4. Trees and Netflix

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    Happy Tuesday!

    How do you optimize for freedom? Do you like having lots of options? More optionality is better, right?

    I kinda like being able to choose what I want to cook for dinner. I like being able to pick which movies I want to watch. I give my money to Netflix because it gives me lots of options.

    I dunno about you but I've also spent an entire episode's worth of time trying to decide what to watch, browsing IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes, watching trailers etc. I waste my time trying to avoid wasting my time on a bad film.

    What does it cost us to make a choice?

    When we make any decision we're also saying no to every other alternative course of action. I can't watch Parasite and Sound of Metal at the same time.

    The thought of losing out on all other alternatives, the opportunity cost of choosing, can be enough to prevent us from making any choice at all.

    But maintaining optionality isn't free.

    The longer we resist making a choice the more we pay in unrealized gains. There is a Chinese proverb which says, "The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is now."

    And so we find ourselves caught between preserving the freedom we get from saved money and free time against the losses that come from inaction.

    I know that I tend to disregard the cost of inaction and undervalue my time. It's comforting to sit around contemplating all the things I could buy with my dollars or accomplish with my hours. Planning and thinking and trying to de-risk the future maintains optionality and maximizes comfort.

    It's easy to placate myself with "tomorrows" and "somedays" and "let me see how things go first so that I can make a better decision".

    But despite my natural tendencies, there aren't too many times when I've spent multiple days or months worrying about a decision that I already made. Most of the time I'm worrying about all the choices I still have to make.

    As soon as I actually make a choice, say no to the infinite other options, and move forward, I stop worrying about that decision.

    Paradoxically, I can actually achieve a kind of freedom through choosing.

    By limiting the decision space, by adding constraints, I no longer have to consider alternatives and I find the freedom to focus. I can move forward.

    In the same way that games are fun only if they have rules and writing prompts help me to be more creative, sometimes reducing optionality is liberating.

    Our frantic attempts to maintain optionality, to avoid committing, to hesitate, to preserve current and future choice, are limiting the freedom we seek.

    As someone who has recently left a comfortable corporate job I've been thinking a lot about this idea of optionality and choice. With so many possible ways to spend my time and so many options, it can be freeing to just commit to projects, whether or not I know for sure if they'll succeed.

    Where are you are holding out on making a decision because you are trying to preserve freedom? Where are you spending time and emotional energy on inaction?

    What might your life look like if you weren't paying the cost of storing all your options?

    Cheers,

    Nick

    © Nick Nathan, 2022