What are you optimizing for?

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What are you optimizing for?

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Money?

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Fame?

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Status?

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To be liked?

To be understood?

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To be happy?

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Ask yourself - what is it that you are optimizing for?

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We’re all optimizing for something.

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Whether consciously or unconsciously, we all make choices that dictate what we want in life.

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For most of us, we may not even know why we’re optimizing for something.

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For a lot of people, it’s money.

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Taking a job you don’t like to make sure you can make enough money to make your parents proud.

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That is a road to misery.

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For others, it’s optimizing for our health.

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Making sure we’re in the best shape possible by following a strict diet and routine, but that pushes us away from randomness and spontaneity.

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For some people, it’s work-life balance. 

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Showing up to a job they may not love but making sure they’re home every day for their kids and partner.

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What’s the point of all of this?

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It’s to make you think about what you’re optimizing for.

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For me, it started with status.

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Becoming a doctor.

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Making my Indian parents proud.

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They wanted me to be a doctor so I should be one right?

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I’m glad they pushed me in that direction but I lost myself along the way.

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The idea of medicine and the job of medicine are two different things.

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It was only through the process that I realized optimizing for status was never going to make me happy.

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Then I got into the venture capital business and I thought about optimizing for money.

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Read a ton of investment books.

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Followed some of the smartest investors in the world.

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Listened to what they had to say.

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Thought about starting my own fund.

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Then realized it wasn’t what I loved.

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I love to write.

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I love to learn.

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I love to teach.

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Now it’s optimizing for this media company.

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Optimizing to create an entity where I can get paid to do all the things I like.

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Is that going to fulfill me and give me all the happiness I need?

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Probably not.

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But it does give me purpose and direction.

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It does make me excited to get up in the morning.

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It does give me something to look forward to.

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Is that what I should be optimizing for?

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I don’t know.

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The reason for this question isn’t to get an answer.

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It’s to think of your own life and ask yourself the question.

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What are you optimizing for?

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