What to optimize for in life

I spend a great deal of time thinking about what to optimize for in my life. Probably because I have too much free time. Anyways...

It's always the same story: I get a burst of grandiose motivation after watching some YC video and get pulled towards seeing productivity, growth, and output as the ultimate pursuits in my career.

Soon thereafter comes the same thought each time:

"Let's say I make it big. Then what would I do with all that money?"

Because at the end of the day it all comes down to, well, how you spend each individual day. Working endlessly just for the sake of making it big suddenly doesn't sound as appealing anymore. The end goal is the freedom that money gives, right?

Then comes a day, like today, that is completely free from obligations. These are the days I struggle the most with. You'd think with all the ideas and projects I have in mind, that I would have no problem filling my day with activities.

But here I am — after spending the last hours mindlessly scrolling feeds. Having accomplished nothing of significance.

"Ok, I have freedom. Maybe too much freedom. Perhaps I need a bigger mission, something to keep me occupied. Maybe I should start a more complex bigger business after all?"

Like the predictable motion of a pendulum, I'm back to where I first started. Instead of taking action, I freeze. What should I be optimizing for? I find myself in this situation a lot. Struggling to decide my mission or direction, even though I have dozens of ideas I could pursue.

Today being a day without any obligations, I just sat and reflected on this for a while. And I might have found an answer:

For some reason, my brain thinks that decisions I make are more permanent than they actually are. That once I decide what to work on, that's that. There's no going back. But that's not how life works at all.

It's pretty rare that a decision we make is completely irreversible — that we cannot alter our path once we've made a choice.

In reality, we go back and forth on different paths all the time. Sometimes, we completely change directions and start over.

I mean, just 3 years ago I had no idea I would be running a design agency. I thought I was on a path to go to film school, become a director of photography and make movies. There are probably hundreds of examples like this — where we think we will end up in one place, and it turns out we very completely wrong.

A small encounter, a thought, an idea that completely changes our trajectory. And with it, our hopes, goals, and dreams. That's what happened to me. I met my agency co-founder at my climbing gym. At the time, I had no idea we would be running a business together 2 years later.

What I realized is that life looks more like a series of seasons or chapters. With each season, our circumstances change: our desires, goals, and ambitions.

The important thing is to ask ourselves matters to us right now in the current chapter of life. Our answer might change depending on what chapter we're in, and that's ok.

Going back to the question of what to optimize for in life, I understood that there is no final answer. It's all relative to what season we are in life.

Just because I decide to work endlessly for a while and try the founder lifestyle doesn't mean I commit to it for the rest of my life. Just because I decide to leave everything behind and travel doesn't mean that's what I need to do forever.

Sure, balance is always good. But it's okay to commit to one thing for a while, and then change our minds when that is no longer interesting to us. We can optimize our lives for growth and productivity during one chapter, and then pursue freedom to just relax and explore stuff in a later chapter.

What season in life are you in, and what are you optimizing for right now?