Too Busy to Find My Pants

To go north, you must go south. To reach the west, you must go east. To go forward, you must go back, and to touch the light, you must pass beneath the shadow.

-Game of Thrones

I have systems for handling all my keys. I have keys to all my apartments, my families’ houses as well as a couple friends. I keep them in one place. I have methods for packing and unpacking. I use apps to get my laundry and dry cleaning done, an app for getting my home cleaned, an app to hire staff for events I host, apps for getting food or groceries delivered. Apps for booking flights and hotels. Accomplishing these tasks, even through apps, is table stakes for being considered an adult in today’s society. None of this is necessary.

I’ve adapted to function this way, but I know this is not my last adaptation. If I were to reach the true final form of optimized efficiency, it’ll look like a huge step backwards. I’ll go from knowing where my keys are, to not knowing. I’ll go from knowing where my favorite jacket is, to not knowing. If I were truly optimized, every other week I’d ask “dude, where is my car?”

How do I know? Because the most successful, optimized people I know have all these things happen to them. I’ve seen them not find their pants or ask how to call an Uber or how to work something as simple as a video conference. Could they figure it out if they applied themselves? Of course. But it wouldn’t be efficient to figure it out when someone else could just do it for them.

To constantly operate at the highest level, you have to ignore the lower levels of operation. You effectively become a child. This sounds crazy, but bear with me.

Imagine if your life was optimized to the extreme. You delegated everything you could delegate so that you only dealt with activities at the highest point of leverage. Everything that takes excess time would be eliminated. Someone handles your schedule, someone does and delivers your laundry and dry cleaning, someone cleans your house, someone else manages your house, someone pre-packs your bags when you travel, someone un-packs your bags and prepares your hotel room before you arrive. You have a driver who knows the fastest route to your next destination. Your driver knows your schedule and is always outside ready to go. You have a stylist who buys clothes for you, and personal trainers who work out with you.

Is this final form, the optimal form? It’s optimal for making sure every minute of everyday is used to further business goals. However, there is much lost. Not knowing what it’s like to find an item online or in a store. Not being able to relate to the everyday problems of others can make one feel detached from the rest of society. 

If all aspects of your life that could be delegated, were delegated, then you wouldn’t truly understand how others live and view the world. The problems you face will no longer be the problems the masses face. This could be valuable knowledge in that your problems may be extremely valuable and where the rest of society is headed with automation, but they could also just be non-problems.

This critique reminds me of how Socrates decried the rise of print because scholars wouldn’t have to memorize literature. Scholars would never really know the work if they didn’t memorize it. I used to know all my friends’ phone numbers by heart in elementary school… now, I know maybe two. I tend to think efficiency is better. If I didn’t have to worry about scheduling, laundry, prescriptions, appointments, flights, hotels, transportation, groceries, gifts, or any errands ever again, I’d be freed up to think of other, more important matters. But do these mundane activities add to one’s character?

Yes, learning the processes of what everyone else in society goes through helps you relate. I mean, how can you comment about the issues with the TSA if you’ve flown private your entire life? What’s it like to go to the store and purchase produce? Learning how to do your laundry and the dishes can be meditative. Mundane tasks can even be inspiring. My dad worked at a Proctor and Gamble plant one summer packing soap. He put soap in a box all summer. It was beyond mundane work, but he got really good at it. This was one of the most formative experiences of his life. My dad realized he wanted to do well in school so he would never have to pack soap for a living. Mundane things can teach us how lucky we are to be knowledge workers. 

On the other hand, a friend of mine grew up in Kenya where he had staff his entire life. He never once took out the garbage until he went to university. I asked him what it was like taking out the garbage when he had never done it before. He responded “I just did it. It’s not hard, and I’d rather not have done it. But it had to be done, so I did it”. My friend is also extremely down to earth and not stuck up in any sense. This shocked me. I since dug in and asked other friends with privileged upbringings how they adapted to not having the privileges they grew up with. How children learn to act relates a lot more to how their parents treat others. Meaning and character development can come from menial tasks, but menial tasks are not necessary for character development.

If my time becomes so scarce that I need to delegate every menial aspect of my life, I should. It will make me the person who doesn’t know where my keys are, where my pants are, or even how to adjust the seat in my own car. But I’ll have an extra hour or two a day to spend on things I care more about. In the end, all we have is time… trading our time for in game currency is suboptimal. It’s often necessary when starting out, but it’s more fun to chase something greater. If you can afford to use machines or delegate, do it.