It has been almost a month since my last post – no I have not forgotten nor abandoned you. On the contrary, I have been spending my time becoming a more interesting person and broadening my perspective, which will only result in more interesting things to write about.

What have I been doing? As you may know, I left my job a few weeks ago to travel the world before the next step in my life. Traveling is important for building perspective – we all get caught up in our environment without realizing that there are other ways we can live our lives. This can manifest itself in many ways, but there are a couple specific examples I want to closely examine.

The first is what I call work-fun balance. The United States has a different relationship with work than any other place in the world. I don’t think I have to go into it here, but some countries have 35 hour work weeks and 8 weeks of vacation. They work to live and don’t put the same intense focus on their careers. The work-fun balance is particularly pronounced in my environment – having gone to an elite university, I am surrounded by friends that are on the hardcore side of US work schedules.

The second is how each of us approach money. Americans comparatively don’t travel as much and spend more money on possessions. There is a strong “keeping up with the Joneses” mentality that causes us to spend approximately what those around us spend. Running up a $100 bar tab, spending $50 on a meal, and popping into Vegas for the weekend – are these things I fully appreciate or just do because of my environment?

I don’t think my current perspective on these items is necessarily wrong – really there is no right or wrong. But I want to realize that there are other options available – in the end, not making a choice on these matters is effectively the same as a conscious decision.

What else should I focus on during my time on the road?

What do you with a baby you are ill-equipped to raise? Depends who you ask. Pro-life – you suck it up and raise the baby the best you can, even though it might be a disastrous situation with horrible consequences. Pro-choice – you likely nip it in the bud and try to not let it happen again. But why does pro-choice refer to abortion, isn’t there another option that we are forgetting? Whatever happened to adoption?

The Bell Curve prodded my mind through statistics of American life. By slicing the data in various ways, the book examined the significance of inheritance and environment on intelligence and success of a child. As you may expect, both genes and upbringing factor in producing a kickass adult. One particular takeaway has been stuck in my brain – children adopted from a poor home environment to a better off home increase their likelihood of being successful.

This is particularly poignant as the world focuses on the life of Steve Jobs – an adopted child who turned out to change the world. What would the world be like if he wasn’t adopted and instead raised by his biological parents? What is the unreached potential of kids that are raised in ill-equipped households, without the option to escape to a better home?

Keep reading…

Everyone has an opinion about how tax dollars should be spent. Without getting into politics, I want to take a stance on one way that tax dollars shouldn’t be spent: entertainment.

Today was Fleet Week in San Francisco – a free annual boat and air-show over the bay. It’s a first-rate two day performance featuring some of the best pilots in the world showing off their fancy moves, topped off with the world famous Blue Angels. But one thing it certainly isn’t is cheap. The fuel expense of flying jets for hours should be immediately obvious to anyone that doesn’t drive a Chevy Volt. But then factor in the pay for the huge number of military personnel on hand, as well as local police and firemen, the total cost must be astronomical.

Why should everyone have to chip in their hard earned money to provide a good time for someone else? That doesn’t sound fair at all. But who says tax spending has to benefit everyone evenly? How about this question: why should everyone have to chip in hard earned money to provide sturdy roads that everyone doesn’t personally use? You could argue that roads benefit everyone, even to people that don’t drive themselves. But that misses the point – entertainment spending is fundamentally different than infrastructure spending.

The government should not control your entertainment spending! You should have the right to live in the United States and spend zero dollars on entertainment if you want. By using tax dollars to fund events like Fleet Week, you are paying for entertainment, but don’t have to attend if you don’t want. How unfair!

I’d imagine most the expense for Fleet Week is payed by the city of San Francisco from local taxes (with the belief that the event will attract tourists that will spend money). This is much better than using tax dollars from a citizen in Alaska to fund an air-show a thousand miles away. Nonetheless, not everyone in San Francisco necessarily wants the economic boost for the city nor the brief entertainment. Four days of loud airplanes overhead and two days of crowded streets aren’t graciously tolerated universally.

The bottom line is that not everyone appreciates the same type of entertainment. Fleet Week is one thing, but there are many more controversial events that our tax dollars fund. Think of how many events have police stationed for public safety. Do you think each one reimburses the city for the cost of providing police officers? Consider that events scale from providing two police officers to block off a few city blocks of snowy San Francisco for a television show, all the way to providing 4000 officers in downtown LA for the death of a pop icon.

Where do you draw the line? I say the line should be drawn at zero tax dollars contributing to entertainment!
 

I personally love Fleet Week and would chip in a few dollars for the entertainment. I think this is how it should be handled for entertainment events, all the way down to small-town Fourth of July parades.

Photo: Reuben Yau

You are very attractive, but I am not attracted to you. That cigarette in your hand ruined it for me.

It’s not about the smell, I can get over that. It’s not even about the reflection upon your intelligence, although it certainly doesn’t help.

It’s about the future. How are we going to build a better tomorrow when you are so short sighted?

It’s about inspiration. How are you going to inspire me to be a better man when you settle for blatant imperfections?

It’s about respect. How am I supposed to respect you when you don’t even respect yourself?

Photo: quicheisinsane

Lately something has been bothering me – why are smart people so dumb? What is it with the focus on careers, working 60, 70, 80 hour weeks for money they don’t need? Don’t they realize money is worthless without the time to spend it? Don’t they realize the opportunity cost? Life is passing them by, yet it is often enjoyed by dumber people with less money!

If they are so smart, they should simply figure out what will make them happy and their life a success. Instead, the smartest of the smart receive an elite education and quickly get funneled into jobs with vague titles like “consultant”, “investor”, or “capitalist”. They receive promotions, make buttloads of money, and surround themselves with luxuries. These people fall into two categories: those that justify their behavior and those that don’t think about it.

Justify

Some people are happy working 80 hours a week and truly believe it is what they want. To them I say – show me just one person on his death bed that wishes he had spent more time in the office. Even those who did very meaningful work, helping others, providing for a family, realize just how valuable that time is when it is gone. There is more to life.

Some people try to front load their careers, thinking, if I can just last in this job until I’m 35, I’ll have enough money to be set for life. That is a slippery slope and quite a sacrifice. If you don’t walk away when you are on the bottom, what makes you think you’ll walk away when you are on top, making even more per year? After sacrificing your youth and damaging countless relationships, how enjoyable will your retirement be?

Even worse is the feeling of entitlement – “I have worked hard my entire life and I’m incredibly smart. I deserve to make $150k, drive a BMW, and be the envy of my neighbors.” Ew. You are not entitled to anything, I’m sure there are others that work just as hard at the bottom of the totem pole. Quit justifying your lavish behavior and start appreciating the fact that the best things in life are free.

Don’t Think

I believe most smart people don’t think about happiness and the definition of a successful life. They just put their head down and devote the majority of their time to kicking ass at their job – have they even thought about what is at the end of that road? Is it really what they want?

These are important questions, but they are rarely even considered. Why does this happen? The people that go to elite universities are overachievers. They grew up smarter than their peers and likely dominated in a number of other areas. For whatever reason, they love to win, and their career is the most obvious way to dominate in adult life.

When people who have a high need for achievement … have an extra half hour of time or an extra ounce of energy, they’ll unconsciously allocate it to activities that yield the most tangible accomplishments. And our careers provide the most concrete evidence that we’re moving forward. You ship a product, finish a design, complete a presentation, close a sale, teach a class, publish a paper, get paid, get promoted. In contrast, investing time and energy in your relationship with your spouse and children typically doesn’t offer that same immediate sense of achievement. Kids misbehave every day. It’s really not until 20 years down the road that you can put your hands on your hips and say, “I raised a good son or a good daughter.” You can neglect your relationship with your spouse, and on a day-to-day basis, it doesn’t seem as if things are deteriorating. People who are driven to excel have this unconscious propensity to underinvest in their families and overinvest in their careers—even though intimate and loving relationships with their families are the most powerful and enduring source of happiness.

                      Harvard Business Review – How Will You Measure Your Life

The tradeoffs are very subtle. Bob Barker is not going to present you with two Showcase Showdowns and ask which one you want. It’s a gradual process built up by hundreds of daily micro-decisions stacked up over years. In fact, no individual decision is even multiple choice. Smart people prove to be just as capable at ignoring the innumerable options as dumb people.

Social Pressures

If only it were as easy as identifying all the possible choices and making the correct decision – there are external pressures in play as well. Many smart people spend the first quarter of their life in school, showing exactly how awesome they are. An elite education provides the opportunity for a wonderful career, something largely beyond the grasp of the general populace. In fact, not only do you have this opportunity, it is expected of you to capitalize on it. The majority of your drinking buddies from school move on to big things in the working world, providing a comparison pressure. You don’t want to let down the family that sacrificed to give you the opportunity. Many high school friends, and all those less fortunate, would kill to be in your position, how can you throw that away? It’s a good thing most of them will never have to grapple with these questions!

A Less Fulfilling Life

These forces add up and result in a less than fulfilling life for many of the smartest people in our great country. It is a shame. They take the sure thing (career), misallocate their time, and don’t consider the other options. But I don’t blame them. If you knew you can make over $100k per year just by putting in the time, had everything your heart could desire, and were the envy of those around you, would you turn that down on the off chance that you could look back on your life and deem it time well spent?

Photo: Street art by Bansky. Picture by Chris Devers

Happiness

I have been in a rut recently. Don’t worry, nothing to worry about too much, just not as happy-go-lucky as I am normally. Despite some great times and surrounding myself with wonderful people, I’ve been returning to a baseline that is simply not where it should be. My plan is to purposefully over-correct – check back for updates in this area.

Blogging

You may have noticed I have been blogging less recently. This isn’t a conscious effort or because I have been abnormally busy, rather it appears to be a lack of inspiration. Less crazy ideas are popping into my head, and the ones that are aren’t being acted upon. Heck, even the few posts that I have started sit unfinished.

Idiots

Less blogging and less happiness? Sounds like blogging leads to happiness. Or if not, happiness causes people to blog. Wrong, that’s what idiots would say. Data geeks will quickly let you know that correlation does not imply causation. What do you think, is there any causation here? Does it flow both ways, and if so, are there limits or will it just continue to snowball until I’m spending every minute blogging and loving it?

Something else for the data geeks to check out – Uberdata: How prostitution and alcohol make Uber better

Photo: D. Sharon Pruitt