Burnout and Delight

A Reminder to Enjoy Life

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?