You Can Always Make It Better, But Maybe You Shouldn’t

And no, I’m not talking about better AC or faster routes in the ubiquitous ride-sharing service. Rather, I’m talking about how, as a society, we have become *obsessed* with optimizing every part of our lives constantly–sometimes down to the minute.

Optimizing our looks, our homes, our relationships, our work, our knowledge, our time, and the list goes on. In many cases, optimization really isn’t a bad thing. We’re wired to want to tinker with our lives to make them better.

Because better’s always better, right? Or is it?

I’ve recently realized that the law of diminishing returns also applies to optimization of our lives. When we start to over-optimize everything, we run the risk of not enjoying the present state of anything.

Now, I’m not arguing that we all live in a sub-state of happiness where we willingly ignore improving the aspects of our lives that we know we could improve. I’m simply saying that for the betterment of our mental health and overall enjoyment of our lives, we can and should give ourselves a break once in a while. Be okay with components of your life that aren’t perfect and maybe shouldn’t be right this second.

Lastly, I’ll share two quick examples that sparked my interest in this over-optimization theory:

The first is an article by Nicolas Cole, one of my favorite writers on Medium, that urges entrepreneurs, writers, and dreamers to stop withholding imperfect work from the public in fear that the ‘in progress’ nature of said work will hinder their overall success. In fact, he argues, the opposite is true.

The second is a piece by Tim Herrera. He recently wrote a great article in The New York Times, in which he describes the crippling Fear Of Better Options, F.O.B.O for short. It’s the “spiral we fall into when we obsessively research every possible option when faced with a decision, fearing we’ll miss out on the ‘best’ one.” Interestingly enough, Herrera also invented the term F.O.M.O, which once my mom learned, realized she definitely suffered from.

Both of those articles prompted me to start writing daily–which, gosh darnit, I hope I can keep up, if even just for a little while.

I’ll leave you with this: Today, think about what in your lives you’re unnecessarily putting pressure on yourself to optimize.

Then consider whether you can live in a world where these small imperfections are actually manageable and you can take back a few acres of mental head space to dedicate to something else that makes you happy.

See you tomorrow.