You Don’t Need All the Answers

A simple strategy for people who want to live longer, happier, healthier, prosperous lives.

Photo by Tyler Lastovich on Unsplash

If you’ll briefly indulge me, I need to lead this piece off with just one quick, casual gloat: I have a damn fine life.

I have a beautiful home, a wonderful partner, a solid family, a kind community of friends and colleagues, and an enviable set of skills and talents that keep me fed, clothed, paid, and rewarded. That plus two charming fur-babies is enough.

Still, that cake’s gotta hella icing: I’ve had the good fortune to see a significant patch of the planet and maintain passable levels of health and fitness. There’s a blossoming garden in the yard and 100% of the people in this home can crush it in the kitchen.

Taken in sum, all of the above feels orgasmic on my ego and probably made your eyes roll so far back into your head that they ended up in a different zip code. I’d love to say that the rewards I’m reaping now directly result from four decades of inner work, tireless research, maniacal hustle, and sweat equity — but that thesis is likely more fiction than fact.

I don’t think I can credit much of the above, if any, to complex or comprehensive self-improvement strategies, or deep psychological introspection. I think the answer’s much simpler: Time, momentum, dumb luck, persistence, and a cable-knit cloak of privilege did most of the work for me.

That’s not to say all of it was easy. I’ve endured plenty of lean times, health scares, sleepless nights, 18-hour workdays, and anguished moments. And earlier this year, I ran myself into the ground trying to keep everything humming.

And, at every dark turn — so, so many dark turns — there I was, hoovering whole volumes of self-improvement content, hoping to implement and optimize newer, better “morning routines”, and also endlessly inquiring about “why am I even like this”? I compelled myself to know more, to arm myself with ever-deeper insights and strategies to forge my paths to health, wealth, and happiness.

I wanted it to click; I needed it to click; I knew in my heart that someday it would. It almost never did. And, if I can ruin the rest of this essay for you, it almost never does.