Strong Enough to Feed Others

"Before you take your first bite, offer some to everyone else at the table". It was such a simple rule, constantly drilled into me from a young age by my parents. Now, it's funny to see how it's become a part of who I am: sharing what I have gives me an inexplicable feeling of warmth that I can only describe as "meaning". This (and generally my restless nature) is why my dream job looks something like an open-source version of Google X's Rapid Evaluator role. I want to build and share proof-of-concepts to solve the world's hardest problems.

To do this however, I have to first earn technical and financial and meritocratic freedom. Freedom itself is not a right, instead, the ability to pursue freedom is; I believe freedom is earned through ability and merit. So, I can reframe my current goals to be building the technical skills, financial base, and "resume" that earns people's trust. I've chosen to further simplify this by naively focusing on solving hard problems that I care about, the idea being that challenging problems will refine my technical skills and that I don't just "care" about something in a vaccum. If I care, then I assume others do too, meaning they are willing to compensate and respect those that can solve these problems.

Frameworks

Like this, I tend to boil down most things in my life to "frameworks", simple rules that I can live by and hone into instincts. When applied correctly, frameworks have been a powerful tool in alleviating the analysis paralysis that I struggle with. The framework I previously mentioned is something I've coined the "hedonistic hunt".

Hedonism gets a bad rep from the "pleasure junkies" of the past, those who would be gladly swallowed by gluttony. Instead, I like to reframe hedonism from "what do I want" to "what do I want to see more of in the world". One "happy accident" with this paradigm shift is that what you want to see as valuable to the world often intersects with what others are willing to pay for, meaning you can productize the things you want to work on. Furthermore, I think by working on projects you think matter, you become someone that you think matters. It's not just about the things you've worked on, it's the laughs you share with the people you meet, the memories you will remember fondly, and the internal narrative you build about yourself.

As for the "hunt" aspect, that helps explain two other successful attributes of this framework. Hunting means that at some point you'll get hungry again. Because you are working on problems you think matter, there will always be another one around the corner. It's kind of like the most satisfying version of whack-a-mole but in this case, you get to keep all of the rewards from whacking a mole before another one pops up.

Hunting also forces you to catch one thing at a time. you can't get distracted hunting multiple things, because if they are worth hunting, they will require everything that you have. This also helps someone like me who often gets distracted by the next shiny thing to work on so this is a skill / paradigm that I am actively honing.

Simplifying Further

I've built up many others throughout the years which I've distilled into the following soundbytes:

• 84,600 daily budget: you have a finite amount of time, make sure you use every second
• 30 failures away from success: you never know when you'll strike gold, so keep digging
• Pray for stronger legs, not easier roads: work for the strength to be kind
• The dancing are insane to the deaf: not everyone will understand, don't stop dancing
• Be confident in chaos, not comfortable in illusion: learn to dance in a raging storm
• Embrace extremities: train like an warrior, explore like a scholar, love like an artist
• Naivete can defy the impossible: sometimes it just takes someone to try
• Show don’t tell, listen don’t lecture, question don’t accept
• Only do things you get energy from: don't lose yourself in the process
• Be the activation energy: you can't change others, only show them what's possible
• Chase divinity, practice humanity: be unconditionally kind to others on your path

But even this list is vague and context-specific. I've further compressed the frameworks into three main attributes: competence, kindness, and conviction. Being competent allows you to happen to the world, being kind makes the world a better place, and having conviction in your path brings all of this to fruition. I truly believe that if all of us were a little more competent, kind, and convicted, the world would be a better place. And like one of my frameworks reminds me, I know I can't change others, I can only show them what's possible by working to master these three attributes in my own life.