I’ve spent the last few years trying to “optimize” everything. My sleep, my diet, my morning routine, my deep work sessions. I had a system for the systems. I was basically trying to turn myself into a high-performance piece of software.
But here’s the thing: the more I optimized, the more anxious I got. Every minute not “leveraged” felt like a waste. My calendar became a cage. I wasn’t actually becoming more productive; I was just becoming a very efficient version of a panicked person.
This video hits the nail on the head. We’re told that “growth” is a constant upward line, but that’s not how humans work. We’re not software updates. We’re more like gardens. Some seasons are for growing, and some are for just… sitting in the dirt.
“I had become exceptionally good at doing and exceptionally bad at being.”
— Medium
That line hit me like a ton of bricks. I realized I had traded my ability to be for the ability to do. I could check a hundred boxes in a day, but I couldn’t remember the last time I felt genuinely present in a conversation without thinking about my next task.
It’s almost like a trauma response. I read a piece on the “Optimization Trap” and it explains how we use these rigid systems to create a fake sense of safety. If we can just control the variables, maybe the anxiety will stop. Spoiler: it doesn’t. It just makes the anxiety more organized.
The move isn’t to find a “better” system. The move is to embrace “inefficient joy.” Doing things that have zero ROI. Dancing badly in the kitchen. Taking a walk without a podcast. Staring at a wall for ten minutes.
If you’ve felt this way, you might want to check out my thoughts on how optimization is actually a panic attack.
Stop trying to be the “best version” of yourself. Just be the current version. It’s messy, it’s probably a bit broken, and it’s definitely not optimized. But at least it’s real.