Many of my moments of clarity and epiphany come as a result of deliberate thought, challenge, or mental exercise. I practice thinking in my writing, in my conversations with others, in the work I do. But all of the most deliberate reflection in the world can’t capture everything, and once in a while a big “ah-ha” just kind of slaps you in the face.

That happened to me this weekend. I was talking with a dear friend of mine, and he made an observation about me that I had never considered, but immediately rang true. He told me that in all the time he’d known me (and we’ve known each other for 25 years), he had never known me to be satisfied. With anything.

Wow.

Now, he didn’t mean in the sense that I was never happy, pleased, or proud. It’s not that I don’t think things are awesome or that I dislike everything in front of me. What he meant was that I never felt… done.

There’s always a new thing to do. Always more to accomplish, to improve. Always another goal, another adventure, another project. He was right.

In order to have a bit of vulnerability here in this space, I will share why.

I’m not greedy. I live very simply, in fact, from a material perspective. I’m not overly status-hungry, either. I don’t want my life to have “more” of anything in it, except maybe freedom and family. I have a simple house, but I would be fine in it forever… except I do already have a ten-year plan for improvements and changes to it. So the assessment wasn’t off.

But my point is that my lack of apparent satisfaction doesn’t come from a desire for more, or a sense of dissatisfaction with my current life.

It comes from fear. It comes from my fear that if I ever stop pushing, moving, planning, improving, striving and working – then I won’t have anything. I won’t be anything. I define myself by these things, by the effort I put into every day. When I take a (admittedly necessary) day to relax and recharge, I don’t feel human. My “days off” are still very often filled with projects, active hobbies, intentional family outings, etc.

My brain thinks of things I want to do faster than I can do them. I could force myself to take a day off from doing things, but I can’t force my brain to stop coming up with things to do.

There’s no end destination in mind. I have long since recognized that I will never be “complete” and have the big “To Do” list of my life completely checked off. I honestly fear the day that I simply can’t think of more to do, because I’m not sure how I would exist then.

In a conversation with a different friend recently, I was idly joking about what I would do if I won the lottery, and was saying that I probably would live a very similar life, except I wouldn’t work. He laughed, and said “of course you would.” He’s right. Maybe I would change a few things about how I worked, but money is a tiny factor in the motivation behind both my work ethic and what work I choose to do.

I am proud of my accomplishments, and I’m excited for the next ones. But I’m also afraid. Afraid of what it would mean to be more comfortable, to be less personally ambitious. Afraid of what lies in unused moments, so I use every one to the fullest I can. I can feel laziness and sloth lurking around every corner, ready to grab me like a tar pit, impossible to escape from. Even at my most weary, I fear rest more than I desire it.

On reflection, I can recognize this as a flaw, or at the very least a challenge – an obstacle in the way of a truly happy, healthy and fulfilled life. But I can’t intuitively map its effects onto my life. I can’t point to the exact spot where it’s doing damage, the thing that would be better if I changed. I can’t diagnose it.

Could I find a balance? Could I change this? Something so fundamental to me. So definitive. What would happen to me then? Should I strive to find these answers, work on this facet, build a different foundation for all I do?

Or is this the one time when I simply have to be satisfied with how things are?

How frequently do you accompany your serious decision-making with some light but consistent physical activity like walking?

In my experience, there are two vital components to good decision-making. You must gather correct information. And then you must have calm clarity when evaluating that information.

For that earlier stage, the most important thing to remember is that until you have enough information, that’s the only thing you should be doing. Don’t judge, evaluate, or deliberate – yet. Just gather. Find the pieces. Take notes.

When you’ve reached the point where relevant information is no longer coming in waves but a trickle, stop. Diminishing returns won’t help you, and you can deliberate until the day you die if you really want to, so now it’s time for phase two: The Walk.

You have the information, so stop trying to make the decision with all the negative physical and environmental distractions around you. Drink water, eat a light meal, put away electronics and go walk around outside. Wander a while. Take only the decision with you as a companion.

Those steps are vital, and their order is vital. You can’t make a good decision without information. But you can’t process that information from a cramped, dehydrated, tired, hungry, noisy and flashing cage.

Remember those steps, and make better decisions.

Several times in the past few days I’ve been in a situation where someone was asking or telling me something important, and there was nothing for me to say. In one case the person was angry. In another they were hurt. In another they were just thinking out loud. In all those cases, my ear was more important than my mouth.

I didn’t like it. I never do.

You can always say something: the wrong thing. I try to avoid that.

Listening instead of speaking isn’t a magical balm. People don’t automatically get better because you were a good listener. They don’t suddenly solve all their problems.

But nothing would make that happen. There was no exact combination of words that if only you figured it out, would make every problem vanish.

That’s just life, sometimes. Listen to it.

A stitch in time definitely saves nine. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. But that’s easier to say in hindsight – to see what you should have stitched, should have prevented. How do you find those opportunities before you need nine stitches and a pound of cure?

You need pattern recognition. And you need to never, ever worry.

I once saw an insect crawling around in my house – an insect that wasn’t a problem, but if there were a few hundred more, it would be. I took the friend I was hanging out with and went to the store for a few traps and sprays to make a defensive perimeter. I remember my friend asking me: “Why are you so worried about one bug?”

The question struck me as very odd. I wasn’t worried at all. I wasn’t worried because I was doing something about it far ahead of when it would be desperately necessary.

That’s exactly how you avoid being worried, in fact. You worry about things outside of your control. But things that are outside of your control very often grew from things that were under your control (or could have been) earlier in time, and you just didn’t know it, see it, or act on it.

Some people seem to think that “not worrying about something” is equivalent to “don’t take any actions to prevent problems.” Reactive mode only. But to me, that seems like a perfect formula to increasing your worry – by a lot.

So try this. Any time you see something that might cause you to worry and you find yourself saying “Eh, it’s just one bug, don’t worry about it” – listen to the part that says “don’t worry.” But don’t let that tell you to ignore the event. An ounce of worry prevention is worth a pound of worry cure.

You are most vulnerable to your own tribe. Your distant enemies can’t hurt you nearly so much as those you trust and identify with. That fact alone should increase your caution and skepticism considerably.

And it is a fact. Regardless of whether you think your own tribe is “right” or not (and of course you do think that), you’re obviously more vulnerable to them. Outside influence, ideas, and even attacks are met with every defense you have ready. Not only are you already skeptical of information that comes from “them” and expectant of their attacks, you also have the advantage of having the entire rest of your tribe ready to defend you as well.

But when your tribe lies to you, you’ll cut your own arm off before you doubt. When your tribe tries to get you to do things against your own interest but in the interest of the tribal leaders, you’ll do it readily and justify it all day. And if your tribe even tries to harm you, you’ll either take the harm with pride or – if you resist – you’ll claim that it wasn’t your tribe at all, but shadowy agents of some other.

Imagine that there are two people, each trying to convince you of their position. You have zero prior information about either Position 1 or Position 2, and no awareness of the other affiliations of their spokespeople. So for the most part, you’re evaluating the arguments on the merits as you understand them. If Spokesperson 1 says “Position 2 is wrong, and here’s all the evidence to support that argument,” and Spokesperson 2 says “Position 1 is wrong, and you shouldn’t even listen to Spokesperson 1 because they’ll lie to you and tell you that it isn’t, so just stand over here with me because that makes you a good person, unlike Spokesperson 1,” then you should have a really, really strong reason to be extremely wary of #2. Even if you don’t find arguments for Position 1 convincing, at least there are arguments. Spokesperson 2 is obviously a self-interested bully.

Now, that’s how you’ll treat two people/positions that you’re neutral on. But what if that exact same scenario repeats itself, but this time Spokesperson #1 isn’t part of your tribe, and Spokesperson #2 is?

It shouldn’t make a difference. But for most people, it does. Don’t be one of those people. Recognize the patterns of bad faith arguments, and know with certainty that you will always be most vulnerable to them when they come from your own.

Speed is not about time.

It almost never takes “three days” to do something. When you order a custom piece of furniture from someone, and they tell you that it will take four weeks, that doesn’t mean it takes four weeks to make your furniture. It means that there are other things in front, and that your furniture will take X action steps, which will occur over a certain number of weeks. It does not mean that someone will be building your table 24/7 for the next month.

Keep that in mind for yourself. Things happen in action steps, not hours or days. Those action steps can happen on many different cadences. Remember that when you think something is taking too long, or if you feel too pressured, or anything like that. These things are adjustable.

“It’s taking forever to finish this jigsaw puzzle,” someone says, before putting one piece into place and then watching a show for the next hour.

“I don’t want to spend all day on this!” Then don’t – spend 30 minutes a day for two weeks.

Some things are more resilient to moving around their action steps than others, of course. And some things really do take time – it takes nine months to make a baby, pretty much no matter what else you do. But it’s far from universal – most things take exactly as long as you want them to.

Rule #1: Always look cool.

Rule #2: Never get lost.

Rule #3: If you do get lost, look cool.

Meta post today!

I’ve been thinking about other ways to write. (Don’t worry, no plans to discontinue The Opportunity Machine any time soon. Just supplemental things!)

I really like the idea of Substack. I’ve toyed wit the idea of starting a more focused newsletter in the past, but I think something like Substack would probably be better. I actually have several topics that I’d like to go into more deeply but for various reasons this doesn’t feel like the place for them.

The fact is, I really like to write. I like to think, and thinking overcrowds my brain unless I have a way to vent out all the byproducts. I would very much like to continue to develop along that path, and so an experiment with regular writing in another venue as well may be warranted.

As always, open to suggestions. But look out for more!

People, unfortunately, have an extremely strong tendency to do things that look good over things that are valuable towards their ends.

Of course, for many people, the end goal itself is just praise, admiration, respect, etc. Know your Maslow.

But this is why, for example, diamond engagement rings are a thing. It makes way more sense to propose with an equivalent cash value in a long-term investment account as a shared resource for building a life together. But you can’t take Instagram pictures of that.

It’s why a lot of workplaces have people fighting over highly-visible but meaningless assignments, and no one wants to be in charge of the project that takes ten years but just builds essential infrastrucure.

It’s why politics is… well, politics. Watch anything, ever, and this shines clearly.

The point is, be careful. Flashy and valuable actions are often mutually exclusive. Make sure you’re doing enough for yourself and your family that actually matters.