Compound Interest

Imagine you plant a single apple tree. In its first year it produces ten apples. You do not eat them. Instead you plant the seeds from every apple. The next year you have ten trees, each producing ten apples. That is a hundred apples. You plant those seeds too. Within a few years you have an orchard so large you cannot see the edges. You never worked harder. You never planted faster. You just let the trees plant themselves. That is compound interest. You earn returns on your money, and then you earn returns on the returns. The growth is not a straight line. It is a curve that starts flat and then bends sharply upward. The secret ingredient is time. Not timing, not skill, not inside knowledge. Just time. Leave the orchard alone and the trees do all the work.