Cutting Cookies

26th birthday edition

I turned 26 today. A lot of people talk about how fun your 20s are. Few people talk about how strange they are. I can’t speak to my late 20s yet, but I am finding my mid-20s to be particularly peculiar.

I used to wish that the first 26 years of my life would have better prepared me to confront times like these. Part of me still does. But if there is one thing that I actually have learned, it’s that wishing for things to be different is a waste of time.

So here I am, armed with (largely) useless knowledge of trigonometry, calculus, and chemistry, trying to figure out how the world works and understand my place in it.

To many people, I probably look like an adult. But in case it isn’t already clear, I don’t feel like one. I frankly don’t even know what “feeling like an adult” would entail. The mere notion sounds callow to me now as I write this, having swallowed a few bittersweet sips of my mid-twenties.

I used to romanticize the idea of being (and conceivably feeling like) an adult. I associated adulthood with having things figured out. I have since met enough adults to know that on average (and on above average), that is very much not the case (no offense, adults).

“Having it all figured out” is actually starting to sound less appealing to me, which sort of feels like progress. If I had to guess, the process of “figuring it out” is most of the fun.

I often try to compare it to hiking. If hiking were just about standing on the mountain top, more mountains would have ski lifts. Much of the joy of gazing down over the valley once you’ve reached the top is knowing that you trudged across all of that terrain to get there. And while some mountains do indeed have ski lifts, and some people do indeed opt to take them instead of hiking, when you’re at the peak, it’s usually the sweaty, exhausted folks who are smiling the widest and laughing about some shenanigans that took place on the way up.

I imagine that one day I’ll miss the potential inherent to uncertainty. I imagine that one day I will miss being so close to the bottom of the mountain.

Today, however, is not that day.

The last year has been an act in trying to embrace the dynamism and impermanence of life. That is admittedly a lot easier said than done. But as it goes, well done is better than well said.

So here I am, having officially completed my second Bar-Mitzvah-worth of life, without much to show for it. Here I am, trying to say less and “do” more (not to be confused with “do more”). Because, at the end of the day, that’s all we really are. Not what we say. Not what we think. Not what we feel. Not what we want. Not what we fear. We are what we do.

I spent much of the last year arriving at this conclusion. It is neither original nor profound, but it’s true (…I think).

I hesitate to even call it a conclusion. It’s more of a premise. A premise to a very important question. Maybe even the most important question that I (or anyone else for that matter) will ever answer. And as the saying goes, if you don’t ask yourself big questions, you will live a small life.

So my big question is this: if who I am is an accumulation of what I do, then what should I do?

As often is the case with matters of the heart and soul, the answer is not so obvious. To explain how truly not obvious the answer is, I’ll have to take a quick detour down David Attenborough Lane.

I was watching an episode of Our Planet II the other week, and while I wouldn’t go as far as to say that I envied the polar bears, lions, albatrosses, or gray whales, I will say that there was something remarkably simple about their existence. From what I could gather, every animal had one singular goal: to live long enough to pass on their genes. And to do that, they had two sub-goals: to eat and to not get eaten.

Again, not the most glamorous existence, but a damn simple one.

Simple because their menu of options is so limited. When they’re hungry, it’s very clear what they should do—eat. When another animal is trying to eat them, it’s also very clear what they should do—run (or swim) as fast as they can in the opposite direction.

We humans admittedly have much “higher-class” problems to contend with. But they are also a hell of a lot less simple.

Most of us can travel less than two miles and find ourselves standing in some sort of dining establishment or grocery store teeming with affordable and safe food. Most of us can also walk out into the street without having to worry about being eaten by a lion (or an orca). Both are amazing feats and testaments to human ingenuity. But as my parents taught me—if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

With our core biological needs largely tended to by an intricate combination of technology, systems, and institutions, we are left with quite the menu of options. I’m talking on the scale of borderline infinite things we could do in any given moment (without risking imminent demise). And while that is an objectively incredible situation to find ourselves in as inhabitants of earth, it is far from a simple one to navigate skillfully.

So here I am, biologically fulfilled by the fruits of human progress, trying to figure out what to do.

And while being grateful that I’m not a monk seal generally keeps me occupied for ~10 minutes or so each day, I haven’t found it to be quite enough to sustain me.

I have spent a lot of my time recently thinking about values. This has felt like the next logical progression in my quest to reconcile my own existence. Having something to aim at is an effective way to narrow down any menu of options. Putting a target 50 yards down the field allows archers to no longer worry about where in the field they should (at least be trying to) shoot their arrows. And while it is still no easy feat to launch an arrow 50 yards through the air and have it land inside of a 3-inch circle, the prospect of doing so sounds a lot more fun to me than wandering around an open field unsure of where to place my target in the first place.

I am not nearly as intimidated by the proposition of learning how to shoot bullseyes as I am by the task of feeling assured that my target is set up in the right spot. That is to say, I am not nearly as intimidated by the proposition of living in accordance with my values as I am by the prospect of ensuring that those values are indeed both worthy and authentic.

Said differently, it’s a lot easier to figure out how to live once you’ve figured out why to live.

I feel an odd sense of urgency to build conviction behind my “why.” To feel genuine and authentic conviction in my values. To feel confident that I have placed my target in the right spot.

Maybe it’s because the intervals between writing these annual birthday reflections seem to get shorter with each passing year. 26 doesn’t feel old, but it also doesn’t feel young. Each year, I find myself reckoning with the fact that I now have less time.

I won’t claim that the pressure I put on myself is entirely productive. I may have bid the innocence of youth farewell a year or two earlier than I should have, but I try not to speculate too much on these sorts of things. I think the pressure I put on myself to answer these big questions comes from a very specific fear. It’s the fear of getting to the end of my life and regretting how I spent my time.

So it would appear that I have formulated some useful questions and that I understand the implications of answering them (or not answering them) with my words, but more importantly with my actions. What is less clear, however, is how I might actually go about finding those answers.

I have been searching for some time, but I haven’t felt much closer to finding the answers. I used to think it was because I was unskillfully executing a good search strategy. Now I think it’s because I was actually somewhat skillfully executing a bad search strategy.

My strategy to date has been to borrow other people’s answers (who seem generally at peace with their own existence) and hope that those same answers deliver me the same result. There are, however, a few issues with that strategy.

The first is that most people aren’t actually at peace with their own existence (whether they realize it or not). The second is that the people who have indeed reached “the promised land” likely got there using vastly different sets of answers. So the chances that any one of their sets of answers works for me are unimaginably small (”…so you’re saying there’s a chance”).

I can’t sum it up much better than Oliver Burkman did at the end of his book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management For Mortals. It goes like this:

There’s a wonderful exchange in Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet, where the young poet is saying, “Give me the answers, give me the answers.” And Rilke says “You’re not ready to live the answers. You have to live the questions until some distant day when you live your way into the answers that are right for you. I can give you my answers right now, but they won’t work for you necessarily. What works for you? Well, that’s for you to figure out.”

I love this excerpt for more reasons than I care to share, but to be fair, looking to others to inform how you act is not an unequivocally bad strategy. It really depends on your goals. Borrowing others’ answers actually works pretty well to achieve certain cookie-cutter outcomes (think good grades in school or monetary success). But there comes a time when cookie-cutter just doesn’t cut it anymore.

And in case it’s not already clear, I’m not out here trying to get good grades or cut cookies. I’m trying to self-actualize. I’m trying to live a life with maximal meaning and minimal regret. I’m trying to make the most of my time while I still have some.

I’m not a polar bear. I’m not just trying to survive. I’m trying to thrive.

I believe that the sweetest fruits of existence are borne through a process. It is a process as simple in its formulation as it is difficult in its execution. And the process is this: live in accordance with your values all the time, especially when it’s hard.

I’ve also realized that one problem that arises from borrowing other people’s answers is that you are also forced to borrow their conviction in those answers. And for better or for worse, borrowed conviction is not worth a whole hell of a lot. It might get you through the easy parts—when you’re flying high—but when things get difficult (which they always do) and you come crashing down, your borrowed conviction will fold immediately…every time.

So how do we find authentic answers and build genuine conviction in them? The type of conviction that won’t fold. The type of conviction that will allow us to uphold our values even when (and especially when) things get hopelessly dire.

I can’t speak to how to do it from experience, but I can speak to how not to do it from experience. I can speak to the conclusions I have drawn from years of being a seasoned veteran in the art of doing it all wrong.

I think that my failure to find the answers I seek can largely be attributed to my conformity to the intellectual culture of our times. It is a culture that, above all, values logic, reason, and rationality. It is a culture that tells us having faith in things is neither smart nor cool. I have spent the last several years mistaking this lack of popularity for a lack of utility.

Logic, reason, and rationality have undoubtedly been the driving forces behind much of the progress that humanity has made over the last few centuries. But I fear we may have over-corrected. Rationality has brought our society things that faith and religion never could on their own. But the conclusion to draw from that is not that faith and religion have no utility.

Religion without science is blind. Science without religion is lame.

I think our collective obsession with rationality has led us astray. So far astray that many of us have come to understand the process of achieving fulfillment in life completely backward. We want proof that a certain way of acting (driven by a certain set of values) will deliver us the utility and meaning we wish to find in our lives. And we don’t just want the answers. We want proof that they work.

But the only answers that will give us that which we seek are the ones that are truly and authentically our own. And to be able to find those answers, we need to trust that quiet voice inside of us commonly referred to as our “intuition.” Our inner compass.

That little voice is not always easy to hear. And even when we do manage to hear it, it’s not easy to follow. I’ll tell you what is easy, though—letting the noise of our minds overpower the whispers of our hearts.

Our inner compass often points us in directions that seem unconventional—directions that feel scary. And faced with the decision, many of us choose to trade what is possible for what is known.

We are conditioned to be skeptical. To not act in ways that are untested or unproven. But living our way to our answers requires leaps of faith. It won’t always be obvious or certain that the direction our compass is guiding us is the right direction. It will be tempting to turn back. But as it goes, the caves we fear to enter hold the treasures we seek.

Ted Lasso said that living life is a lot like riding a horse. If you're comfortable while you're doing it, then you're probably doing it wrong.

Before we do a thing, we want to know—to have assurance—that it’s the right thing. But unfortunately, that isn’t how it works. We can’t know before we do. We must do in order to know. Said differently, it is easier to act our way into a new way of thinking than it is to think our way into a new way of acting.

And for better or for worse, doing so requires faith.

We do not lack the answers. We lack the faith to follow our intuition that, day by day, will lead us to our answers.

Mark Twain said that most people die at 27, we just don’t bury them until they’re 72.

I refuse to prove him right. I refuse to live a life resigned to the mediocrity inherent to the status quo. I refuse to continue living according to other people’s answers. I know I will have fewer regrets if I try and fail big than if I never try at all.

So with that, I’m going to end this essay the same way I ended my high school commencement speech. It’s cliché, but as I like to say, growing up is simply the process of realizing that clichés are true as hell.

It is impossible to live without failing unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.

I wish you the courage to risk failure and face the unknown in pursuit of your answers. Your real answers.

As for me, I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way.