Happy new year, or feliz año nuevo as they say in these parts. We are now in the twenties! As Tim Urban has pointed out we’re finally through two decades of not being able to say what decade we’re in.

And we’re in for a year of 2020 vision puns, too.

As we enter this new decade I’ve been reflecting on simplicity. My family and I are one month into our Argentinian adventure. We arrived with four suitcases and life is simpler. So far at least, I haven’t once had the thought “I wish I’d brought …,” or “I really miss having …”.

Trish did say that she wished she’d brought her good umbrella rather than her crappy travel one, but that seems to be the extent of it.

I think life has a natural entropy to it (good to get some physics in early this year, a lot of years I don’t get to use it at all). Entropy describes the universe moving from a state of order to a state of chaos.

In other words, stuff naturally gets more messy, disorganised, complicated. Especially if you make more money.

I just looked at the diagram I’ve created to keep track of our structures and investments. Somehow I now control 15 different trusts and companies for various businesses, clusters, and investments we’ve got. Each of those decisions made sense in isolation … but now it looks crazy. Each of those decisions ratcheted up the complexity of our lives just a bit more.

So, my intent for this year and this decade is to be conscious of the drift towards more complexity and consciously aim to keep things simple where possible.

PS. My love and thoughts to everyone back in Australia affected by the fires, and gratitude and appreciation to everyone who is helping. It is very surreal being here in Argentina and seeing and hearing about my country burning.