TL;DR
The world favors action because you only need one good outcome to make a breakthrough.
Curiosity and intentionality like to complete, but they can work together.
Relationships matter, and your lifestyle will either help you or hurt you towards creating an enriching life.
Find the order in the chaos, then go with the flow.
Whom am I speaking to? Who is this going to help?
Good intentioned people who don’t know what to do.
My Practical Experience
Insight 1: The Intentionality Trap
I really enjoyed this time around. I went in the late afternoon, around 3pm. I went mostly due to boredom of being staying home.
It was honestly quite pleasant, and I wan’t even looking for dates this time around.
I realized an important realization:
Diverse areas, like book stores or shopping malls, are not about intentional buying. If that were the case, I would go on amazon and buy something off there.
Rather, the purpose of going to stores is to expose yourself to things you would not have intentionally discovered. Curiosity! over intentionality.
This has lead to something I call the intentionality trap.
Going back in time for a bit. When I was being overly serious with my job, I came across the people I would eventually become, and I hated it.
Mostly some kind-hearted, harmless, family-oriented, midwest, ohio-loving, engineer guy. We’ll call him Matthew (Matt).
There was one thing that drew such attention to Matt; Matt had this template journal/agenda that he would follow along to, “be more intentional”.
Fucking NPC.
Now of course I’m joking, because I was falling into the same pattern, and I think it’s the same shit that many engineers face.
They think that everything has to be “intentional”–yet where does that lead us? Fucking nowhere. Meanwhile, there are chads and creative types who just seem to “go with the flow”, and somehow achieve much greater success than Joe Shmoe was jots down every minute of everyday because God forbid he spends an extra minute on “strategic planning”.
Fucking hell, the west is not the place to be–another off topic advice.
But that’s the beauty of curiosity over intentionality: you discover unintended benefits, which directly leads me to my next insight.
Insight 2: Curiosity and Intentionality are rivals; find the balance
Intentionality refers to the property of being directed towards a particular object or goal, focusing our attention and efforts towards achieving a specific goal.
Curiosity refers to the desire to learn or know about something new or unfamiliar, encouraging us to explore and discover new things, which can sometimes lead to unexpected and serendipitous discoveries.
But can the two work together?
According to ChatGPT:
“Curiosity can help us gather information and learn new skills that will help us achieve that goal more effectively. Similarly, when we are curious about something, we can set specific intentions to explore that topic further and deepen our understanding.”
And I think that’s part of the utility in being flexible yet robust:
Having the elasticity to discover new ideas, while reducing the friction to take action towards those ideas.
Extending this point further to the applications side, I think taking on a curiosity approach towards people permits you to get that ONE idea.
I’ve personally discovered this when I met a friend from a running club. We simply met from having a minor, shared interest (running). Then just casually, he unintentionally showed me his iPad when explaining something–and that’s when I had the productive insight to use an iPad for taking notes and reducing the friction to read (rather than listen to) book.
This ONE idea further compounded into adopting a technology mindset. I upgraded my old laptop to something much more modern, and now, here I am today, typing a blog and changing my mindset to change my actions to live a life I truly want!
This is fucking amazing!
Mini Insight
This technology mindset–where I freely spend money on useful technology that minimized the “stuff” I carry around–almost contradicts the idea of “Practicality and Simplicity” because I had previously an old, hand-down laptop that was still running.
In my rigid view, a laptop is a laptop.
But upgrading to a sleeker, newer laptop made it easier to simply use it more often.
In which case, carrying around a bulky, old, outdated laptop was not practical nor simple.
Insight 3: Most Ideas are trash, which is why you only need one good one
The world favors those who take massive, iterative action and try.
I think it was yesterday, when I was complaining about how I hated going to Target for dating, because I felt like a loser, but when I gave it another show, I developed all of these great, useful perspectives on life.
99% of your actions and ideas will be shit. And that’s good, because you only need ONE diamond out of the rough to make it big. JUST ONE
Just like in business or investing–you only need ONE good play to make it big.
But here’s the caveat to that claim–YOU DON’T KNOW, A PRIORI, WHICH IDEA THAT’S GOING TO BE.
Ladies and gentlemen, THAT’S WHY the world favors the bold who take massive, iterative action.
Insight 4: The only metric for a good life
When I walk into this particular Target store, I’m greeted with note cards directly on my left side. I went though these cards, thinking about how nice it was when I invited my high school friends for my graduation party, and they all brought me cards with something nice written. It was fucking amazing.
And then I thought, “Man, wouldn’t it be great if I had someone to give this gift of cards to?”
And that’s where I realized, “Oh shit, I really fucked myself backwards”. Because it was at that moment where I realized that I don’t have any close friends whom I can give a card to.
And really that’s the true currency of life: relationships
It’s been shown in psychology; it’s been shown in the Blue Zones; it’s been shown in successful people.
Relationships, relationships, relationships!
Which brings me to my next insight.
Insight 5: Life Compounds for Whatever Lifestyle YOU Choose
That’s right.
If you resent people and prefer being alone, you will start developing compounding habits that reinforce that lifestyle.
What do I mean by compounding?
If you prefer isolation, you may begin my choosing a job that does not rely on people (e.g. IT, tax auditing, Engineer, etc.).
Then, you begin choosing hobbies that are single player (e.g. video games, running, painting, etc) (NOTE: I’m not saying any of these hobbies are bad, just that they are often done alone).
Next, you may begin to own may cats, in place of human companionship.
Then you start ordering delivery to your house, do you don’t have to even leave the house.
Finally, you’ve bought a small condo in the remote suburbs to fit all your cats and all your inanimate objects to keep you entertained while you watch funny comedy shows on your phone to relieve the burden of your shitty isolated life.
So you see here, your lonely lifestyle compounds overtime to suit for a more isolated life. And then you die.
Was it fun?
But here’s the good news: you can compound in the other direction. Anytime, anywhere. But you’ve got to get rid of your ego/arrogance and start with the smallest victories that look like child’s play to the people who have been practicing extravert activities far earlier than you.
If you can avoid the labeling or judgement of other people, then you will eventually catch up–but YOU are your own limit to a rich life of rich relationships.
Here are other points to consider while you make the switch:
- Only insecure people will make fun of you for trying; the fact that you’re taking action makes them uncomfortable, because you are now a bigger person on the rise
- The people who do matter will not judge you for trying; in fact, they will eventually prase you for how far you’ve come
- It’s your life, and you’re guaranteed to die, so do all the cringey shit, because it will not matter in the end
Insight 6: It’s all connected: There’s order in the Chaos
Labeling things prematurely has shown itself in the way I organize rigid details.
But I now see the value of story telling as a means of preserving information.
This blog, for example, is making lessons stick better with greater intensity by attaching them to an emotional event (or any even that simply brings about a novel feeling).
I don’t put things into buckets, rather I tangle them up into connected stories, which helps me understand the significance of the the lesson.
The down side to this is of course organization for other people. Most people are in a hurry and don’t have time to scan passages of stories to get the underlying meaning–they would rather be told what to do, than to think for themselves, from their own experiences.
I’m not saying discount reviews–a low-rating product or even might not be worth it. But this is especially useful when people are simply spouting information they’ve heard from online without any real justification.