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Managing the complexity INSANITY of life
1. The reality of our world
We are aimlessly driving through the vast emptiness of space on a small rock called planet Earth.
Anything can happen at any time, without prior warning, and without our explicit consent.
At any one point in time, a sizable asteroid can pay us a visit and hit the reset button to level the playing field (again). This civilization-ending ability is not reserved only for asteroids. There are many other celestial objects and radiations that can fry us alive before we can even figure out what is going on.
The earth itself doesn't fare very well either - danger lurks from within at every corner. Mother Earth has an entire arsenal of natural disasters ready to be unleashed whenever she pleases. The consequences can range from entire cities being wiped out, to civilization-ending scenarios in the case of supervolcanos - the Earth's ticking time bombs.
And, finally, the cherry on top is humanity itself.
You would think that given our fragile circumstances predicated by our natural environment, we would have become wise and thoughtful towards each other. We would have already established world peace and we would have used all of our resources and intellectual prowess to cure, prevent, solve, and mitigate the dangers presented by our environment - cancer, aging, death, infectious diseases, etc.
Sadly - we didn't.
Driven by our primitive brains and prehistoric tribal instincts, our history is characterized by unspeakable violence and insanity. The world has become progressively more peaceful over the last 70 years - not because of our wisdom - but because we now have new toys: weapons of mass destruction that are too dangerous to be used. So we learned to negotiate better instead of declaring war (again).
2. Your personal life
But let's zoom in a little bit.
All these world-ending scenarios are considered very low-probability events. Not only that - but we as individuals are completely powerless in trying to prevent any of them.
So we are going to do what everybody else is doing: completely ignore the reality of our fragile existence and sweep everything that we've just discussed under the rug.
We will believe and live by the delusional hypothesis that our environment is mostly safe and predictable. The world has always been like this and it will never change.
And now with all that academic discussion out of the picture, we can finally focus on our small little world. Our own life.
- We live for about 80 years.
- We want to be financially successful.
- We want to be healthy.
- We want to grow and nurture our relationships.
- We want to live a meaningful life.
- We want to leave a legacy behind us - have a meaningful impact on the world and leave this world a better place.
At first glance, all these things seem very simple and quite achievable!
Maybe we can't change the world, but we CAN and SHOULD change ourselves. We have been given the freedom to create our own destinies.
.......................
But as you start working on these things, as you lay the groundwork for your business, as you start taking care of your health, as you start making progress in life...
You are suddenly struck by a gut-wrenching feeling of anxiety and terror.
The terrible dragon of chaos that is woven into the fabric of reality is very much alive in your own little life:
- Your time here is finite, and the clock is ticking.
- Succeeding in any endeavor requires many years of hard work and focus.
- Success is not guaranteed.
- You only have 24 hours in a day.
- You are full of snakes: fear, doubt, prejudice, cognitive biases, trauma, etc.
- Everything that you're not actively attending to slowly decays over time.
- Saying YES to an opportunity means saying NO to 10 others.
As a general rule, everything decays and gets worse over time. Your health, your relationships, and your business require constant maintenance and improvement if you intend on keeping them.
The ship is sinking, and you have to bail out the water faster and faster as the cracks widen.
3. What is the winning strategy?
I hate the word "balance", and I believe that "work-life balance" is the battle cry of the mediocre. The lazy, entitled, undisciplined armies of social media scrollers that want something for nothing.
But still, my question remains:
How - in the F*cking hell - do you manage to take care of all facets of your life and excel at everything that is meaningful to you?
This is an honest and open question.
I haven't yet found the answer.
I do, however, have a vague idea of what might be the optimal solution to this problem:
A cause-and-effect integrated system in which one good thing leads to another good thing.
The deterministic "map of victory"
The so-called "areas of life":
- health
- wealth
- relationships
- etc.
Are no longer distinct elements that require mutually exclusive attention and split focus. They are now integrated gears that work synergistically within the rest of the system.
For example:
Better sleep → Better health → Better business choices → Better money → Better sleep
Everything goes full circle and every positive action that you perform within the system improves its overall performance.
Now, instead of having to juggle 10 different balls and striving for "work-life balance", we now have a perfectly harmonious work-life synergy.
What is crucially important about this system are the "entry" and "exit" points.
In my view, health and mental health in particular are the very foundation of the system. If this collapses - which is not uncommon - everything else, including business, will crumble like a house of cards.
The exit point is represented by money - the final outcome of this system. Money NEEDS to be leveraged and reinvested back into the other gears of the system: get a better house, buy better food, get a better health protocol, etc. This way, on the next iteration of the cycle, the money will get even bigger.
OPEN DEBATE
I'm not making this thread because I feel like I have all the answers.Unfortunately, I feel quite the contrary.
The model that I've described here is what I believe to be a viable solution to managing the enormous complexity of our lives.
My goal is to improve my perspective and refine my flawed thinking. I know that there is something that I'm still not aware of. Fastlane legends - I am calling upon your wisdom.
I desperately want to enter the Fastlane at high velocity.
And I truly believe that how we view ourselves and the world is the entry point on this highway.
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