The Messy Middle

I’ve been feeling a lot of existential angst over the past few weeks. Did I make the right calls? Am I on the right path? What’s even the point of all this?

These questions, while scary, are natural. If you have it all figured out (upward career trajectory, family, health, finances or whatever else you’re optimising for), you’ll probably just be postponing these questions for a few years where they come back as regret.

While they’re hard questions to face, I think they’re a right of passage when you’re in the middle of large life changes. For a few weeks, they took a hold of me in extremely unhealthy ways. And then, tired of being tired, I thought about some things.

I’ve realised that the meta direction I’ve chosen is right for me. It helps me optimise for what I truly love doing, which is make things. The problems are unbounded & I’m pretty sure there’ll be enough of them to solve over the course of my life. With that in place, how can I optimise my days? Do I really need to think of the uncertain, messy middle? Or can I just have faith in the long term & make sure that what I do today gives me joy & fulfilment?

To solve for this, I’m trying to do more of what gives me joy everyday. Make things, go for walks, read & write and spend time with people who give me the freedom to be me.

I figured if I optimise for adventure in the day to day, the score will take care of itself.

Lets see how it goes.