Category: Commentary

Debt Can Limit Your Options (even when it’s ‘worth it’)

From the Praxis blog.

It’s hard to find a way to combine your career with your passion. It’s much harder if you need to make a lot of money to pay for your lifestyle, loans, etc. I know a number of people who make lots of money – enough to make that law degree a sound financial investment, for example – but hate what they do. The sound financial investment – trading debt for a ticket to a high paying job – turns out to have limited their options to only jobs that pay well enough to service the debt, and they ended up not liking those jobs.

In other words, the lower your wage requirements, the more flexibility you have early on to explore and test and find work you love. Keep that in mind with each step. Ask whether your present decisions are limiting your future options in a way you might regret.

I don’t mean to pick on law students with the above example, but that’s the one I see the most. People get a law degree because they’re smart, and they imagine a law degree as opening up a lot of career options. But after they graduate and have huge debts to pay, the number of jobs that cover it are limited. If you don’t enjoy corporate law, you might feel trapped.

It’s not just education debt that can limit you to jobs you don’t like.  I’ve also met a lot of people who feel stuck with a high paying job they hate because they bought an expensive house or car. If a nicer house and a less enjoyable job is a trade-off you’re happy with, by all means go for it! But it’s hard to undo once you jump in, so be cautious and thoughtful.

I talk a little more here about how low income can be an asset early in life.

Two Weeks on Soylent

I just completed my two week Soylent experiment.  I loved it!

For the past 15 days I had Soylent for breakfast and lunch, with the exception of one day each weekend.  It was fast, easy, filling, and I felt great.  I often skimp or skip breakfast altogether, and lunch is either a barrage of snacks, a frozen burrito, or $12 spent on Pho.  The former are too time-consuming with little payoff in the way of pleasure, and the latter is too expensive to do every day.

Soylent provides a great alternative, and far better than just protein shakes or other supplements.  It doesn’t supplement a meal, it is a meal.  I found that within minutes of drinking a 500 calorie serving, I was full.  And it lasted.  I would be full for 3-4 hours and not even think of food.  For lunch I sometimes needed more like a 600 calorie serving to last longer than 3 hours.

Every other morning I’d pour a 2000 calorie packet into the pitcher they provided free with my order, half full of water.  Seal, shake vigorously, add a bit more water, shake again, pour a glass, and put in the fridge.  Each container would give me two breakfasts and two lunches.  Many people say they wait until it’s chilled to drink it, but I don’t mind it at room temp.

The taste is vaguely nutty and slightly vanilla, but mostly just inoffensive bland cream with some sandy grit.  My wife hated it, my son didn’t like it at first but then liked it, and I honestly enjoy it quite a bit.  I did add a splash of almond milk a few times, which has a natural sweetness.  That definitely made it better, but again, I don’t mind it as is and never got sick of it as I have some flavored protein shakes.

I found in general that I feel slightly better than normal when doing Soylent for both meals.  Nothing amazing, but to just consistently have a decent sized breakfast and lunch helped me feel more energy, and it definitely reduced distraction.  I especially like that it doesn’t get your hands (and hence you laptop, phone, etc.) greasy or get crumbs all over the desk or floor.  I typically eat in the office, so this dramatically improved that experience.

It also made me like dinner more.  You notice taste, smell, and texture more and enjoy them more fully when you save them for the really good stuff that you have time to experience.  Filling up on chips during the day makes taco salad for dinner less exciting, etc.  Soylent is so basic and utilitarian that it allows you to really enjoy the full meal experience when you have time for it.

A few small annoyances include the fact that the pitcher they sent doesn’t always seal, so sometimes when shaking it some would spurt out.  The design of the packets also make it a little hard to get all the powdered contents out with some missing the pitcher, but that’s very minor.  The fact that you can’t keep it in the fridge more than a few days after it’s been mixed is also annoying, but they sent a scoop to make single servings too, so again, a minor inconvenience.

I’d still like to see the price come down.  At around $3/meal it’s not bad, but more than breakfast and some lunches might come out to if you buy largish quantities of lunch meat or frozen meals.

Oh, one final word: if you do Soylent you need to make sure to drink lots of water.  I tend to drink at least 10 full glasses a day anyway, but if you don’t, you’ll want to or you’ll feel a little odd, especially after the first meal or two while you’re adjusting.  I also found that adding more than the recommended amount of water per serving to the mix was not helpful, as it just made the texture less enjoyable and increased the volume you needed to consume.

I wish they were on the shelves of the grocery store, which would make it easier to work in to the grocery rotation.  Still, I plan to keep a supply around and use them somewhat regularly for breakfast and lunch during the week.  It’s great to have a fallback that gets the job done so nicely.

It’s Not About Working for Free, It’s About Being Free

I recently posted about trying to be in a position where you could do awesome work with great people, even if for very low or no pay as it is more likely to lead to better results than doing work you don’t care as much for.

Many people said this was a luxury only the elite or wealthy could afford.  I couldn’t disagree more.  In fact, as I’ve written elsewhere, lack of income can be an asset.  We tend to live up to our earnings.  Those with a less costly lifestyle are more able to jump on opportunities that don’t pay well upfront.  The whole point of the post was that it’s good to be in a position where you are most free to seize on opportunities even if they don’t have an immediate paycheck.  Avoid or reduce debt, cut expenses, maintain a minimalist life, be productive so you can do more with less time, try to save some money, etc.

You may have to or want to work a job you don’t care for and earn money for 60 hours a week but that still doesn’t preclude you from going to that awesome local marketing firm you’re interested in and begging them to do 20 hours a week of work even if they can’t pay you.  I contend that the latter will be more beneficial to you long term than the former, and if you work hard and well might turn into more pay as well.

The post was not about working for free.  The post was about being free.  The freer you are to jump on great opportunities the better, and the more things that make that hard you can eliminate the better.

The Funny Thing About Common Sense

There are lots of funny things in prevailing narratives. Here’s one:

“If you can’t get hired, go work for free until you are worth being paid” = crazy

“If you can’t get hired, borrow $50,000 dollars and spend four years not working and hope it makes you worth being paid” = sound advice

If we placed an equal burden proof on the status quo as we do on alternatives to it, decisions might look a lot different.

Why Not Go Work for an Awesome Company Now?

Many people can’t get paid jobs because they lack experience.  Most will go pay a lot of money to buy a credential in hopes that it gets them access to the jobs, or take a different job.  You could also just see if you can do the job for free as a way to get access.  Apparently, this is a controversial suggestion.

Today I posted the following on Facebook:

Young people: if you have the choice:

Work with awesome people on interesting stuff for no pay

-or-

Work with average people on average stuff for a salary higher than most of your peers

Which would you take?

I suggest the former will pay off 5 or 10 tens more over the short term psychologically and over mid-long term financially as well.

Avoid anything that makes taking the former opportunity more difficult. (Debt, obligation, geographical restrictions, pressure from others, promises you wish you hadn’t made, etc.)

And this:

Imagine your favorite existing company or your dream startup idea. If someone there came to you and said, “We want you to work with us! We just can’t pay you right now.”

Could you do it? Would you?

If you’re 15-25, I’d say a major goal should be to be in a position where you can afford to say yes.

I was baffled by the number of comments and private messages I received from people who passionately disagreed or found these posts dangerous, ignorant, or offensive.  You never know what things will rile people up on the internet.  Didn’t expect this to be one of them!

No, the posts are not anti-work.  No, they are not anti-money or anti-capitalist.  No, they do not claim in any way that everyone should share the same time preference or risk tolerance.  No, they do not imply that working for free is morally or practically better than working for pay.

The posts are making a point about the particular position of young people early in their careers.  They spend tens of thousands of dollars and several years attempting to gain credentials they hope will grant them access to jobs they like and that can sustain them.  My question is, why not just go get that job now?  Work for free if it’s the only way.  Working for free at a great company is probably better than paying to not get paid at a university so that you can hopefully work for enough pay to cover your debt later.  It’s probably more likely to lead to more money and happiness in the long term.

Do it when you’re young and inexperienced your opportunity cost is low and your financial obligations are few.  Invest in yourself by trading pay for great experience if you can.  That’s what many people think they’re doing with school.  What’s different about working instead?  In many cases, it’s better.

But let’s say you’re out of school already.  I think the same question applies.  Ask yourself, if a great opportunity came your way that didn’t have a lot of money with it but it did have a lot of long term promise, would you and could you take it?  You don’t have to in order to be a good person.  It’s your life, not mine.  But if you wish you could but think you can’t because you have a lot of financial or other obligations, the point is to consider ways in which you can reduce those obligations.  Be in a position to take advantage of the best opportunities (measured on all fronts, not just by pay).  The golden handcuffs are real, and they can hurt.  I’ve written before how debt can limit your options, and how lack of income can be an asset.

If at an incredibly young age you already find yourself having to take a job you don’t like because nothing else will cover your expenses, you might try to find ways to reduce the obligations.  I’m not saying don’t work hard.  I’m not saying money doesn’t matter.  I’m not even taking a side on the follow your passion/don’t follow your passion debate.

I think people overestimate the long term value of money early in their career, and underestimate the long term value of time well spent early in their career.  The latter has greater returns.  I’ve talked to many stressed out new employees who are thinking about not taking a job they love because it pays $27,000, instead of the $31,000 they’re making at the job they can tolerate.  I’ve been there myself more than once.  The thing is, in a few years, and certainly in ten years, that extra money will mean little to you, as much as it feels like right now.  But your time and how well you spent it will mean even more, not to mention the network and skills you build along the way.  Odds are that not just in happiness, but in long-term financial rewards, you’ll do better going with the one that is more up your alley vs. a few thousand bucks.

I’ve never worked for free except on side projects and launching my own company.  I’ve never had an internship.  I’ve always been a paperboy or grocery clerk or golf course go-getter or construction worker or something else to earn money.  The sooner I was able to merge my interests with my income the happier I was.  That’s not for everyone.  But I can tell you many of the best decisions I’ve made were saying no to well paying jobs.  I could have been a pharmaceutical rep at age 19 and had a company car, benefits, and starting at $50-60k.  I couldn’t be happier that I picked a series of jobs with a higher ceiling and more in line with the kind of people I wanted to be around and the kind of stuff I really love doing.  That extra $25k in starting salary seemed like a million bucks at the time.  Now it seems like it would have been more than foolish to take it instead of the path I chose.  If you’re doing great work and working hard at it, the financial rewards will come.

I am not preaching dependence.  Far from it.  This is a message of independence.  Don’t just take internship after internship and live with mom and dad until you’re 40.  Heck no.  Don’t be dependent.  Be independent of as many things as possible – debt, promises, other people, and even a certain income level.  That’s the point.  Pick things that take advantage of your strengths even if the pay is low upfront because of what it can be down the road, and because of the fulfillment you’ll get.  Don’t get locked into an income level that your friends think is cool if it limits your options.

Get paid if you can and as much as you can.  But the idea that schooling is the only way to invest in yourself for greater future gains is absurd.  As is the idea that a better salary is always the best long-term payoff.  Why not give up income to gain human capital on the job?

If after all this you still don’t get my point or think I’m somehow against work, or money, or subjective value, or rainbows and hugs and everything lovely, this post is not for you anyway.  If it resonates with you as similar advice and thinking did with me many years ago, take it to heart.

Time and money are both valuable.  One of them you can create more of, the other you can’t.

The Opposite of the Crowd

More than one successful investor has advised to observe what everyone believes and do the opposite.  When people are optimistic, be a pessimist.  When people are pessimistic, be an optimist.  When confidence is high and prices are rising, sell.  When confidence is low and everyone is running for the hills, buy with confidence.

I was considering this advice and trying to decide what the current sentiment is.  Are people optimistic or pessimistic?  Are they buying or selling?  I can recall a few epochs in my life where it was very clear.  In the ’90’s everyone was elated about tech investments and day-trading was everywhere.  Then the bubble popped and things cooled down as people become cynical about software companies and the internet.  In the early-mid 2000’s optimism was everywhere again.  The Dow would only ever go up.  Houses were a can’t-lose proposition.  Everyone became a real-estate speculator with pride. After ’08 there was a period of pessimism, but it didn’t seem to last all that long.

For the last several years it’s hard to identify clear optimism or pessimism.  There are a few sectors – like Silicon Valley and the VC world – that seem to be flying high, but overall there is a lot of indecision and indifference.  If you were trying to do the opposite of the crowd right now, it’d be pretty hard to discern what to do.  Everyone is cautious and confused.

Rather than thinking only in terms of pessimism and optimism we can broaden our lens and possibly identify an answer.  To behave opposite an indecisive crowd is to be decisive.  Now is the time to be definite.  Now is not the time for waffling and over-analysis.  Identify an opportunity, develop a theory, and act on it with definite purpose.  In this environment the consequences of failure are not all that bad, and there is a huge competitive advantage to decisive action because hardly anyone is taking it.

The Power of the Subconscious

I’ve written before about one of my favorite books, Arthur Koestler’s The Act of Creation, and what it says about the subconscious mind being the key to scientific discovery, artistic expression, and other eureka moments.  Koestler describes a common process where those trying to solve a problem or create something new consciously wrestle with the ideas so much that they seep into the subconscious.  After some time away (sleeping, a vacation, a walk, other pursuits) the solution emerges from the subconscious into the conscious mind when least expected.

A friend was telling me recently about a similar observation Napoleon Hill made about those who write down and read or recite their goals regularly.  The goals, after being absorbed and repeated over and again, seep into the subconscious.  That’s when the real stuff happens.  The subconscious takes over, works on the goals, heightens your awareness to ideas and opportunities that move you towards them, and sends out a kind of invisible signal to the world that attracts people and things that assist you in the achievement of the goals.

This need not be interpreted as a mystical phenomenon.  How many times, after learning a new word, do you begin to notice that word everywhere?  How many times, after naming a child something unique, do you begin to hear that name regularly?  Once your subconscious has material to work with, it alters your perception and enables you to tune in to the things that best resonate with whatever is bouncing around in there.

This means that, whether or not you’re deliberately putting it to work, your subconscious mind is working.  What is it doing?  What problems is it solving?  What opportunities is it making you attuned to?  In what ways could you put it to work for you more effectively?

Do Whichever One Works for You

Follow your passion, or follow your effort?  Only go after what you love – your calling – or just knuckle down and get good at something?  I sometimes get asked which side of this debate I fall on.  I think that’s the wrong question.

It doesn’t matter which side I fall on, or anyone else.  It only matters what works for you.  Both approaches are true.  Who could disagree with trying to do something you love more than all your other options?  Who could disagree that working hard and mastering something is more likely to bring you the things you want in life than half-assing it?

These approaches are both valid.  They are both good advice.

Take the follow your passion advice.  The difficulty is that it’s really, really hard work to find what you love.  It’s harder work to be honest about what you find.  Harder still to do what it takes to achieve it.

Then take the follow your effort advice.  How to choose where to put the effort?  How to know when the struggle will yield long-term benefit and when it’s just useless suffering?

Both approaches still leave a lot of work to you.  That’s why it doesn’t matter which you pick.  When you hear someone giving one of these pieces of advice and you get excited and feel freed, that’s the one for you.  If you hear it and think it’s a load of BS, that’s not the one for you.  Go with the approach that resonates.

The Sleep In Your Car Test

We have a simple test for applicants to Praxis.  I call it the sleep in your car test.  There are people who are willing to sleep in their car to get what they want and those who aren’t.  We’re only interested in the former.

No, we don’t actually ask people to sleep in their cars.  Yes, we have an application and interview process that looks at intelligence, communication skill, evidence of ability to create value, and other skills and knowledge.  But those are relatively common compared to those who pass the sleep in your car test.  It’s about effort, grit, determination.  It’s about attitude and not being too good or too pampered to roll up your sleeves.  It represents that blend of wild, Silicon Valley idealism with down to earth, Midwestern work ethic.

The sleep in your car test is our way of identifying blue collar entrepreneurs.  The type who seek autonomy, freedom, responsibility, and growth, both personally and professionally.  They don’t need to be only in software or tech.  Self-directed living and entrepreneurial thinking aren’t only for the app economy, but they can only be had by those who care more about success on their own terms than the pleasure of the crowd.

We get it.  It’s easier to do what everyone else does and succeed within the confines of the given system.  All the smart people are capable of doing this.  But we don’t want just smart people.  We want people not afraid to ask why they’re doing it.  We want people who don’t care what will get them the easy applause of others, but only what will help them discover and create a life worth living.  You’ve got to have the thing.  If you know the journey might require hardships and you still charge boldly ahead, you’ve got the thing.

The world is awash in guarantees.  Those who seek guarantees, and worse those who trust them, are not the sleep in your car type.  The reality is that there are no guarantees.  There are only varying degrees of probability.  And the things with the highest probability of leading you to a life identical to the crowd’s idea of success are often those with the lowest probability of leading you to being fully alive.

This is a big adventure.  You’ve got roads to travel, ideas to explore, people to meet, things to test, challenges to face and overcome, failures to learn and bounce back from, and the kind of sweet success that can only be enjoyed when hard-earned.  If sleeping in your car for a dream sounds exciting, that’s a good sign you’re awake.

It’s hard to define exactly how we identify those who pass the sleep in your car test.  You know it when you see it.  It’s visible through attitude and action.  There’s something just a little different.  It’s not fearlessness – we’re all afraid – but the way in which fear isn’t treated as an insurmountable obstacle, but a game.

Are you willing to sleep in your car?

Fasting from Good Stuff

I grew up in a religious tradition that valued the practice of fasting.  I’d fast from food for a day (or sometimes two or three) from time to time, and I always found the experience valuable.  Regardless of religious significance, fasting has a lot of benefits.  Fasting from food for a few days will teach you a lot about yourself.  You’ll learn how strong your will-power is.  You’ll find out that emotional outbursts and lack of self-control are closer to the surface than you thought once nutrients are lacking.  You’ll go through ups and downs, and during the ups you’ll think more clearly and deeply than ever.  Perhaps most of all, you’ll become ridiculously attuned to and aware of food and all its visual, conceptual, and olfactory beauty!

I haven’t fasted from food in several years.  But the practice of fasting more generally is something I’ve found to be very useful as a way to help optimize my outlook and performance.

Our family has adopted “Screenless Tuesday”.  This is not some kind of puritanical or anti-technology exercise.  We just decided to try it out for the heck of it, not because of any particular problem.  We love it.  Even the kids, who in a typical day can be found all around the house on Kindles, laptops, iPhones, and streaming video on the TV.  They love screens, yet we all really enjoy screenless Tuesday.  It provides an excuse to do things we enjoy – in my kids case drawing, playing games and Legos, etc. – but that take more effort to get into.  It also makes us appreciate screens more, and use them with more purpose (especially on Monday and Wednesday).

I typically pick a day each week to designate as social media blackout day, where I never open Twitter, Facebook, or the like.  Again, not because I think these amazing tools are negative, but because I think they’re wonderful.  It feels good to challenge myself, and going without them brings so much clarity and understanding about what makes them valuable.  So many of the things we do and tools we use are never considered in depth.  We talk trash about them because we’ve never really considered how valuable they are and in what ways.  Going without helps clear things up.  It also helps reveal the aspects that aren’t valuable and makes me a better user.

I occasionally fast from other things for a day, a week, a month or more.  Caffeine.  Alcohol.  Cigars.  In these cases it’s typically because I value these pleasures so much I don’t want to become dependent on them, or mindlessly consume them without enjoying it.  When I realize I’ve had a beer without really noticing it or enjoying it, it’s time to reset.  I love these consumables too much to down them without real pleasure.  A week or two without coffee makes that next cup a divine encounter.

Just knowing you can do something for a period of time is powerful.  You gain confidence, learn discipline, and become good at working hard and succeeding by doing it.  And small challenges that you can do teach you the thought and will patterns needed to do it with bigger things.  You feel a lot of pride by picking something to fast from (not for guilt or shame or fear or the approval of others or disdain for the thing, but just because) and doing it.

Kevin Kelly, founder of WIRED magazine talked about this in an episode of the Tim Ferris podcast I recently listened to, and I love what he said about it.  He talked about abstaining not because the things are bad, but because they are good.  That’s what makes it an effective practice.

Who is College for?

Slightly modified from the original publication on Thought Catalog.

It is commonly assumed that everyone who can should go to college. Sure, maybe a few super-brilliant techies or people with a crystal clear path can skip it and do well, but everyone else needs to go, just to be safe. This is completely backwards. Most people can do a lot better than college. There are really only a few groups for whom college is the best option.

The legally-bound
Sadly, a number of professions have lobbied to secure barriers to entry in order to keep out plucky young upstarts who might undercut monopoly pricing. If you know beyond a shadow of a doubt you want to work in one of these professions, you’ll need to get the magic paper. Just be careful not to let the paper do all the work. For the sake of your customers, try to get more than just the legally required credential. The most common jobs with degree requirements are lawyers, doctors, and CPAs. If that’s you, bite the bullet.

The well-to-do, insecure partier
College is a consumption good for some people. It’s a four (or five or six) year party covered by mom and dad. If you’ve got stacks of cash and your major goal for your early twenties is to chill at frat houses with a Solo cup, maybe you should go to college. Let me take that back. You see, you can move to a college town and party without enrolling. But if you’re really insecure and worried about not having official student status at parties, you’ll need to pay the piper. Tuition and sitting through classes are a small price for a well-off party junkie who can’t think of non-credentialing methods of having a good time. Go for it!

The parental pleaser
A lot of parents will be mad at you and ashamed to talk about you to their friends if you’re not in college. Luckily, most parents don’t care too much if you’re actually getting value out of the experience, as long as you’re enrolled and passing. If keeping mom and dad reasonably happy without challenging them to rethink what happiness means to you is your top priority, go to college. There’s nothing else with the same mystical power to elicit parental pride.

The college professor
If your dream is to be a professor, you’ve got to do your time. In fact, the entire education system top to bottom is optimized for the creation of professors. Every other profession to emerge from 20+ years of institutional education requires a deschooling process, because only academia plays by the same rules and incentives as the school system. All other industries are remarkably different, what with their accountability to customers and emphasis on value creation. If the system is your first love, and doing research and teaching within its walls your sole dream, do it. You can be an intellectual without a degree, but not a university-sanctioned professor.

The bureaucrat
Government isn’t known for rewarding merit, but it’s great at rewarding rule-following and form-filing. If you dream of reviewing building permits or vehicle registration documents, you’ll need a degree of some kind. The nice thing in this field is that the things you’ll do in school are pretty similar to what you’ll do at work. Comply and complain about the non-compliant. As an added perk, you really can’t be fired for being rude to everyone once you’re in.

The frightened 9-5er
If security sits atop your personal hierarchy of needs, and working for a big corporation with a massive HR department that specializes in sameness and risk-avoidance sounds like the life you’ve been waiting for, go to college. It’s changing, and a little faster than you’d probably like, but most big companies still filter out non-degreed applicants for entry level jobs that require a heavy dose of repetitive process-oriented labor. You’ll be competing with machines and software, but for the time being, there’s still a slot for you.

Everyone else
If you don’t fit into one of these categories, college may still provide some value, but it should in no way be considered the default option. There are myriad ways to tailor your own learning experience or gain skills, knowledge, and a network to discover and do what makes you come alive. College should be treated as one option among many, and no more or less valuable or open to scrutiny and cost-benefit analysis.

Are You Living on Purpose?

Humans are not like other earthly creatures.  We cannot live for only the biological imperative to survive and procreate.  Humans require purpose.  Lack of purpose is the greatest disease against which all of humanity must daily fight.  It is the one disease that will not and cannot be overcome by advances in medicine.

You can’t have purpose on accident

Our existence is couched in a series of accidents.  That we were born, when, where, and to whom are accidents (they were not accidents to our progenitors, but from our own point of view).  Our genetic structure is an accident.  The first language we hear, and therefore learn, and the first beliefs to which we are exposed, and therefore predisposed to, are accidents.  Purpose can not come from accidents.  We do not discover or live with purpose naturally, the way we grow physically.

None of these accidents are good or bad.  The simply are.  In your exploration and creation of purpose you may find that a meaningful life demands radical differences from the norms and beliefs in which you were raised.  You may find that it demands beliefs and norms almost identical to those in which you were raised.  Whatever the end result, the one consistent demand is that you choose it.  You cannot discover and live a purposeful life by simply following rules handed down to you, taking the path of least resistance, and sitting idly on the conveyor belt you were plopped on.  It’s not where it takes you that matters as much as who decided to go there.  If it was not your decision, you will never find fulfillment from it.

Suffering with and without purpose

Suffering is terrible.  It can also be valuable, in the same way the physical sensation of pain is valuable.  Without it we would soon die of unattended wounds.  Because pain is valuable doesn’t mean it’s noble or to be sought.  Psychological suffering is the same.

To suffer is no noble deed.  If the suffering is avoidable it’s a worthless or even cowardly thing to suffer.  If the suffering is unavoidable your response to it can be heroic.  There is nothing heroic about the suffering itself, but heroism can be found in someone who chooses to respond by finding meaning in unavoidable suffering.

Do not mistake your suffering for heroism.  If it’s at all avoidable, the heroic thing to do is to escape from it.  If not, create purpose in it.

There is no right decision

There is no decision that will give you purpose.  Your life is not a series of binary choices, with the door on the left leading to meaninglessness and the door on the right leading to purposefulness.  What you choose at each juncture of your life matters little compared to the fact that you, not someone else, choose.  You can’t find a perfect version of your purposeful life.  You have to create it by the undivided, definite choices you make.  Consciously choose to do things you value and find meaningful.  Consciously exit those that aren’t.  It doesn’t matter what you choose so much as that you choose.  Complaining about a path someone else pushed you down and against which you did not resist will not do.

Purposeful living is a process of exploration, experimentation, feedback, adjustment, and joy in the midst of it.  There is no pressure to get it right because there is no right.  There is better and worse, as determined by you.  It requires self-knowledge and self-honesty to find your own scale of better and worse.  It requires courage to abide by it.

Are you the 2%?

At any given moment 98% of us will choose – or rather not  choose – to live by default.  It is only the 2% who decide with definite purpose to act according to their own wishes who are really living.  How often are you among them?

When to Take Action

I’m highly action biased.  I get the frustration of identifying a problem or having a new idea and wanting to do something about it, good and hard.  I believe jumping in with both feet as soon as possible is always preferable to lots of analysis.  Still, there are times when the best thing to do is nothing.

This is particularly true when the problem is a grand one that affects all of society.  Just because you realize that there is something wrong with X system or process doesn’t mean there is an obvious and immediate action to take.  The realization is the first, often most powerful but also most fleeting step.  It’s easy for action biased people to get antsy and want to do something quick.  Start a campaign, write an article, launch an organization, etc.  Often though there is no clear vision, understanding of causal factors involved, or strategy.

Our culture is one that provides social rewards for any kind of action.  If you say you’re doing something to alleviate poverty, people congratulate you no matter how stupid or useless or even counter-productive your efforts might be.  Volunteering is deemed noble and effective, whether or not it’s either of these things.  The obsession with nonprofits and vilification of win-win for profit activities further incentivizes blind action.  Start a club.  Host a fundraiser.  Do something!

The most profound improvements in the world are typically born out of many years of following the initial identification of a problem deep down the rabbit hole.  Those who see something they don’t like and jump to do something come and go, as do the effects of their efforts.  Those who internalize the problem – let it steep, let it alter the way they think, pursue an in-depth understanding of the problem and knowledge of tried and untried solutions, and only act when the idea they hold is one that doesn’t just suggest but demands action – are typically the ones who best solve it.

There are a lot of dysfunctional beliefs and institutions around us.  Discover them.  But when it comes to action if you feel the itch ask yourself exactly what kind of action you want to take and why.  Do your ideas demand action?  That specific action?  Will you be unable to sleep without taking that specific action?  More importantly (and much harder) ask if the solution you have in mind can be obtained within the context of a for-profit business model.  If not, the odds that it will work are incredibly low.  If a solution is real, it will create value.  Non-profits can create value, but it’s much, much harder to know if they are and far too easy for them to do the opposite.  If the solution is political it’s almost assuredly going to do more harm than good.  If the goal is good feels, launch a nonprofit effort or lobby politicians.  If the goal is effectiveness, try as hard as you can to discover a way in which your ideas can generate a profit.

Until action is clear, and clearly value-creating, let your ideas direct you to further understanding.  Channel your hunger to act towards the act of learning more.  When the time is right and the idea is ripe you’ll know.

Soylent Experiment

  

I rarely eat breakfast. When I get up I want to get started on writing and the day’s work immediately. Plus I hate the prep time, and I’m not ready for solid food for a few hours after waking. So I often skip breakfast only to be ravenous at 10:00 AM. 

Lunch is my favorite time to catch up on small stuff, quick emails, read some articles, share things on Twitter, etc. Food prep is annoying and eating out gets expensive and often makes me feel sluggish, not to mention the time cost.

I’ve tried some protein shakes and such, but all are insufficient for a meal, costly, and taste bad. The best breakfast solution thus far has been homemade bone broth, but it’s a lot to make a batch and freeze it (I should say it’s a lot for my wife, because she’s the one who’s done it!).

I’ve been excited about the concept of Soylent since I read about it a few years ago. It’s logical. Food is made up of chemicals. Break it down to its most basic form and tinker with different delivery mechanisms.  The distinction between eating (for survival) and dining (for pleasure) is interesting to me, and the option to treat them separately if desired is freeing.

I ordered a box of 7 packets (one packet pictured above), which each contain 4 servings. Each serving is a 500 calorie meal with essentially all the nutrients an average body needs (obviously each body is very different in needs, so it’s a very rough average).  I know, just like that scene in the Matrix.

My order was $85 and shipped in two days along with a nice container to mix and pour from. It comes to about $3/meal. A good deal when you compare to most lunch options, decent compared to breakfasts.  It’s pretty simple. You just add water and shake. It’s an inoffensive beige color with virtually no smell and very little taste. Creamy and a bit gritty. I kind of like it. 

I plan to eat it for breakfast every day and lunch most days over the next few weeks. When I’m done I’ll post about the experience.

Most commenters on Facebook seemed to overlook the value of the concept when I shared the picture.  “Why would you want to replace delicious food with this slime?” assumes delicious food has no downsides. When I’m working and in the groove eating is a huge pain. I don’t want to have to stop. I don’t want to have to prepare or go to the store or a restaurant. I don’t want to have to pack frozen burritos the night before and wait by the microwave.  The more convenient lunches don’t taste that good anyway. If I’m going to just mindlessly munch a mediocre frozen burrito, trying not to burn my mouth or get grease on my laptop, why not just pour and drink a single glass of Soylent and be done with it?  If I’m not really enjoying the food then I’m not missing out anyway.  This isn’t competing with a juicy burger or steak any more than a new car is competing with walking shoes. They’re different products. I’m not looking to replace the good kind of eating, just the lame kind. 

I love food. I love the experience of dining. But during my most productive hours I’d rather not have to enjoy food until I’m relaxed in the evening. Since my body doesn’t do well without food for ten hour stretches, Soylent offers a potential solution.

Look for a recap in a few weeks.

(And no Sci-Fi fans, it’s not people).