On Action
Musings in the first step towards Ambition
Having replied to Ambition last week, I’m starting to shake off the rust this week. Entering a new powerlifting training cycle which starts with brutal volume at a heavier baseline weight, I am once again walking into the face of pain, voluntarily exerting my body with the only reward being that immediate post training happiness and the lingering multi day soreness. My recent physical exertion runs parallel to ones in other avenues; my capacity to do hard work, which has been so depleted for these past two years, is starting to revitalize once again. No longer is there a fear from grinding, but a hunger to grind. And while I know this is only the first step in a never ending marathon of pursuit of personal greatness and satisfaction, I feel I am trending into the right direction.
While this has been a positive development, I am faced with the reality of adulthood: its undefined nature. Having frequently touched upon this previously, I’ll keep it simple. The challenge I face now is not working hard; with adequate time, sacrifice, and routine working hard can be accomplished. The challenge is working hard on the right thing. Especially as someone who is still searching for passion in an idealistic profession that will cease to become work due to natural interest, I have trouble determining the direction of my next pursuit. I cannot lean on a curriculum defined by superiors nor mimic the hundreds and thousands of peers who have walked in my exact path. I, along with any other young adult, possess a set of unique characteristics molded by a sequence of unique experiences and interactions, which point my compass of interest in unique directions. It is my utmost responsibility to find what that direction is.
Last year, I was really aware of this shift- the uncertainty of adulthood is something that I thought extensively and rambled frequently about. But in the midst of contemplating how to tackle this uncertainty and figure out my passions, I never really extensively pursued anything. I stayed stagnant theorizing about the optimal path of hobbies and interests to pursue, which may grow to become “side hustles” and eventually main occupations. That was all I really did- I thought and thought and thought. Of course, I supplemented that with non fiction and self help books, but no actionable outcome was carried out.
The insignificant value of all this can easily be measured by asking one simple question: have I determined my passion any better now after all that thought versus before?
No.
Consequently, I need more proactivity in exploration; putting action over thought is an utmost priority this year. To clear my mind, here are several thoughts I am thinking about as I start trying more stuff:
Optimization vs Maximization
Despite having the same goal of increasing the total of some utility metric, in many contexts, optimization is valued significantly more than maximization. I remember when I was recruiting for management consulting, there was a saying: if the goal is to boil a cup of water, it is better to scoop up a cup of water and heat that up over heating the entire ocean. This is seen beyond management consulting as well: in our day to day, we want to optimize our time, biology, technology, etc.
But how does the idea of optimization vs maximization apply when it comes to passion? Should I be optimizing for passion? Or should I be maximizing for passion? In this regard, I think of optimizing for passion as spending time to diligently scrape and consider the optimal path forward- to find passion in the fewest attempts of novel activities as possible. In contrast, I think of maximization for passion as simply attempting anything that is simply delightful- in the sense to “maximize” my paths to exploring passion. Last year, my approach to finding passion has definitely been in the vein of optimization: to have the first thing I try achieve superior passion and to build some striving business from this ultimate discovery. Seeing how that led to nothing being pursued (since I found nothing to be perfectly “optimal”), I am hoping to pair action with maximization: to try different things that are delightful for maximizing the exploration for passion.
Death
It is without a doubt that I think about death much more than the common person. Almost as a daily ritual, I feel the very real fear of perishing with regret and internal disappointment in my own pursuits and accomplishments. Yet, I would still often act as if life is infinite and allow lesser fears inspire unproductive action: the fear of failure or being bad overrides the actions of trying new things and the fear of social anxiety overrides interactions with new people and experiences. Viewing fear in vacuum, this is simply illogical behaviour: everything seems to pale in the face of the greatest fear in death. All other fears rest on temporary states- setback and embarrassment- but death is permanent. In this frame, it does not make sense to not pursue anything due to these lesser fears. Fear of death should be a main driver in my action moving forward.
The fear of death also serves as a prerequisite of a decision making framework that I am increasingly thinking more now: regret minimization. Often cited by Jeff Bezos as the single decision point which drove him to pursue the uncertain Amazon idea and not the stable and highly lucrative executive position at DE Shaw, regret minimization is centred around minimizing future regret incurred as a consequence of present day actions. In this framework, it makes complete sense to pursue the life to minimize future regret, as future regret eventually becomes present day regret, which is most sinister upon suddenly reaching the deathbed. In the permanence of death, regret cannot be correct nor can it be replayed. It can only be felt and suffered with. The pressure of future regret is simply another reason to maximize experience and life at any given moment of time- some personal defined balance of hedonic pleasure and significant sacrifice for meaning.
Being Bad
Although I already touched upon this previously, this is something I want to ingrain into my mind explicitly. It is a fact that when I first start something, I will be bad. That is expected. Beginners, by definition, are beginning something with no prior experience and are supposed to have no expectations. As such, why is it that I have mighty expectations for myself before even starting as a beginner? An example from last year was poker: before reading any opening hand strategies and probability charts, I already envisioned myself being a winning player. While it seemed I had some ultimate vision established to push for, I was now no longer letting myself to be bad, to fail, and to learn- after all, a winning player does not fail over the long term right?
There is also the uncomfort of failure implicitly involved here. Things are easy to pursue when winning is all that is occurring. No hard painful lessons need to be drawn. On the other hand, things are very difficult when losing is all that is occurring. Painful lessons are prevalent and frequent and corresponding reevaluations and adjustments must constantly be made. But it is this very iterative model of improvement during failure which accumulates the blocks for success. Cliché as it is, failure is indeed the stepping stone for success. Moving forward, I must allow myself to be bad at new things and not set expectations reserved for experts who have proved themselves in a given fields over years and decades.
Hopefully these 3 random points have inspired some internal consideration and framing in actions for you as it did for me.~