Anticipation is (Mostly) Everything
Free dopamine while staying consistent
2026 summer been a whirlwind.
It started with me spam listening to Don Toliver before going to his concert in MSG.
Then, I spent nights spreadsheeting out finances prior to the SpaceX IPO.
After that, I caught up with the NBA before going to a bar (something I almost never do now) and watching the Knicks actually win the championship.
I followed up by going to a live recording of the Roommates podcast with Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart.
Most recently, I travelled to Korea.
I’m so full with life right now, despite the amount of my waking hours and mind space spent towards work remaining unchanged.
It’s important to perpetually have things to look forward to.
It makes the monotonous consistency under uncertainty needed for long term success bearable.
Continuously scheduling things in advance taps into innate psychology. Anticipation acts as free dopamine with the only overhead being planning. Often, the excitement and the pleasure leading up to a thing rivals that of actually experiencing the thing.
Tim Ferris leverages this wiring by booking trips as far out as possible, reaping the rewards that comes with an extended period of anticipation.
I also unknowingly leveraged this psychology during senior year in university.
Every Tuesday, like clockwork, my friend would message me to start plotting our Friday night plans. Even though the nights themselves were hit or miss and the hangovers the next day were brutal, the anticipation was everything.
The slow build up of knowing Friday was coming, the shared ritual of getting ready, and the hedonic electricity at the pre-game made the nights worth it. We gorged on this anticipation week after week for an entire semester.
Operationally, the things to look forwards towards do not have to be grand things—just things that are exciting.
In between my highlights were many little things that excited me: a morning date to a bakery, a catchup with a friend, a fiction book read before bed.
On top of all the effort already dedicated to work, the effort to continually fill my calendar with things to look forward to has paid dividends this summer and I bet it’ll keep me longer on the course of consistency and longer term success.
Psst… here what I’m consuming this week: