You do not have to participate in the lottery
This is the first post I’ve come across from Paras Chopra, and I love the strapline for his blog: “Be passionate about the territory, not the map.” He’s still young, and the overall philosophy of life he outlines here is a touch naive (reminding me of myself at that age) but nevertheless it’s solid advice.
In most modern cultures, direct coercion doesn’t exist. Nobody can make you work harder than you want to. However, with our infinite algorithmic timelines, we’re immersed with indirect coercion.
But, you do not have to participate in the lottery. You can choose to quit. You can decide to not compete. You can choose to not participate in the lottery, where you’d almost likely lose more than you receive in return.
To be clear, this doesn’t mean inactivity. (Life is a game, where inactivity means death.)
Rather, what this implies is something very simple – don’t confuse what gets social approval with what’s right for you. Social approval exists to attract participants in a game that ultimately benefits the collective at the expense of an individual.
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Once you overcome your desire to compete with others, you can actually just sit back and enjoy the outcomes that others compete to produce for you.
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Let others compete hard to let you enjoy these things, while you do what you find most fun. It could be tending to your garden, working at a sensible pace, making coffee, building tiny weird games, or whatever else makes you come alive.
I hear you ask: won’t society collapse if everyone did this? I’d argue the opposite. If everyone did what they find most fulfilling, our net happiness will rise. Artifacts useful to the society will still be produced, except with less anxiety and burnout. People will still write books, but without an intent of it trying to be a bestseller but with an intent of honing and enjoying their craft.
Source: Inverted Passion
Image: dylan nolte