I have this strange Stockholm Syndrome relationship with poor sleep.

With a day coming to a close, my circadian rhythm has my sleep time at around 10-11pm, which is pretty early by New York standards.

Despite feeling the heaviness of my eyelids and my body begging to sleep, there’s still an unquenchable lust to stay awake.

I’m not sure where my gallant resistance against my biology comes from.

Maybe it’s the innate desire to experience more life: the realization that staying awake is more exciting than temporarily being a dead body for 8 hours;

Maybe it’s because I was never good at sleeping as a kid, often preferring clandestinely playing video games and reading in bed under the covers.

Maybe it’s because of my productivity-pilled-David-Goggins-who’s-gonna-carry-the-boats-hustle-your-face-off tendencies which perpetually devalues sleep.

After being satisfied with my bold resistance against the inevitable, I eventually saunter to bed, implicitly linking the fullness of life to the quantity of time inflated by late nights doing only God knows what and not to the quality of time actually doing identifiable, memorable, and meaningful things.

When my alarm rings the next morning, all this gusto I had the previous night of being excited about being awake can no longer be found.

Never mind wanting to experience life; I rather roll around in bed, in a dream-like state of semi consciousness where time dilates and my to-do’s cease to exist.

Corralling the courage to escape my bed, I go through my typical morning routine feeling tired and grabbing for a cappuccino. Soon it hits midday and I cling onto a Coke Zero.

Wired with caffeine, I get this strange sense of pride for grinding regardless of the amount of sleep I got the night prior.

Here, my incentives are skewed. In my masochistic stubbornness, there is more glory in making progress while having poor sleep and being tired than there is while being alert and having great sleep.

I subscribe to my own stupid rendition of the “warrior” ethos, as if my sleep deprivation is somehow equivalent to that experienced by Navy Seal recruits during Hell Week.

I gravitate towards being ok with poor sleep, even if it objectively dulls effectiveness, reduces attention span, and negatively impacts mood.

Very quickly, the phrase “I should get more sleep” morphs into “I should drink more caffeine” and muttered affirmations of “I should lock in now.”

Eventually, when night hits, I find myself again driven by the excitement of being awake and repeat the cycle again by pushing my bedtime.

It’s embarrassing how much bad sleep I get given how much content I consume around sleep, biohacking, and life insights.

No amounts of Huberman Lab, Diary of a CEO, and Modern Wisdom podcast episodes on sleep and read-throughs of Matthew Walker’s Why We Sleep can convince my caveman brain to not think “let’s stay up lmao.”

There’s infinitely more discipline required in sleeping at a proper time than there is in working or staying up.

Spring is finally here.

Feeling like winter lasted forever, I forgot what a sunny 20°C feels like in New York. The sun is radiant, the sky is beautifully blue, and the optimism feels endless.

Similarly to the shift towards warmer and sunnier weather, I find myself in a transitionary period.

I just gave my two weeks notice. I’m quitting.

Now, each remaining day of work is a slog.

There are no more carrots to chase after: promotions, resume bullet points and raises are no longer the incentive. There are also no more sticks either—being fired doesn’t do much aside from shallow damages to ego and expediting the leaving process.

The excitement for working on projects has been replaced by excitement for the work day to be over. Now, I look forward to listening to daily news podcasts and eating catered in-offices lunches more than anything else.

A normal person at this time would probably enjoy the time to relax. Maybe meander through hobbies, explore cafes around the city, or laze on the couch with a binge worthy TV series.

Me? I’m a bit lost with what to do with myself these days.

Having so much of my identity and time filled by work, being productive, and improving, I feel it off-putting to not sink an ungodly amount of time into work.

I am no longer in a perpetual state of busyness, but the exact opposite. I am in a perpetual state of doing nothing.

While it’s probably good for the soul to just do nothing after such a long time of work obsession, it frankly feels a bit uncanny.

I’m left to fill up the holes in my self worth that work no longer patches over and find a place where my type-A obsession can fixate on next.

My efforts so far as been plowing time into what was rendered casual hobbies from work: reading, writing, and gymming.

I find myself juggling reading several books at a time, exploring sentence structures when writing in my journal, and breaking down the little deficiencies in my lifting form.

When my mind and muscles inevitably become cooked under the weight of sentences and barbells, I shift to the once forgotten hobbies of my younger self: window shopping sneakers, gaming, and indulging in World Ward 2 stories.

I quickly find myself in deep work looking for good deals on a pair of used Yeezys, watching guides and esports for League, and consuming memoirs and TV shows of the US marines in the Pacific during 1945.

From an external observer, my behavior appears unchanged. Instead of stressing about progress at work, I now stress about the books I’m reading, the articles I’m writing, the weight I’m lifting, and the shoes, the games, and the memoirs I’m consuming.

The context is now trivial but the effort level has not changed. And in a weird way, I feel obligated to dive into these hobbies as seriously as I did work.

I wonder if this is a common affliction for those who are productivity pilled and very type A.

They do what’s natural, which is working hard on something.

And when that something is gone, they need to fill the hole in the fabric of their existence somehow.

They need to feel useful. Like they’re improving. That they are being productive.

So they then drown themselves in whatever interesting thing they can find.

Rest and relaxing does not come in the form of putting less effort, just in the form of different contexts.

The approaches to serious and un-serious pursuits are mirrors of one another.

Everything somehow becomes serious regardless of long term life impact.

I wonder how rested I’ll be after this transitionary period until I dive head first into another meaningful pursuit.

Regardless, I’m going to keep the obsessiveness and plow on with my hobbies.

It’s nice to get to focus on a given goal.

It makes life less noisy. It renders unimportant things trivial. It makes a typical day feel more purposeful, being singularly dedicated towards making a specific type of magic happen. And there’s beauty in that.

While this is all good and dandy, it is easy to overlook the things given up in the name of focus and its second order consequences.

Many things are pretty obvious in that they should be given up: screen usage, drinking frequently, toxic friends, etc.

The most difficult things to give up are the things that provide so much value and happiness in life, but detract from whatever is being focused on.

These could be hobbies, friends, interests—whatever that detracts time and energy from the goal in mind.

Giving up these things is making a bet on yourself—you’re betting that your future life from accomplishing whatever you focus on will be better than the present life you have now.

And even if you win this bet and things turn out the way that you wanted to, there still comes the bill of giving up the things you valued.

I’m experiencing this right now when it comes to the gym.

Since I first started going a decade ago, the gym has morphed into an integral part of my self confidence.

My identity is wrapped in the deterministic outcomes that come with lifting heavy things; it’s the closest thing I found that translates discipline and work directly into results without a component of luck.

Last year, I made a bet on myself, giving up gymming consistently to focus on work.

It worked out in the way I wanted to: I found sprouting confidence in my ability to build things people would give money for.

In trade, I weakened what previously bolstered so much of my identity.

Nothing is more apparent of this tradeoff than when I’m at the gym, squatting with a barbell on my back.

My entire body is weaker.

My knees shake in the hole of my squat. My rear deltoids ache under the barbell’s unforgiving weight. My shoulders struggle with the flexibility to position my arms. My core stifles in the unfamiliarity of breathing and bracing.

What previously was a light warm up is now a top working set.

The barbell does not care about my new engineering skills; it just cares about being lifted.

Even though I’m cognizant of the tradeoff I made, I still feel tinges of sadness when confronted by the deteriorated skill I previously was so effective in.

I wish it were as simple and emotionless as saying, "It was a tradeoff I made to focus on work,” whenever someone asks why I can’t squat what I used to.

It’s never easy giving up cherished things for the sake of focus.

And it never should be.

It is precisely that difficulty that gives the pursuit its value—and makes the focus worthwhile in the first place.

Only after the initial euphoria of accomplishment subsides do I finally return to the long-ignored pieces of what I once held so dear.

I pick them up again and slowly begin to aspire to who I was in those forgotten corners of my life.

With the proliferation of LLMs, the largest unlock for me has undisputedly been the ability to move fast.

Previously, moving fast seemed to be a moat, only achievable by people with some level of deep knowledge and skill in a particular area. The excuse “I have no context” was completely valid.

Now, seemingly anyone can move fast.

Just the other week I vibe coded payment features at xAI in Rust, a programming language I have no knowledge in and is notoriously complicated.

What would’ve taken a month to learn a new language, get context, and test took just a couple days.

While this is very empowering as an individual, I noticed the ability to move fast exposed weaknesses in the teams I work with.

Here are some of those observations on moving fast.

Sense of Urgency

While AI has provided the ability for people to move fast, it has not provided with the feeling they must move fast.

When given leeway, I noticed people will still dilly-dally and take their sweet time with things, even if they don’t need to.

Just because a person can move fast does not mean they will actually move fast.

I believe this is the difference of having an innate sense of urgency.

Personally, I have this vague sense of falling behind, which manifests as an obligation to be aggressively productive. Moments of doing nothing feels uncanny even if i truly need it. As such, I will happily move faster given the opportunity to do so.

Now, it’s totally fine for people not to have this feeling of what Oliver Burkeman coins as “Productivity Debt.” And it’s probably healthier to not be ruled by a productivity tyrant anyhow.

Regardless, having expectations that people will move fast because they can is not realistic. Not everyone wants to.

Agency

A big part of moving fast relies on agency - the less reliance on other people the better.

In a similar line to urgency, just because people have a tool to get high agency does not mean they actually will have higher agency.

Even though the barriers of high agency are lower than ever before, people with low agency will still shift the responsibility of their progress onto other people.

Recently, my team recently welcomed a new joiner and paired me to work on a new project with him.

What ensued was firestorm of slack questions from him for context that 1) I don’t have (because I am new with the project space) and 2) is easily searchable. And when I didn’t answer, he just sat there did nothing.

As someone who values moving fast, nothing sucks more than to be bogged down by actually stupid questions from someone who can answer them himself with a simple LLM chat.

The foolishness of having misplaced low agency is more exaggerated than ever before.

Blockers

There will always be blockers, in which progression solely relies on someone else.

For individuals in the age of AI who already have high urgency and agency, blockers become more apparent and frustrating. Accumulating increasingly large opportunity cost, blockers need to be removed immediately to maintain morale and momentum.

A reoccurring example I experience is getting code approvals.

In order to merge code and release it to production, I typically need someone to review my code and approve that it’s ok.

Now that I move at a higher velocity, code approvals become more frequently the main bottleneck.

If I don’t get approvals, I get stuck and can’t make anymore progress, becoming increasingly frustrated as I remind people on Slack to review my code every hour.

Just because a manager says “we move fast” does not mean the team actually moves fast. Actions mean more than words.

To me, being slow to unblock blockers eats away at a team’s legitimacy and claims of moving fast.

Incentives

Now that moving fast is easier, the need to align incentives become even more apparent.

Incentives are everything. If you want people to move fast, the best way is to figure out an incentive structure that rewards them when they do so.

In the example I gave previously on code reviews, the reason why it’s difficult for me to get code reviews is because of the incentives of others.

Given that there’s more pressure to move fast in one’s given project with AI, people are more focused on their own code instead of giving someone else code reviews.

There’s a flex for all the project someone’s built, not in how many they’ve reviewed.

As a result, my project gets frequent blockers and moves slower.

If this is multiplied across an org, it’s quickly apparent that overall progress begins to be hampered by conflicting incentives.

Aligned incentives are even more important now when people are moving fast and the costs of not doing are ever the more apparent.

One of the most important currencies is morale.

Morale is what keeps the energy going while working obsessively towards a goal.

While it may not make the pursuit objectively any easier - difficult pursuits will always be difficult - high morale will certainly make pursuits subjectively easier to commit to.

Speaking from experience, I am infinitely more willing to invest my finite life towards seeing the success of the project with high morale vs middling morale. It also lessens the pain that comes with long hours and deteriorating lifestyles.

Tim Cook has a quote on passion, though it applies equally well to high morale:

You will work hard, but you won't mind doing so. You will work harder than you ever thought possible, but the tools will feel light in your hands

Similar to health, morale is one of those things you take for granted. You never really think about it until you don’t have it.

When low morale comes, I struggle to not only execute at a high level, but to execute at all.

Operationally, this bleeds into my day to day.

Already being what normal people would characterize as a workaholic (I literally write about work as a hobby lol), I find it increasingly difficult to grip onto discipline under low morale. There is this “grinding teeth” experience required to hit the minimal requirement of internal permissible productivity—I actively need to convince myself that working is worthwhile.

Burnout and feeling desolate come naturally. Optimism becomes scarce.

Now, most people don’t need a persistent high morale to work effectively (myself included).

While some amount of morale determined by vibes is usually sufficient, I don’t think it’s enough to produce repetitive “holy shit” achievements across a prolonged period of time. A normal morale certainly won’t help when circumstances are dire and timelines are short.

For high performers, morale is especially important, since it is additionally needed to stave off other attractive opportunities.

While I can’t say if I’m a high performer - I believe results are the arbiter of performance, not personal opinion - I can definitively say I get regularly bombarded with attractive opportunities.

My email inbox always has new outreach from hedge funds advertising $1M+ TCs, recruiters from premier AI companies, and founders looking for founding engineers.

For any team, you must persistently give high performers enticing reasons not to leave for other opportunities, especially the opportunities that look more promising than what you’re offering.

High morale plays a large part in this.

Ben Shapiro is famous for the line “Facts don’t care about your feelings.” The inverse certainly holds as well. Feelings don’t care about your facts.

What largely stops me from pursuing other opportunities is vibes. While I can spreadsheet out my net worth, plan out lifestyle changes, and draw a decision matrix, I can’t easily forecast optimism or joy in working on something.

The current morale offered must feel higher than what can be imagined elsewhere.

Current certain vibes must be better than any imagined vibes I get elsewhere.

Once morale drops, it’s difficult to restore. And it’s also difficult to monitor morale dropping in the first place.

Bad morale is similar to what I read marriages that end in divorce to be like. They both slowly decline until they fail all at once.

The accumulation of small missteps from management grows into failed morale.

Some examples I have experienced are hurried timelines that have no apparent reason and being blamed for someone else’s errors I had no control over.

When inflicted with bad morale, I find it harder to believe in the central purpose of the goal and its importance. Pessimism, skepticism, and cynicism become natural. Trust that management is competent is lost.

Also, outside opportunities become infinitely more exciting.

One of the most admired business leaders of the late 1900s was Katharine Graham, who led the Washington Post as President and later CEO from 1963 to 1991.

As the first female Fortune 500 CEO, Graham yielded an astronomical annual return of 22.3% to shareholders, compared to the annual 7.4% of the S&P 500 and the annual 12.4% of industry peers.

This means $1 invested in the Post became $89 by the time she stepped down. Meanwhile, $1 invested in the S&P 500 became $5. $1 invested in industry peers became $13.

Her influence was not just experienced by shareholders either.

During her reign, she would publish the Pentagon Papers, which exposed the decades of US government lies regarding the Vietnam War, and the Watergate story, which forced the resignation of 37th US President Richard Nixon.

While her resume is already impressive as it stands, the most remarkable part of her story is her experience before taking over the Washington Post.

Prior to stepping in as president of the Post after her husband’s death, she was, as she described herself, a “doormat wife” with absolutely no business experience and only brief entry level journalism stints.

This exact contrast is what amazes me about Graham - how can someone with no experience become one of the most influential and effective business leaders in history?

It seems very counter intuitive.

Led by an urge to grow resumes, promotions, and LinkedIn experiences, I find it easy to forget about stepwise increases - sudden vertical shifts in life trajectory that betray the idea of a line steadily increasing to the top right side of a graph over time.

This all begins with just the right opportunity.

Ask yourself this: who is the best singer, artist, actor, athlete, or business mind in the world right now?

While there are many successful people to point at, I wager it’s someone no one knows or will ever know.

In a world of billions of people, there can be millions with the right alignment of genetics, upbringing, and skill who just don’t have the opportunity to show it yet.

And when I grow introspective, I often wonder: what are my unique dispositions (if any) and what will my opportunities be (if they ever arrive)?

Though I may never become an executive much less one as legendary as Graham, these questions nevertheless press me to be proactive and bold.

Since opportunities lie in luck, there’s a constant internal pressure to carpe diem - to proactively apply pressure and to increase the surface area of my luck, even if I don’t know what I’m doing.

And when do opportunities arrive, from the realization that there may not be another one, there’s an attitude to bet that the accumulation of untested traits will somehow prevail.

After alI, it only requires one right opportunity for life to entirely change - for all past failures and middling mediocrities to be revered as a grand journey for success.

It’s May 1946 in Japan.

A year after World War 2 ended in September 1945, Japan’s economy was non-existent.

Cities were razed in wartime firebombings.

Famine was imminent, fueled by a combination of historically low industrial production and agricultural output.

People scavenged, queued for meager rations, and resorted to a black market in an environment of mass unemployment and hyper-inflation.

Japan was in ruins.

Yet, this was the exact circumstances in which Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita founded Sony.

Now, Sony is worth $143B USD.

How does that ever make sense?

Yeah… it doesn’t make sense.

Working out of a bombed out department store, Ibuka and Morita had no evidence of any future, yet chose to build something anyways.

The combination of optimism and agency is among the most important traits someone can have.

And optimism and agency will never be easy - pessimism is evolutionarily natural and not trying requires no effort.

It’s easy to just say and believe that everything is going to shit. There is an endless torrent of social, political, and economic evidence justifying this.

It’s easy to just settle with the idea that the world is the way it is and that your place in the world will not change no matter how hard you try.

It’s easy to doom scroll TikTok, Instagram, Reddit, or whatever other mind numbing social media, outsourcing rationality to strangers and pointing to echo chambers as consensus of everything being hopeless.

It’s easy to be a pessimist and to not try. And it seems almost cool to be one.

So… what do you get out this?

Does wallowing and being outraged at things that you cannot control ever actually improve the thing you cannot control?

Does the feeling of hopelessness ever drive agency and a proactive entrepreneurial spirit to make your life better?

Does complaining with people on the internet and in real life ever actually improve the actual underlying circumstances that causes complaining in the first place?

There is no utility in being pessimistic and not trying.

And sure, pessimists may actually be right 99% of the time. The grievances they point to usually are pretty legitimate.

But, being right, in this case, does not result in more outcomes; it’s very much the contrary.

All the outcomes are bestowed upon the optimists who are right 1% of the time but look like idiots before then.

This ranges across life from pursuing start ups to dating. Only one right business idea is needed to be rich. Only one right partner is needed for a successful marriage. It doesn’t matter how many failed ideas or bad break-ups there were before.

Over a long enough time horizon, optimists who keep trying are eventually rewarded.

And even if it is somehow known beforehand that the reward will never come, why not try?

What else is there to lose if everything is hopeless and the world is going to shit?

There’s a common pattern I’ve observed in type A people.

It starts with noticing some deficiency in self. The most common one for me is “I’m not being productive.”

This identified deficiency comes in tension against internal high expectations—“I should be productive.”

Then, self flagellation of not living up to personal standards grow and tap into underlying suspicions of insufficiency. Questions of “Why am I not productive?” morph into “Why am I not enough?”

Obviously, ruminating almost never resolves the issue, instead leading to more deficiency—stressing on not being productive is not productive.

The self perpetual machine now begins when the new additional deficiency is inevitably noticed.

This infinite regress productivity spiral seems to perfectly plague insecure overachievers, who usually are highly introspective, have high personal expectations, and deeply fear insufficiency,

The high introspection does not allow graceful ignorance. Deficiencies will always be noticed.

The high personal expectations starkly contrast against present deficiencies. Stress and self-enforced pressure to strive for impossible to reach expectations build.

The deep fears of insufficiency add fuel to the flame. Differences between reality and expectations readily serve as evidence of insufficiency and confirm pre-existing fears, thereby increasing stress and pressure.

This spiral extends beyond traditional realms of productivity, ironically popping up in type B settings.

In the past, I treated sleep—which is supposed to be for relaxing—as another productivity tool (better sleep = better work later). I reframed it into a dopaminergic pursuit that could be optimized and agonized over, much like work itself.

Fueled by wearables, I chased sleep PRs. Any downward blip became evidence that I was under-optimized and below my full potential.

Obviously, my sleep became terrible. Turns out, stressing about sleep does not help sleep, particularly when I’m trying to sleep.

So what’s the solution here?

While I haven’t found a singular silver bullet that works for me (I can’t simply “let it go,” nor do I have 129038120938 hours of meditation to become fully ascended), I’ve found that a combination of kindness and continual progress helps.

The first is taking the inverse of the Golden Rule: treat myself how I treat others.

If I extend grace, understanding, and patience to others in their struggles, why should I be an unrelenting tyrant toward myself?

It’s ok—not ideal, but ok—to move slower than what my inner drill sergeant demands. I am not and will never be perfect.

It’s also ok to beat myself up. I shouldn’t be beating myself up over beating myself up. And if I do, that’s ok too.

Furthermore, it’s ok to feel bad for not reaching my expectations. It’s only natural given the high expectations.

In the midst of this kindness, there is profound solace in knowing that the tried and tested way out is to continuously make progress, falling back on whatever systems available.

No matter how small, these defiant pieces of progress serve as evidence, going against the grain of insufficiency and contributing more toward morale than even large leaps gained during optimistic times.

They feed into the realization that internal thoughts and external actions are independent.

Despite feeling terrible, I can still perform enough that an external observer will never know my internal strife.

And if I somehow still find myself spiraling in the face of kindness and effort, I can always fall back on several nights of good sleep.

(as long as I’m not trying to set sleep PRs)

In the rumors of an upcoming IPO with potential to be the largest in history, I oscillate between fear and greed.

Should I sell? Should I hold? Should I buy?

These emotions rattle against one another overwriting any spreadsheet analysis or rational thought.

In the end, this decision will not be based on maximizing for returns, but what Morgan Housel writes “maximizing for how well I sleep at night.”

Regardless, I can’t help to ask the second-order question: What is the point of me making money?

This isn’t some nihilistic question—a view that I’m going to die and the whole world is going to burn so everything will be pointless—but a utilitarian one. Money certainly has utility.

Let’s say the stock goes ballistic.

Cool.

Then what?

If not already, I will buy a house.

Beyond that, what else is there?

Short of what billionaire Sam Zell calls “private jet money”, there are few materialistic things that can drastically improve my life.

Furthermore, if having money’s main purpose is no longer needing to obtain it, the endless pit I can spend money on is savings.

“The trick is viewing every bit of savings as having actively purchased something, even if it doesn’t come with a receipt: You have purchased the ability to do what you want, when you want, with whom you want, for as long as you want. And it is priceless.”

Morgan Housel

The most luxurious thing I can do for myself is to minimize lifestyle inflation and to accumulate the financial security and peace of mind which enables my risk averse self to act on that freedom.

I lengthen my life equivalent of a startup runway.

If I distill that idea into the present, why must I wait for a financial windfall to leverage this freedom, given my current savings and minimal lifestyle costs?

Bill Perkins outlines this idea called Consumption Smoothing in Die with Zero:

Our incomes might vary… but that doesn’t mean our spending should reflect those variations—we would be better off if we evened out those variations… we need to basically transfer money from years of abundance into the leaner years. That’s one use of savings accounts.

In my case, using my savings account is not the act of buying things nor going on lavish vacations, but actually being ok with it not accumulating, which goes against my risk-adverse nature.

Currently in my prime, free from illness, responsibility, and cynicism, I have great utility of using my money now.

Just like how others in their 20s can use their money and youth to go out, travel, and let their lifestyles inflate (nothing wrong with that! Enjoy it!), I can make risky bets with infinite long-term upside, absolutely work my face off with little distractions, and gather the stories that drive future wisdom and personal memory dividends.

By reframing my present savings as a cushion to act and de-weighting the need to make so much money now, I take steps towards authenticity, conviction, and agency—the very characteristics I’m optimizing for in my 20s.

I also get to loosen the golden handcuffs a bit more.

So here I am, back at square one, still stewing in fear and greed.

Have I made any progress towards a decision?

Not really.

But I have made progress on identifying what truly matters now.

If you’re thinking about breaking golden handcuffs:

If you’re also grappling with the desire for money

If you’re curious on what I’m optimizing for in my 20s:

A year and a half ago, I worked at a trading firm and was surrounded by conversations about TC (total compensation) and rumors on what the next bonus looked like.

Despite having minimal lifestyle inflation from university when I had no income, I found myself grappling with greed and desire for more money while feeling trapped in Golden Handcuffs.

You can find my deliberations at the time here: Golden Handcuffs (sorry for the big wall of text!).

In the current landscape of rising AI valuations and prevailing news in tech, I find myself in a similar situation as before.

Except this time, it’s much more pronounced.

In the past, I lamented about being held in golden handcuffs.

Knowing that I wanted to pursue something else while being heavily rewarded in what did not interest me felt like a luxurious prison.

Even though I held the keys for my escape, I hemmed and hawed about opening my own cell, tortured by the weight of losing what gave me so much comfort: a healthy work environment, status in an exclusive industry, and guaranteed net worth accumulation and liquid cashflow.

Now, I see golden handcuffs as a test rather than a prison.

I am a strong believer that one cannot call oneself authentic and courageous without being tested otherwise.

The decisions surrounding golden handcuffs serve as evidence for authenticity and courage due to their nature of having very rewarding and tangible opportunity costs in selecting for what is authentic and courageous.

There are 2 paths when I project my possible lives based on any given decision revolving around golden handcuffs.

One path is of certain gold. My net worth reliably increases over early adulthood to compound significantly later in life. Buying property becomes more of a question on “when” versus “if”. Rich experiences from travel and time spent with friends will be plenty.

The other path is of an authentic yet uncertain future. I cannot come close to accurately predicting how much money I’ll have, what home I’ll afford (if any), and what experiences I’ll accumulate.

If I am to believe myself as an authentic person, I will have to provide evidence of it by choosing the path that leads to a more authentic life, regardless of its downsides and the opportunity costs of other more rewarding paths.

In fact, the more attractive the alternatives are, the stronger the temptation to divert from my true path- and thus the greater evidence that I am indeed authentic.

The shininess of alternatives also gives weight as evidence of courage as well.

Best defined by Jocko Willink, courage is not acting while being fearless, but quite the contrary.

It’s acting while being fearful.

In the context of golden handcuffs, the fear of losing certainty and the other attractive possible opportunities makes the decision of breaking out of them as evidence towards courage.

The greater the fear, the greater the evidence towards courage.

Making a decision to break Golden Handcuffs, becomes less so about pain avoidance, but now reframed as pain acceptance and tolerance.

It’s another piece of evidence of I am who I believe I am.

Congratulations!

You’ve started!

Now, you’re a beginner, hiking the initial slopes of the exponential-growth mountain.

There is nothing hiding the reality of the situation: you have no hiking gear, you can’t see the paths to take, and you have no promise of ever succeeding.

This is the beginning of exponential growth where the difficulty stems from little observable progress over an indefinite period of time.

For me, this bubbles up the fear of wasting my precious mid 20s prime in vain working towards something that may never come true.

Undoubtedly, the most important behavior to embody at this stage is having unshakable faith and being endlessly enthusiastic despite having, at best, no evidence— or usually evidence to the contrary.

I continuously need to convince myself to keep going.

Here are the mental models and the actions I find most helpful so far.

Reframing Disappointment

Honestly, I’m terrified of disappointment, having selected pretty conservative opportunities throughout university.

To be more risk seeking, I am reframing occurrences of disappointment as tests of personality.

Because being disappointed sucks, by picking up the pieces and trying again, I see myself passing a test and gathering another piece of evidence that I’m resilient.

It’s like building a personal Lindy Effect- the longer I keep going now gives me more evidence that I can keep going in the future.

It’s also like a passive commitment to Rejection Therapy, in which increased exposure to disappointment results in a decrease in its perceived negative impact.

Patterns of Starting New Things

The same experiences reoccur across new pursuits.

My present experiences of feeling like an idiot, not knowing what I’m doing, and being uncertain of the future have all been experienced previously.

I remember when I first went to the gym at 14.

I felt like an idiot in the presence of buff dudes in tank tops. I didn’t know what the hell barbells were. I didn’t know if or how I was going to get stronger.

In the face of all this, I’ve now hit PRs I never could have previously imagined.

Not only are these all pieces of evidence that I can accomplish despite starting as a novice, they also serve as reminders that the feelings I’m experiencing now are not new.

I’ve experienced the pains of starting out and I’ve gone on to achieve goals.

Why would this time be any different?

“Networking”

Networking gets a bad rap for being transactional, associated with finessing referrals and whatever else is spouted on LinkedIn.

But, I’ve found its biggest benefit is far more profound: undeniable external proof that my pursuit is actually achievable.

While reading biographies of the super accomplished can be inspiring, meeting a real person who is a little bit further along is much more relatable.

And while the specific steps taken by others may not be applicable, their stories illustrate that there isn’t some voodoo magic involved — only the long series of small actions in the face of uncertainty.

There are plenty of real life examples to draw inspiration to keep going.

Is starting something new difficult?

Yes.

Should it not be difficult?

No.

If it isn’t difficult, everyone would do it, which, in turn, makes it less impressive to do so in the first place.

Just keep going and trust the wonders of compounding.

This isn’t some feel good “look how great I am”, but an actual weakness when it comes to personal development.

Since I find blind belief in myself difficult, I rarely have a base of confidence to work from when pursuing new goals. Being unable to identify strengths means not having evidence of present ability.

Currently, I am in a pre-founder phase where I know I want to be a founder, but I don’t know what I’m doing.

Naturally, talking to established founders is a good way to get context.

However, whenever I reach out or speak to established founders and ask about their experiences, I feel like a fraud.

What gives me the audacity to believe I (normal-ol’ me!) can do something remotely close to what they’re doing right now? It feels like I have no strengths that would help me bridge this gap.

One reason it’s so hard for me to identify my strengths is the instinctive comparison I make with others.

Being upwards aiming, I only really compare myself to people who exemplify in the qualities I lack and aspire to have. My weaknesses are pulled into sharp contrast.

The flip side is that I never benchmark myself to some model of the “normal” person, fearing these comparisons as a source of arrogance, excess pride, and comfort.

And even if these fears are overblown, why should I ever care how these people live if their actions and perspectives have no influence to how I experience my own life?

So, as I go about my typical day, only my weaknesses linger in the back of my mind— everything else about my life is completely “normal.”

Like a fish unable to see water nor realize it’s unique ability to breathe underwater, I am blind towards my life circumstances and the strengths present in the habits and behaviors I naturally do.

Only recently did I internalize my strengths of not needing variety in meals; I still enjoy the same salted chicken breast, boiled frozen veggie, and white rice dish whenever I cook for myself.

As such, hitting daily protein targets and eating clean is natural for me, whereas the vast majority who desire variety, more ingredients, and rich flavors struggle much more.

Admitting weaknesses certainly demands honesty and vulnerability. When starting something new—where self-doubt and insecurity are abundant—these same qualities are just as essential for identifying strengths.

But identifying them is only half the battle.

Courage is needed to accept that the strengths are genuinely real and discipline is needed to avoid overexaggerating their impact.

Firstly, I can indefinitely live in a perfect imaginary world and avoid facing present circumstance.

Why put in the time working towards something that may not ever materialize when I can sit within the comforts of my cozy room and fantasize about a life to be lived?

There is a sweet little hit of dopamine without actually completing any work.

If I want an additional hit of dopamine with only minimal effort, I can “prepare” to start, which means doing all the “necessary” research to get going.

Instead of venturing to meet new people (one of my goals this year), I can forever read books about how to get to know a person and search through EventBrite, looking through all the events I can register for.

Never needing to feel uncomfortable when confronting my weaknesses, I can indefinitely procrastinate while feeling awfully productive as I cast myself in my own Rocky montage without making any progress.

Another thing I can avoid by never starting is the disappointment whenever reality does not align with expectations.

The most common association with this is failure. And rightly so, failure sucks.

to me, disappointment is the scariest when real success is reached, but is underwhelming compared with the imaginary success had when starting out.

In this case, the downstream effects of obtaining success are not actualized: a lack of self worth is not fixed, insecurities are not repaired, loneliness is not eliminated but exacerbated.

All the problems that are thought to be solved with success are actually not solved.

This hollows out the upwards aiming hope that makes life feel optimistic.

A quote by Will Smith summarizes this feeling best:

“When I was poor and depressed, I could tell myself more money would fix everything. When I became rich and still depressed, that hope vanished.”

To deepen the despair, when empathy and guidance is sought, the common reaction is judgement and scorn: “how ungrateful are you to achieve all the things I’ve wanted, yet wallow in sadness about your ‘problems’ that have not been fixed.”

Perhaps, the greatest benefit I find of never starting is avoiding what Chris Williamson coins as “the Lonely Chapter.”

This is a period of isolation during self-development marked by outgrowing current friends due to higher aspirations, while desired new friends remain out of reach due to a lack of success that has not been obtained yet.

Unfortunately, this chapter expands into multiple eras if continual goals are set and accomplished.

The benefits of never starting truly are wonderful.

I can keep getting hits of dopamine by exerting minimal effort, not have to grapple with any semblance of disappointment, while continuously feeling stimulated with the company I presently have?

No wonder why so many never start.

Upon entering a subway cart, standing in line, or simply not doing anything, we immediately pull out our phones and start scrolling.

And for what?

While I’m not sure what others do to numb their boredom, I confess I am intimately familiar with my boredom cures — the digital equivalent of a booty-call roster: text messages, emails, Instagram, and Reddit, in that order. If I still find myself bored, I maniacally refresh the Wall Street Journal, secretly hoping for some world event to occur in the past millisecond and captivate my attention.

My phone attachment extends to any mildly monotonous activity; everyday duties like brushing teeth, washing dishes, folding laundry, and taking showers are all accompanied with Youtube videos of God knows what.

An observing alien from another planet would likely observe me as a productive, knowledge hungry human, seeking the universe’s deepest truths based on the urgency in replying emails and the amount of time rummaging through the world’s information.

Unfortunately, it cannot be more mistaken.

Instead, I am simply another phone addict allergic to boredom. My productivity-dopamine-seeking mind labels all downtime, like waiting and doing chores, as wasteful. Why only do one task when I can also reply to messages, learn more, and stay informed?

This would be an admirable upward aiming mindset if not for 99% of all messages being non-urgent and nearly all consumed information being useless or forgotten.

Most of the time, when I scroll on my phone, I don’t even know what I’m looking for, which is most hilariously captured when I instinctively open my phone while waiting inside an elevator that has no signal.

I am not the first one to raise the absurdity of phone usage nor am I an expert about the damages it may cause. There are mountains of books, research papers, and podcast episodes all professing the harm phones cause towards mental health, anxiety, attention spans, and loneliness.

Knowing that the statistics are not positive (courtesy of my endless scrolling), I set out in 2026 to not instinctually pick up my phone and to have a willingness to be uncomfortably bored.

Operationally, that translates into detaching phone usage from as many activities as possible. Chores will be done phone-less, subway rides will be accompanied with a reliable Kindle, and gym sessions will have social media apps blocked from usage. (Unfortunately, my flights will not be raw-dogged).

And so, for my first action: buying the new iPhone.

This is a reminder at the beginning of the year when few reminders are needed in the face of temporary high motivations.

When embarking on new goals, I tend to overlook the smallness of my efforts, instead focussing on the grandness of achievement. In an aspirational tilt, my pursuit becomes a mythical story of dungeons and dragons- some epic in which I am like Odysseus and crusade past cyclops, sirens, and hydras to finally reach previously unattainable and unspeakable glory.

This is undoubtedly ego embellishing how wonderful the process and the achievement of my resolutions and any goals thereafter.

While this is helpful to give the initial spark for action, it tends to fade once the novelty of pursuit disappears.

In reality, starting new things begin with small, seemingly non-consequential actions.

The initial steps for my resolution to regularly write does not immediately involve publishing some book that will go on the New York Times best sellers list. Instead, it simply consists of sitting down in a quiet space, opening my laptop, navigating to a text editor, and typing away on a keyboard for a couple hours every week.

There is no “glory” in any of these actions. In fact, when I read them out loud, the actions are laughably small- so small that they do not seem worthwhile to pursue in the first place.

The little actions only pale in comparison when I think of my role models and consume podcasts, biographies, and, the worst offender of all, social media, which consist of highlights and certainty brought by hindsight.

How shameful is it to feel proud that I sat down, typed on my laptop, and published a little essay this week while there’s people out there writing critically acclaimed books, building generational companies, and reaching feats unimaginable to the uninitiated?

When I think about admirable figures like Jeff Bezos, I immediately picture success, influence, and a history of successful company and product building. Without deliberate re-wiring, I never see them in their 20s, having either just started their careers or first companies, and wrapped in the uncertainty of “am I doing this right?” and the self doubt of whether it will succeed or blow up in their face within the next couple years.

The starting diminutive actions are vastly understated and inherently unsexy. Regardless, they must be committed to for an extended period of time for any worthwhile exponential results and life quality improvement to appear.

To begin 2026, let’s not overlook the actions to begin whatever the resolution is, for it is the enduring and accumulating flame that eventually razes through the entire forest.

On my third night in Vienna, I stood on the terrance of the Albertina, one of the large contemporary art museums in the inner city. My visible breath disappearing into the freezing air and tourists waltzing in search of the best photo, I fixed my eyes on the illuminated crevices on the multi hundred year old Renaissance walls of the State Opera House.

I thought at this moment: “I can’t believe I’m in fucking Vienna. I love my life.”

It’s been a while since I last felt delight. It’s the warm fuzzy feeling in your soul that makes your life feel full, that you can’t help but smile at, and that inspires you to feel grateful for the experiences the world has to offer. It’s a reminder of how enjoyable life is.

* * * 

It was only a couple weeks ago since I was shuttling back and forth from NYC and Palo Alto, putting the finishing touches on the X Handle Marketplace (handles.x.com) and launching it into the wild.

Leading engineering, I spent my waking hours obsessing over this project. Upon waking, I typed away at code. When my eyes inevitably started hurting, I switched to my notebook and planned database structures. As exhaustion set in, I found myself in the gym shooting slack messages on operation procedures, only capping off the day in bed mulling over difficult design decisions to execute upon in the next day.

As deadlines loomed closer, I increasingly retreated into a self-imposed monk mode, in which life’s enjoyment was forsaken for productivity and progress. All hobbies were axed. No more writing, reading, powerlifting, nor outings. I were to be perpetually busy until my obsessions came to fruition.

And fruition it came. Handles.x.com was released in mid October and went semi-viral on X. Several news outlets wrote articles as well. Encouraging results followed the positive public sentiment with traffic and handle transactions.

Yet for some reason, I felt despondent. As I saw the positive signals roll in, I thought: “I traded everything away… for this?”

* * *

On the surface, the hobbies I traded are pretty trivial. I can read anytime I want and my writing doesn’t bring in any income nor have a large audience. Powerlifting is just lifting heavy objects and I’m not competing anyways. Seeing and making friends can always be procrastinated, especially in New York where everyone is close by. From a productivity-hustle-culture-make-a-dent-in-the-universe lens, these are not only no-brainers to sacrifice, but probably even encouraged to be given up.

What I had not appreciated was foregoing these activities meant giving up reliable feelings of delight throughout my day. For better or worse, the X Handle Marketplace was to be one of the sole suppliers of delight. Life was to be more full, smile-inducing, and enjoyable from the productivity towards the project’s goal.

Though there is nothing wrong with this thinking- you can live life however you please- there is nothing to hedge against recessions in sentiment towards work. If I ever lost delight by work’s crooks and crannies, life itself will devolve into a slog devoid of the intrinsic joys and the sparks of curiosity that inspire optimism; there remains scarce sources that can supplement delight. Naturally, cynicism emerges as a default.

Sure enough, delight became elusive and I found it increasingly hard to find joy. Ironically (and not surprisingly), my productivity- the singular thing being optimized for- suffered as a consequence.

* * *

There is a quote that I tend to parrot as advice to close friends whenever the conversation of work rate comes up:

In the short term, your success depends on your intensity.
In the long term, your success depends on your consistency.
Do not sacrifice the latter for the former.

Tim Ferris

In a Soloman Paradox irony, this is the exact advice I should be enacting upon.

Even though the project offered plenty delight early on, I must be weary seeking all my delight from one main source. In my finance-pilled brain, I can frame my life being a hedge fund with me being its manager, my time being capital, and my sources of delight being assets. To reliably make delightful returns over a long period of time, I should diversify and hedge my bets; even if parts of my life crash- I get injured, sick, fired, isolated, or dejected, like in this case- I can still enjoy my overall life and maintain optimism.

And if I ever want to dangle a carrot to keep my productivity-obsessed self convinced, I can reframe seeking delight itself being mightily productive and conducive for long term success.

Delight is not to be sacrificed but sought after to keep life enjoyable.

After all, what’s the point in life if it’s not enjoyable?

Imagine you’re catching up with a friend over brunch. You were recently fired and are now chatting over crunchy hash browns, slightly too greasy sausages, and coffee with sugar (because who doesn’t like to be caffeinated?).

When it’s your turn to talk about life updates, you spill your angst across the table as your friend nods along and offers the usual but very invited condolences.

After all the usual things are said, your friend follows up: “why don’t you see it like this…”

Your friend just gave you advice to reframe. Now what?

What Exactly is Reframing?

You most definetely have reframed things before, whether you identified it or not.

Regardless, what exactly is reframing?

A quick Google search defines reframing as “changing the way you think about and experience a situation, event, or idea, often to view it in a more positive or constructive light.”

I like to make an analogy from an example by Daniel Kahneman when describing “reference-dependence”.

Given the two inner grey squares in the figure below, which one looks lighter?

It’s the left one right?

Wrong.

The two inner squares are actually the same shade. The brightness of the surrounding framing squares makes the inner squares appear lighter or darker.

To complete the analogy, the inner square is the external circumstance- an unfortunate event- to be reframed. The outer square is our own reframing built around the external circumstance to change how it is perceived.

We have the agency to set the brightness of the frame and change how we perceive the set of available facts. Though the facts may be objectively grim, it is the subjective interpretation of the facts that impact well being.

What is the Purpose of Reframing?

Given a set of negative circumstances, I am a very strong believer of agency to influence long term outcomes.

You may have just gotten fired, dumped, or injured. That sucks and we can’t go back in time to prevent that from happening.

You deserve sympathy and that cannot be said more.

But at the end of the day, what are you going to do about it?

Beginning to enact a change from present reality is already pretty difficult: there is an activation energy required for initial action. This is even more difficult when there is tragedy involved as well- it’s much easier to give into victimhood and immediately give up when things aren’t going your way.

There’s two ways to reach this activation energy threshold. You could decrease the activation energy required to make the initial commitment easy or you could drastically increase energy to surpass the threshold.

Reframing helps with both.

Here’s an example.

A year ago, I worked at a trading firm. Despite the culture, team, and my project all being great and significant, I was just not interested in the work I was doing. With big bonuses in the horizon and being in a position to lead a sub-team in a year or two’s time, I was effectively in Golden Handcuffs.

To decrease activation energy, I reframed monetary compensation from being an absolute number to being relative to my lifestyle.

While I had a great income, my lifestyle still mirrored mine from university. I ate the same rice / chicken breast / frozen veggie meal for most dinners, studied, read, and hung out in my downtime, and did one big vacation each year.

My income did not change my lifestyle and I was pretty happy. If my income were to increase, my lifestyle and happiness would likely not change. Thus, the benefits of staying in the Golden Handcuffs were not as enticing anymore.

To compound this, I reframed Golden Handcuffs in a longer time horizon and pictured myself in a knife fight with regret. Instead of letting regret stab me in the future as I look into the past and I wish I did what I loved, I chose to stab myself and twist the knife to embrace the pain, pushing myself to pursue change.

Under these two reframes, I surpassed the activation energy to start recruiting, which landed me in New York pursuing more interesting pastures.

Why It’s Brushed Off So Much

Reframing suffers from the common tropes of advice being easier said than done. “Break up with him,” “Quit your job” and “Think about it this way” take no effort to say, but all the effort to do.

Unlike the former two pieces of advice, the process of reframing is not obvious. To break up with someone, you set up a time to talk. To quit, you send a resignation email to HR. What does reframing actually look like?

While things like therapy and journaling may generally be helpful, I don’t believe there is a prescription that works for everyone. Only by stumbling in the dark can the best personalized method be found.

This ambiguity is enhanced by contrasting private processes and public outcomes.

You probably know someone who has successfully reframed a horrific event, but you’re unsure about how they actually did it. You just see that final reframe.

With additional charged emotions clouding judgment, reframing comes off as some voodoo magic only mastered by ascended zen monks who meditate for 25 hours a day.

It seems unattainable for mere mortals.

What Reframing Actually Looks Like

While I’m not sure how others reframe, I know very well how I do so.

Let’s revisit the grey squares again.

To get the color of the outside square to my reframe, I paint layers over the initial color established by pessimism and fear. One layer of paint is represented by one iteration of thinking through a reframe, which is the logical thought thread for why my reframe is correct and the reasoning for how to arrive at such conclusion.

At the beginning, the paint job looks quite discouraging. Despite all the inner dialogue put into the initial layers of paint, the color underneath still shows and the inner square looks dark. I am still not fully convinced about my own reframe and the sadness from pessimistic outlooks feels very visceral.

However, no matter my emotions, the only way to fully block out the color underneath is more layers of paint.

So, I paint.

Over hundreds of layers (I tend to be stubborn), the negative frame becomes hidden, completely covered by the reframe layers I painstakingly applied.

If you were to catch me after this is done, the conversation would be very straightforward. All the pain and iterative thoughts have been abstracted away into a single matter of fact “I see the situation in this way now.” There would be no tears and little worry- all those pessimistic emotions have been reduced.

This may take a long time depending what the situation is. And time itself eases a lot of pain. To quicken the pace of reframing, I find obsessively iterating through the reframe works tremendously.

This means I commit to reframing when I’m doing the dishes, walking to the subway, folding the laundry- my brain consciously works to put the reframed view into my subconscious in the least amount of days possible. I may temporarily lose live-in-the-moment mindfulness, but I reach an optimistic state to enact action much faster.

Reframing as a Tool

In the same vein of being potent for optimistic viewpoints and positive action, reframing can also be used in a pessimistic manner. Reframing is merely a tool. A hammer can be used to put nails into wood while building a house; it can also be used to bash someone’s head in.

In my opinion, reframing is most dangerous when you use it to validate learned helplessness: this is just how the world works and nothing can be done to change that. You then begin to convince yourself that you actually are satisfied with the current situation all along.

Let’s take the example I gave earlier.

Given my Golden Handcuff job, I could have reframed the good pay and lack of interest as validation that I was never meant to do something I loved. Since so many people work for a paycheck, why should I look for anything different?

Furthermore, having a good manager, team, and project are many steps above “just working for a paycheck.” This is much better than what many others have. Why should I not just settle and let this be my life?

Instead of aggressively recruiting, I could have just convinced myself to not do anything different and just stick in it for the long term (which in itself is an active decision being made and action pursued).

This is an easy hole to fall into.

Since real change involves uncomfortable internal dialogue, there is a high activation energy to begin anything. It is much easier to do nothing and convince yourself that you are ok with that (or you are actually making progress and "figuring it out”).

You could give a pretty convincing argument too- you won’t sound insane if you shared the reframing end result “I am so happy with life” and all its associated justifications over brunch.

Using Reframing as a Skill

Since reframing is a personalized tool, I see the ability to reframe as a skill that can be improved as it is applied more frequently.

Reframing isn’t complex. It’s just difficult, especially with emotions and allure to give into what’s comfortable.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to get better at it though.

Getting better at reframing could be like using thicker paint- less layers are required.

The pace of applying each layer can also quicken- the amount of days between the situation occurring and responding action is reduced.

Furthermore, the initial outer frame color may not be as horrendous when beginning to paint- a instinctual tendency towards positive viewpoints.

Funnily enough, I start reframing bad situations by casting it as an opportunity to practice reframing. The worse the situation is, the better: I get to paint over a more ugly color and pursue action, which gives me the confidence to force my will in the future.

Ok. Now What?

Now you have some context on reframing, what are you going to say when your friend asks you if you thought about it in a certain way?

Don’t worry- you’re getting plenty of sympathy and going to get more of it from the many other friends you can grab brunch with.

The question is: what are you going to do?

How are you going to wield the tool of reframing?

Are you going to nail your house together or will you use it to bash your own head in?

What is learning?

Often misunderstood, learning is not just knowledge acquisition. It is also the change in behavior.

What does this mean?

Emphasis should be placed on implementation and not on overall information consumption.

It doesn’t matter how many self help books were read, the life experiences that were lived through, or the impactful interviews that were watched if behavior has not changed. Sure, there are a lot of cool nuggets of information there, but if nothing was acted upon, life is still materially the same.

What’s the point of reading, reflecting, or listening if no change comes of them?

Something more sinister also occurs with over consumption of knowledge.

The feeling that learning is being done and progress is being made even if life is still the same.

Look at all the books I’ve read! Look at all the podcasts I’ve listened to! Look at all the cool people, companies, conceptions, mental models I know!

It’s this sort of mental masturbation that feels good but doesn’t really do anything. It’s easier to believe progress is being made than actually making progress.

Oh. It’s addictive as well.

Another way I like to think about learning is inverting it.

Who are the type of people who do not learn?

Dummies do not learn (or idiots if I’m feeling mean).

What are the actions that dummies do?

It’s the common adage of “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

They would repeatedly bang their heads against the wall and wonder why their head hurt. And while they may reflect on what is happening, they don’t change their course of action and reliably bang their heads against the wall again and again.

So how do I learn?

I have a belief that there is an under emphasis of consuming the same thing over and over again: reading the same books, listening to the same podcasts, and reflecting on the same life experiences.

While I’m not sure if there is some science backed study or anything, I find repetition over long periods of time eventually leads to action.

Through repetition, the knowledge I’ve acquired is not thrown into the cobweb corner of my brain. It’s actively being obsessed upon at seemingly all parts of the day.

When an opportunity comes for me to test what I’ve acquired, it’s quite difficult not to act in accordance with what I’ve been obsessively repeating for the past couple of months.

I also have a hunch that out of the many things that can be learned, only a few things really matter. Everything else is just noise and should be ignored.

There are countless examples of widely successful people who identified a handful of important concepts and maniacally chased after them.

Jeff Bezos focused on customer experience with Amazon. Sam Walton focused on cheap prices with Walmart. Todd Graves focused on quality of chicken fingers with Raising Cane’s.

And while these are business people, there is a common thread of focus that can be applied to life.

If I can identify and learn the few things that’s really important and ignore everything else, I bet I can find a lot of meaning in life, with a reward of high life satisfaction when I’m older.

Part of figuring out what’s important comes with age. It’s no mistake that biographies are usually written by and about older people. The compounding of wisdom needs a lot of time to do its magic.

Another part is based on content- books, podcasts, life experiences, long conversations with friends- being consumed. While I just wrote about how revisiting concepts is undervalued, I do not believe I should be actively restricting the amount of things I am consuming.

There should still be a sense of serendipity and “chasing butterflies”- aimlessly following curiosity and whatever is exceedingly interesting for extended moments.

By simply engaging with what I’m interested in, I automatically commit to repetition and offer myself the opportunity to identify patterns across many contexts.

And sometimes it’s the interesting things that become what should be focused on in the long haul.

All in a bid to not be a dummy.

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The goal would be straightforward and achievable with a clear plan. Uncertainty would be minimal, and progress would be easy to measure. There would be no significant obstacles, and only a few hours would be required. Success would always feel within reach.

Internally, there would be no stress.

None.

No oscillating between states of sleep and wakefulness when tossing and turning in bed. No feelings of imposter syndrome or the creeping suspicion of life being a farce. No fears of consequence, uncertainty, nor judgement.

Progress would come quickly - no need to be a tangled ball of stress harnessed for productivity.

In a blink of the eye, all the required work would be done.

Sounds great doesn’t it?

But that’s not entirely realistic...

Or is it?

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While we may never force reality to bend towards simplicity, we can make a deliberate push to prevent things from being harder than they should be.

How hard is it to run a marathon? At least as hard as the physical training and the act of running a marathon.

How hard is it to build a mobile app? At least as hard as the system design, coding, and debugging required to do so.

How hard is it to learn a new language? At least as hard as it is to pronounce all the foreign syllables, string sentences together, and have conversations.

It is without a doubt that the fundamental mechanics of these things are difficult. Consistent effort over long periods of time is required to make progress.

But what makes these things harder than this baseline?

Our internal states.

It’s the mental anguish that comes when lacing the shoelaces to go on a 5 mile zone 2 run in the early morning before work.

It’s the overwhelming doubt that the app will be of any use and excessively planning in response.

It’s the fear of looking like an obtuse idiot when ordering food in that new language.

Our inner voices make these things we want to accomplish harder than they should be. We plant monsters under our own beds and subconsciously increase the difficulty of getting out of bed to do anything in the first place. Then, when we finally start to do anything, we over perceive how much pain there is involved to get anything done.

And for what?

Why do we do this to ourselves over and over again?

For me, there appears to be two components to this equation.

The first part is fear - the common ones that everyone else probably experiences. Nothing is new here.

The second part is the extreme expectations to perform up to my own standards.

Majority, if not all my stress, emanates from this singular source of fear that I am not living up to the potential I think I have in me intertwined with the creeping suspicion that I am a loser.

While I don’t worry too much about social castigation or the consequences of failing some exam or getting fired, I prioritize the internal contract of consistency I have with myself - that I am who I believe I am.

I am the judge, jury, and executioner of my self esteem. My efforts and results are the lawyers who duke it out in the courts; the freedom from external judgement is traded for a persistent inner tyrant.

I find myself tightly gripping at all times. My knuckles are tight, my jaw is clenched, and my mind is racing. I’m scared to let go, fearing that if I take a step back, the accumulated decade-long effort will be for naught. My ship would crash under the weight of regret that seeps through the cracks in my loosening hold.

The quiet late nights spent working spiral into gladiator battles. The fear of not making progress grow synonymous with the fear of being slit with a dagger and left to drown in the sand.

Why does it have to be like this?

I’ve done this all my life leading up to this point. And though I may not always win big in the way I’ve predicted, I’ve definitely achieved more than I ever thought possible when I was younger (which was not much).

Positive reinforcement is one hell of a teacher.

But does it really have to be like this?

The beautiful thing about work is that it doesn’t care.

The marathon doesn’t care how much we agonize while staring at our shoes.

The app doesn’t care how much we worry and plan.

The language doesn’t care how stupid we feel inside.

The work just cares about progress and completion.

Thus, is this self-inflicted suffering necessary?

No.

If that’s the case, why not loosen the grip? Why not smile a bit more? Why not have a bit more fun?

Certainly, we can make just as much progress without all our excessive self induced stress. We just need to put in the hours and put in the work. There’s nothing else to it.

The 10th late night in a row where we’ve spent secluded and typing away at the computer does not have to be painful. It just becomes painful because we make it out to be.

In the future, the present time — no matter how tough it feels — will be a time to reminisce about. It will be a time when joints don’t tire, when energy flows endlessly in a reservoir undimmed by sun, rain, or sleet, when youthful curiosity runs amok, chasing butterflies and anything intriguing, and when nothing is possessed but a boundless ambition for more.

The difficulties of the present, with its late nights, early mornings, and busy weekends, will be seen as chapters in the story of a journey toward the future.

Don’t overcomplicate this. Given a long enough time horizon, our future selves will see it in a positive light.

And when we look to the future to boldly conquer the next audacious goals, we know that we have overcome the current difficulties.

The present will just be another notch of evidence that we are who we say we are.

On news of tariffs, the S&P 500 dropped 4.8% on April 2 and 6% on April 3- the worst two day decline since June 2020. $6.6 trillion in market cap was wiped out. Then, amidst chaotic headlines, the index popped 9.52% on April 9, the largest single day gain since the 2008 financial crisis. As I write this, the financial markets are engulfed under the uncertainty of a flock of black swans.

In spite of this, I am perpetually enamored by the market.

My love for the market stems from my fundamental belief that there are few, if any, more pure representations of bestowed trust and belief than the exchange of money.

Money, though as superficial as it is, is a rough proxy of time. Through work, time, a sacred finite resource, is irrecoverably exchanged for money. An hour spent working is another hour spent not at leisure. This is opportunity cost. I lose the opportunity to play in more frivolous hobbies, banter with friends, or sit under the summer NYC sun and watch runners stream by.

In this logic, investing is no longer just a conduit for money, but for time and all the additional lost benefits as well. By committing to clicking a button on an online brokerage, I commit my trust and tie my life boat with the prospects of several other boats, manned by public companies, industries, and governments.

Their prosperities lead to my rise. Their reckonings lead to my fall.

Built atop trust is also my opinion that financial markets offer an infinitely complex, ever-changing, and addictive mathematical and psychological question to answer: how to generate the most amount of returns for a set of quantitative skills and emotional stability?

Despite any sort of proclamations from micro niche influencers, there is no one singular right answer to make outsized returns. From 1949, Benjamin Graham popularized value investing with the classic book The Intelligent Investor and partners Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger carried the torch to build Berkshire Hathaway, compounding at 19.9%, almost double of the S&P’s 10.4%. As part of the quant wave in the 1980s, Jim Simons pioneered investing solely based on mathematical models with Renaissance Technologies, achieving industry leading 66% average annual returns before management fees. Outside the conscious of non financial professionals, private markets roared in the likes of Stephen Schwarzman and private equity, and Don Valentine and venture capital, popularizing other ways to make money.

What started as simple instruments for financing morphed into an intricate invisible network of assets shot around the world, not dissimilar to the electromagnetic fields radiating through space. Only instead of two oscillating electric and magnetic forces moving at the speed of light, an unruly number of asset classes and derivatives all push and pull over the true unknown value of companies, governments, and individuals on the order of machine executions and the shouting of brokers on cell phones.

Simply put, the financial markets offer an opportunity to convert deep research and chutzpah into cold hard cash. Stories of conquest are now in the realm of finance and business instead of bloody war.

The beauty of the market is not only available for active participants but for active observers as well. In the history of humanity, I wager there is no better window into greed, envy, and the ensuing irrationality of human behavior than the financial markets.

One of the most interesting trends has been the boom in meme coins, which exhibit no intrinsic value. Yet, in the perfect firestorm of spiking internet usage and stimulus checks in the backdrop of COVID, meme coins were pumped to the moon. At one point, Dogecoin had a market cap of $88 billion, exceeding that of Fedex. Nothing else could explain such valuation other than the intoxication induced by the cocktail spiked with greed, herd behavior, FOMO, and whatever other ingredient found in the fridge of human behavior.

Interestingly enough, this meme coin frenzy is not completely unique. As Mark Twain says

History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.

Back when the concept of computers exceeded even the figment of imagination, the tulip bubble of 1634 saw the price for a single tulip exceed $1 million in today’s money.

$1 million!

It’s obvious to point out that no one was actually willing to buy a tulip for $1 million, but were nonetheless drive to do so under the perceived promise that someone else was willing to buy it for more.

Even the most rational individuals were caught in the frenzies of the financial markets. In the South Sea Company bubble of 1721, Isaac Newton had this gem to say upon losing most of wealth buying into and selling out of the stock:

I can calculate the motions of the heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.

And while it's funny to recant all the antics of investors in times of chaos in hindsight, it cannot be overstated how consequential these investments decisions are in the lives of everyday people. Just like how massive profits can be reaped through a no context blind yolo trade, financial ruin can happen just as fast.

Leveraging up in the markets without expertise is like playing Russian Roulette. There’s an asymmetry of gain and loss. Pulling the trigger on an empty chamber doesn’t really have much upside. There’s a dopamine hit and overall quality in life may improve if the profits are actually big enough. But, for whatever reason, winners often keep playing. And hitting a loaded chamber leads to death. Financial ruin is much harder to recover from now that compounding is no longer a friend.

Bystanders are also not fully safe either.

Under the pressures of falling stock prices, the failures to secure financing due to rising rates, and the consequences from faulty bets, companies push cost cutting, countries shift economic policies, and organizations slow growth. The downstream consequences can be the everyday person being laid off, seeing their retirement funds blown up, or bearing the loads higher costs of living. Monetary set backs may lead to further issues- divorces, homelessness, suicides… the paths of consequences are impossible to truly enumerate and measure.

Alas, stakes are the highest in the financial markets.

And so, I will continue to look towards this trust based, infinitely complex and consequential window of human emotions in wonder for what else will spiral out into the tapestry of capitalism.