, the more valuable they become, with no diminishing marginal effect.”

So, don’t just keep your head down and rush forward. Remember to live well too, and create your own “memory dividends.” Many years later, when you sit around with a few close friends, enjoying wine and good conversation, talking about the interesting stories from back then… those exclusive memories carrying the weight of your life will repay you with interest~

In your life, what “memory dividend” are you still deeply moved by today? Welcome to leave a comment in the comment section and share with us~