T.A.N.S.T.A.A.F.L
Perhaps the most valuable idea I’ve learned from Computer Science is the concept of tradeoffs in system design. We all ostensibly understand tradeoffs and I also thought I did but internalizing it opened up a whole new paradigm for thinking about the most popular human indulgences- regret, fear and fomo. A lot of ancient wisdom; from Confucius, Buddha or Plato emphasizes the idea of sacrifice as noble. The emphasis in eastern schools of thought is always one of being content for what one has rather than a yearning for what one doesn’t. As a kid enamored with technology and the future, I mistook this to mean the author implying that we should be happy with inertia, laziness or the status quo. This didn’t fit in well with the futuristic capitalism of Silicon Valley- we disrupt and innovate because we’re not content. These old guys probably didn’t know what they were talking about.
I didn’t realize their subtle message. If you are not content, then you must be willing to sacrifice to obtain what you think will bring you that state of calm and satisfaction.
Sacrifice what? Sleep and free time? Sign me up right now! That while painstaking is not the sacrifice. Instead you will sacrifice time and your future reality. Time and energy are zero-sum games: if you spend it on X you will not have as much time to spend on Y had you not spent any time on X.
Many of us harbor a shopping cart model of reality- you add things to an initially empty cart. But past the age of five this isn’t really true, you already have a cart with items in it. These might be your job, your interests and your friends. But this cart is nefarious because you need to continually expend time and energy to maintain the items. Unlike an Amazon shopping cart, items don’t just sit there and will delete themselves if you fall below a standard of performance each of them has set for you. Every item you add to this cart puts more pressure on you to maintain your standard of performance across more things. Spreading yourself too thin. A familiar idea. If you spread yourself thin enough for long enough, you burnout. Fomo is usually not wanting to be elsewhere at a given moment, it’s wanting to be where you’re at AND elsewhere at a given moment. We want to gain but we don’t want to lose. So unless sacrifice, however minor is built into your mental model of life, you will forever be afflicted by fomo because it follows the shopping cart model- I can keep adding more items without deleting existing items. But you can’t and if you understand that you can then learn to value what you have. This is what the Ancients urged us to do. Being content isn’t about not wanting more, it’s realizing that you can’t have more. You can only have different. If you think your cart is heavy already, then can only hold it by exchanging items you already have for items you want more. Desire is the only thing you can have infinitely more of. Reality will never match up.
Working on a substantial enough X or Y will forever transform how you view yourself and the world i.e items left in the shopping cart change the shopper. This is the great folly of the deferred life plan- you will change through the process of doing things you don’t like for many years which will weaken your resolve to do something you actually want to do after acquiring whatever utility the chore gave you. Usually money but sometimes social standing or influence. You cannot, past a point, separate your identity from the engagements of your life over a long enough period of time. Google employees don’t usually take their millions of dollars in salary and stock to seed fund their own startup because being at Google gave them a dose of the idealism behind their startup while giving them a comfort they no longer wanted to lose. Not to dwell on big tech but facebook.com is a polarizing duality. You can connect with long lost friends across the world for free without service interruptions and more reliably than any telecom carrier. You are also being plugged into a global network of people- across all timezones and of all amounts of free time who will incessantly make your phone go off on your bedside. The dopamine rush of a DM is real. Facebook is a tradeoff. Signing up is saying that you are willing to get addicted in exchange for the excellently operated free service. Most people choose the former without really thinking about the latter. Like advertising, in our minds this stuff always only works on others but never ourselves.
Regret for a successful person manifests in the form of wanting just one more thing. If I had that, everything would be perfect. Except this successful person is rarely ever willing to make a trade, what analogous component in your life that you generally enjoy would you give up to get this one more thing? If the answer is that you don’t want to give anything up, then you should feel no regret. Holding on to regret in this way is a form of wishing something you care out of your life. If you wouldn’t, then don’t regret. Just live.
We look for technical solutions to human problems. If I can’t fit all of my desires into a day, then I’ll Bird to class or eat a sandwich on the go so I have a little more time. Desire is infinite but reality is limited and your desires will always overwhelm your ability to satisfy them. Everyone would like more of everything they enjoy, but how much of their thrills can they give up for their new target? If the math doesn’t check out, forget it. That desire is no different than the desire to grow a pair of wings.
We need to collectively stop seeing our own lives and judging the actions of our parents, friends or romantic partner as if they operated in a world of limitless time and energy. Embrace the constraints and relish what you have earned. Happiness arises from recognizing limits and knowing that you pushed the boundaries, not from pretending to be invincible and living your life as such. Don’t hypertrack because that means you lack conviction. ‘Keeping your options open’ is a proxy for saying you really don’t know what to do with your life so you’ll let the universe decide.
When choosing to commit or not to commit, think about what you’re prepared to lose to gain this. If you are, you know you’ve found something rare and valuable. The greater the sacrifice, the more meaningful the choice. Cherish it. Love that person, take that job, start that company. Don’t look back once made and don’t let others second guess yourself.
