This is the fourteenth post in my series of daily posts for the month of April. To get the best of my writing in your inbox, subscribe to my Substack.
one of the things that gets in the way of both my happiness and productivity is that I imagine there is a way of executing things perfectly. it’s essentially a refusal to accept the reality of tradeoffs.
there’s some nuance to it though. it’s not as simplistic as “I don’t believe there are tradeoffs.” I obviously recognize that choosing any one thing involves not choosing other things. time I spend reading is time I could have spent working out or socializing or writing or meditating or travelling or whatever. I mostly accept that I have 24 hours in a day and that I won’t live forever.
but there’s a deeper belief that I have trouble letting go of: the idea that there is a perfect way to execute my life, such that I make tradeoffs in exactly the best way. a life in which I work just hard enough to be successful and comfortable, while also still being happy and having meaningful relationships. it’s a desire to do everything, while superficially accepting that I can only ever do one thing at a time.
I think it’s like this: I currently believe “there are tradeoffs, but I can find a way to live my life such that I make exactly the right set of tradeoffs with my life decisions.” but I think the truth is closer to: “there is no perfect set of tradeoffs to make; the inherent property of tradeoffs (at least in the context of life decisions) is that it they will leave you in a state that you’re not perfectly satisfied with life; in exchange for X thing you want, you’ll have to give up Y thing you want, and it will never feel good to lose Y.”
more simply: it’s pretending you’ve accepted that there are tradeoffs when deep down you haven’t.
if I don’t work very hard at my career, I will simply not be as successful as I would be otherwise—I will get to do fewer of the things I really want to do. but if I do work very hard, I will simply lose out on other nice things: friendships will become more distant, health will be a little worse, and stress levels will be higher.
there isn’t a “perfect” way to execute your life because every action you take changes you slightly, which ultimately changes your preferences and values, which then has implications for what you would consider a “good” life. you are composed of parts with very different priorities, and each of them takes center stage at a different time, and there is no way to create a life path that satisfies the needs of all of them.
also sidenote: when I say “execute your life”, what I really mean is “execute control over the things you can control”; there is plenty you obviously can’t control but I think the (mistaken) belief I’m working through is: “in the space of possible actions within my control, there is a perfect action.”
ultimately, perfection is relative to a metric. maybe you can aim for perfection in a specific artform or a game or a sport. but “a good life” is too general of a problem to try to perfect. should you optimize for happiness? relationships? money? impact? knowledge? awakening? longevity? even if you could perfectly optimize any one of those (I’m dubious), you can’t optimize all of them, because some of them are strictly incompatible with each other. and sorry, you can’t just meta-game it and try to find the optimal balance of metrics to optimize for.
I, like many people my age with access to the internet, want to do a lot of things. every day I learn of three new books and ten substack essays I want to read. I want to be healthier and more fit and more flexible, and spend an hour each day meditating, and also cook good food, taking the time to savor it. but then I want to write a lot and improve my craft, and come up with interesting and insightful ideas, and contribute to human knowledge. and I also want to make enough money so I can be comfortable and not worry about what happens if I have an expensive health problem. and I want more time with my friends: interesting conversations and meandering walks in the park and art galleries and dance parties. I want to be happy and kind.
I will never have all of these things at once, and the sooner I can accept that, the sooner I’ll be able to enjoy the precious fragments I do get to have.