I received a heartfelt question from a friend who is a young, single, software developer, about making a difficult choice. Should he:
- Return to a startup offering big money? But one that’s burned him out.
- Travel extensively but spend down his savings? Feels irresponsible.
Many of our choices are based around avoidance, but often, we are fortunate enough to be faced with 2 choices with different positive outcomes.
That’s a task for the “Extreme Choice Framework” — a way to decide when you have multiple positive choices to choose from. This isn’t wisdom. Wisdom is taking good advice and having the audacity to follow through with it.
“Where you stand depends on where you sit.”
OK. That’s wisdom. That’s how people form world-views according to Nelson Mandela.
Where I sit, I am on my 11th month of sabbatical and I am not worried about finding a job. (Should I? Has the bubble burst?) So please think critically of my framework knowing that I am writing from a place of privilege. Afterall, my profile photo is of me holding a real live baby panda.
To begin, drop the luggage.
The first problem between choices like work versus travel is that we get burdened by the value judgement attached to those words: Work, travel, school, volunteering, parenting, etc. Don’t forget that all that is what we call “living”.
Step 1: Start by forgetting how others value our options.
I’m can’t judge my friend’s options. I am not him. A traditional lens would look at his options this way: Work now and play later? Or play now and hope things work out? I believe in another way: to see my friend’s options as a choice between two unlived lives — not between working and playing.
We are a lucky few with many good problems.
I know that these are envious options that 99.999% of the world can only dream about. I appreciate my privilege because I didn’t always have it. But it’s still a challenge to make the best choice.
When I decided to travel and take a year off, I was burned out. I worried about the huge opportunity cost. I could start another company, consult part-time, or take a well-paying gig and take it easy.
Of my good options, traveling for a year was the most extreme choice.
I spent a decade unable to leave the US because I would have not been allowed to return, so I had a pent-up desire for travel. Yet, a year-long journey to visit all 7 continents and 38 countries is still extreme. To make it a little more extreme, I decided to travel with my drone and fly it on all 7 continents. (I did it!) Even though what I am doing is joyous, exciting and a life-long dream, it’s been often uncomfortable, depressing, and forced me to face some hard truths about our world, my way of thought, and how I conduct my life. (Play tiny violin.)
If you’re struggling between two good choices, I don’t have any answers for you.
But I invite you to daydream.
Step 2: Imagine the effort involved in each choice if you took it to the extreme.
The potential outcome is irrelevant. In this framework, the effort is the only thing being measured.
It’s useful to imagine yourself doing something to the extreme because we implicitly understand that an extreme choice requires sacrifices, changes, and discomfort. It makes us face the cost of our choices in our gut.
If you choose work, then imagine burning intensely and burning bright. If that means you won’t spend a long time there, that’s OK. It is better to be passionate for a short amount of time than to be mediocre for long. Don’t tell your boss I said that. If your work keeps igniting your fire and changes you unrecognizably, great.
If you choose travel, imagine doing it till it hits your limits. Doing it till your money runs out, or doing it till you are sick of traveling (or just literally sick from all the unsanitary food), or doing it till you have checked off all the items off your bucket list. It’ll be a great education. If not, you’ll at least have an spectacular Instagram feed.
Step 3: Choose what you would take to the extreme.
If you want it enough — if you value the extreme living you imagined — you will make the extreme choice. The opposite is also true: If you aren’t willing to go to the extreme for a choice, you don’t want it enough. If neither choice makes you want to go to the extreme, then more searching is in order.
If it’s a good choice worth doing, it’s worth doing to the extreme. Interesting lives are never made of mediocre circumstances. Unless it’s an episode of Seinfeld.
Casting shadows onto your world
We often feel like life happens to us. This is the world casting a shadow over us, disconnecting us from the warmth of life. For many people, they don’t have the means, options, or the privilege to escape the random blows. But too many of us who do have the means, options, and privilege allow life to happen to us.
People with options still let the world cast a shadow over their lives because they believe their choices are “inevitable”. Yes, it’s extreme to think that you can put a dent in the world. It’s extreme to think that you can cast a shadow over your life instead of the other way around. But therein lies the answer.
If you want to start casting your shadow over your world, take a good choice and take it to the extreme.
Go live an interesting life. Go cast a long shadow.
P.S.: Not every framework works for every choice, so here’s an alternative method.
P.P.S.: I have completed my cliché. (But I don’t have a Tesla.)
