There Are No Solutions... Only Tradeoffs (Extended Distillation)

My dad used to work hard all week, hop in the car after work on Friday and drive 3 hours to the cottage. When he got there he’d give mom a kiss, eat dinner and then go sit by the bonfire.

Saturday and Sunday were a little bit of work around the cottage followed by an afternoon of beers and reading a Clive Cussler novel in the sun. And, another bonfire. Sprinkle in some laughs with friends and family plus a healthy dose of chasing his two boys around the beach.

Simple life, for the most part.

But, I’m starting to realize he had it figured out.

What are you optimizing for?

There farther I get into this whole game of life thing, the more I’m realizing the answer to what I’m optimizing for is lack of stress.

Now, everyone has their own answer to what they’re optimizing for and I can’t make that decision for you. What follows here is a window into my life, how I’m my own worst enemy and the steps I’m taking to fix it.

I hope that will trigger some thoughts in you as to how to do the same.

Now…

My biggest problem is I like too many things.

Playing with my kid, going for morning walks with my family, board games, disc golf, videos of people building shelters in the woods, cooking new recipes, rock climbing, watching sports, writing newsletters, podcasting, video games, photography, guitar, marketing, worldbuilding, reading (much to my own surprise). That’s probably not even a quarter of it.

This works well when I can transfer skills across domains. But, not so well when I'm trying to figure out how to allocate my time.

As a result I tend to spend a little bit of time doing a lot of different things.

The problem with that is the only surefire way I know of to succeed or master anything is to spend a lot of time focused on exactly one thing. We’re talking years or decades.

The final problem layer comes when I put expectations on myself to achieve certain things in any of these domains. This is the problem layer that adds all the stress.

I’m really starting to think my grade 3 teacher messed up my little 8 year old brain chemistry more than I realized when she put all my friends in the gifted program without me.

Don’t get me wrong, striving towards things is good. And, a little bit of stress to that end is actually a good thing. Think of it like a small amount of tax you need to pay for success.

I’ve just stacked up enough of these, hoped for successes, that I’m paying more tax than I want to. So I’m making some changes to pay a few less taxes. Mentally. If you’re the CRA reading this newsletter I’m a good little boy and pay all of my other taxes on time every year!

Firstly, one of those changes starts with all of you!

I think for the first time, just after the 3 year anniversary of DSTLLD a few weeks back, I’m going to pull back from a weekly publishing schedule.

I love having the creative outlet to write. I think the 3 years of weekly writing was important to form a habit. But, now it’s become an arbitrary cadence that’s stopping me from producing work that I am sufficiently proud of.

In a world where we already have infinite content to consume — and that AI is going to make worse by allowing people to puke out additional low quality content — you have to be damn sure what you’re creating is worth consuming.

To me, lately, some of my work hasn’t hit that threshold.

Without directly plagiarizing Tim Urban, instead of new posts every Monday, you’ll now see posts every sometimes.

This lowers my mental taxes and allows me to publish on a schedule of inspiration, not obligation.

Naval’s podcast with Chris Williamson several month’s back really drove this point home for me. He talked about how inspiration is perishable and you need to act on it. One of the ways he operationalizes this is a second takeaway from that podcast — which is something else I aspire to optimize for — Naval doesn’t have a calendar. He does and works on what he wants, when he wants.

I sadly don’t have that luxury at this point but removing the obligation of weekly posting does allow me to be more free flowing with my inspiration and ideas.

Lucky for you guys, I never have a shortage of ideas floating around in my head.

Secondly, the podcast.

1. It’s coming out of hiatus after 14 months this week for an episode with Dr. Stefani Ruper.

2. I’m only going to talk to people I want to talk to. No more hunting for middling guests or accepting someone I otherwise wouldn’t for a weekly schedule. More obligation removal.

That’s pretty much it on the podcast front. I love generating inspiration from the conversations I have with people. I just want those conversations to happen with A+ people, not B+ people. That makes things better for you in the long run anyways.

Thirdly, simplify my scope.

Dad lived a simple life. But based on the hundreds of people who showed up for his funeral, it was a good life.

Hold up, maybe that’s what we’re optimizing for? How many people would want to show up to your funeral. That’s probably a different topic for a different day.

As everyone does, I have the desire to make more money. But to what end?

We’d go on a couple more vacations a year, maybe live in a slightly nicer house, do some home renovations, buy higher quality home goods, invest more in our health, outsource some chores or think less about the daily $2-6 pint of raspberries that the kid goes through.

But 95% of my day-to-day life wouldn’t change.

I’d still go for a walk every morning with my coffee.

I’d still work from my home office.

I’d still smile way too big when our little guy learns something new.

I’d still play Dungeons & Dragons with my friends on Thursdays.

I’d still go out for date night.

I’d still watch the game from bed most nights as my wife goes to sleep and read a little to wind down.

So, simplify the scope. Stop aiming all my hobbies and free time at someday making more money or “making it.”

Just enjoy the novelty of my diverse interests. I’ve written before about how identity diversification is a hedge against unhappiness. It follows the adage, “don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” Collect your happiness from multiple sources to avoid running out when one thing isn’t going well.

Fourth, keep reminding myself that the tradeoffs aren’t worth it.

I like to browse homes on Realtor.ca that are $20,000,000+ as entertainment sometimes. Or watch YouTube videos of chalets in Park City, Utah for $100M. I saw a $35M house in Oakville the other day with an infinity pool, tennis court and movie theatre right on the shore of Lake Ontario.

“How cool would it be to live in that house.”

I have to remind myself the catch is you wouldn’t live in that house. You might occasionally sleep in that house.

To afford a $35M home you’re working 80 hours a week, never seeing your family, commuting to Toronto daily and flying around the world to broker business with international clients.

I’d never make that trade. So why fantasize about it?

This ties into hidden vs observable metrics too. I would argue that the overwhelming majority of people who could afford that house would never have the internal or mental temperament to enjoy it.

The lives of most people you aspire to be are unenviable if you were to see behind the curtain.

Fifth, keep doing the most important thing.

My wife said something unknowingly profound late last year when she saw my sticky note that said “you are working on the most important thing”.

She asked if I was feeling unproductive while parenting and that the sticky note was to remind myself that I’m working on the most important thing which is being a dad. That was definitely not the intention of the sticky note but it was a really good observation that I hadn’t thought about.

Being a dad really is the most important thing.

Everything else I’m doing is to make that better.

So how do I find the right solution, or tradeoff, for me? Understanding that I’m optimizing for low stress.

If I was to look at the 5 channels I presented to you the answer is subtraction. So many times in life we try to fix our problems through addition. Most times when we add something to our lives, even if it solves the initial problem adds additional stress tax that I talked about earlier. Just one more thing to manage.

In an age of more, more, more, I think the answer has to involve less. To use Greg McKeown’s Essentialism: Less, but better.

Strip down.

Simplify.

You’re not gonna have the billion dollar business or perfectly curated Instagram feed in this stripped down life. But, I think that’s a tradeoff you should happily be willing to make.

Words I Wish I Wrote

Links & Learnings

• How to judge someone’s taste.

• Watching my 1 year old and thinking about the idea of him sitting still in a Kindergarten classroom.

• What if we shut down social media for a day?

Psst… DSTLLD has a podcast now, too. I know — like the world needs another podcast, right? But here’s the thing: if you can tolerate my written rambles, you’ll probably find my in-person yammering… well, moderately tolerable. It’s basically me and a guest chatting about the same offbeat stuff you read here, except now you get to hear me stumble over big words in real time. I’m not saying it’s the greatest thing in the universe (trust me, I’ve listened to it), but if you like DSTLLD, there’s a good chance you won’t hate it. Win-win! Subscribe or follow on your favourite podcast platform:

• Youtube

• Spotify

• Apple

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PHOTW: Every day or even every week can’t be a good one. Sometimes living to fight another day is important.