In All My Hobbies I’ve Opted to Nominally Do One Hard Thing – At the Expense of Fundamentals

I always hated “fundamentals”. I always wanted to just jump to doing the really difficult, impressive stuff so that I could prove I was good at something.

I remember with skateboarding, I always struggled with some core stuff, and instead of just perfecting each thing one at a time, I would spend all of my time trying to land – for example, a 360 flip. It’s a very difficult trick, and every so often – only from a standstill – I could land it.

It looked bad and I could never really get the hang of doing it consistently, but sometimes I could do it. And that made me feel like I was good at the sport.

I wasn’t though. I was just ignoring all the small pieces that were required to get good.

Or on the trampoline. I did get good at basic flips, but then I started doing backflips with a full 360 in them. Once again, it wasn’t pretty. But I could do it. And it impressed people and made me feel like I was really good at it.

And then guitar. I never practiced with a metronome, I didn’t learn any music theory, my rhythm was bad, and just so many of the fundamentals were totally foreign to me.

But I could play one of the more complicated Stevie Ray Vaughan licks. Not very well, obviously, but I could play the notes and I could do it quickly.

I think with all these things, there has been sort of a desperate thread to prove (to myself?) that I’m good at something. I skip steps to just get to the hard stuff because otherwise I feel like I’m just not that great.

And I also just get bogged down in the details of things and it feels overwhelming. I’d rather just go to something cooler and more showy.

I never put any of this together until just recently. The irony is that, in my quest to prove I was good at things, I neglected the very fundamentals which would have enabled my actual success.

It’s sort of frustrating looking back now and seeing how counter-productive it was. I should have drilled in the fundamentals and mastered them so that I could proceed from there with a good base.

Even now, I’m just realizing I do it with weight training, too. I’ve neglected all stretching and all core stability exercises. Instead, I’ve focused hard on obvious measures of success like my bench press numbers.

And then just the other day I injured my back again, ostensibly as a result of not building up core strength. In this case, I got burned by not building up a literal base of stability from which to expand my strength.

In work, I’d much rather take on major acquisitions than slowly build up my client base with strong business fundamentals.

So the question is: what do I do now?

The first step is obviously what I’m doing here: acknowledging the issue. Now that I’m actually aware of it, I can watch out for it going forward. I can pay attention and notice where it might be counter-productive.

I’m really going hard at the guitar again, and it’s important that I do things differently this time. I actually have been focusing a lot more on the fundamentals this time around, so perhaps I have already started to improve. But I do really need to dial that in and realize that being rock-solid on the basics will make the harder stuff way easier.

And I should obviously apply that elsewhere, to. Particularly with my business. I need to look for all the ways in which I’m neglecting some of the basics and really start to work on them. I already sense that there are tons of areas in which I need to improve.

I Need to Totally Recalibrate How I View and Experience Things – Especially Being Alone

I’ve often mentioned here how I’d like to sort of get away from all social media and all silly entertainment, and I finally feel now like I’ve pretty much done that. YouTube had long since been the holdout, but I’ve been using the Screen Zen app and it has successfully gotten rid of the habit.

It’s not that I don’t ever use YouTube now, but the app basically just bugs me to get off it, and I do. So I went from averaging probably almost 2 hours per day on YouTube down to maybe 10 minutes per day. Which is great!

But I feel like a lot of wiring in my brain is being reworked.

I’ve been practicing a ton of guitar and reading a lot. And… Not much else, beyond work and normal, in-person socializing.

What I spend my time on has seen a massive shift away from mindless entertainment and far more onto productive practicing and reading in other languages. Both are things I’ve wanted to prioritize, and now I am.

But I think it necessitates a recalibration of many things. Some of this will happen naturally, and some I probably need to put some thought into.

Historically, almost any time I found myself home alone on a weekday (or worse: weekend), I found myself feeling very lonely and itching for some kind of distraction.

And I always found that distraction: mostly in mindless entertainment.

Over the years, any time I felt that tinge of restlessness or loneliness, I would just turn to YouTube or just watching movies or shows, and I could successfully ignore it.

But now I’m not doing that. The feeling is still there, but I’m channeling that energy into practicing things and reading.

Whereas in the past I never saw those as pleasurable activities, I feel like they are slowly becoming so as more and more time goes by and I get away from any social media or entertainment addiction.

I’ve heard a lot about “dopamine resets,” which may be largely nonsense as a concept. But while there may be no way to “reset” things in one go, I think that if I can avoid all of the mindless entertainment as an ongoing state that it will greatly increase my enjoyment of good, healthy things.

Since it’s all still kind of new, I don’t know for sure, but that certainly feels like how things are going.

So I’ll keep paying attention to that and see where it gets me.

I’ll also work on avoiding giving into any temptation when I feel that boredom or loneliness or… Whatever.

I think being bored is a gift. Maybe nothing productive or healthy sounds fun in a moment, and that’s okay. Maybe I should just be bored for once.

I don’t need to be stimulated every second of every day.

We’ll see how things go in the future, but I’m hopeful they will keep improving in this area.

I think I Genuinely need 9+ Hours of Sleep For the Time Being

I slept 8 hours last night, and I can feel that I didn’t sleep enough and it has actually caused problems.

I’ve mostly been getting an actual 9 hours of sleep lately, and that’s been working pretty well for me. I’m just a little surprised to see that 1 hour less and I’m suffering the consequences.

My workout was incredibly disappointing. I’ve struggled all day to stay concentrated, especially as the day goes on. I feel tired and brain-foggy.

I think that what’s happening is that I’m still aggressively healing from my decades of sleep apnea, and my body has become used to the 9 hours I’m usually asleep and is fully utilizing that time to heal. If I don’t get the full amount, I’m going to suffer.

It’s also possible that I need much more sleep than most because my workouts have become increasingly intense, and it just takes a lot of time and energy to repair my muscles after each session.

But since I’m actively improving in many areas still, I have to assume it’s because I’m healing.

Regardless, it doesn’t make much sense to worry about it much until a year has passed and/or I stop improving.

I’m hoping that eventually, I’ll start feeling great with much less sleep. If I had a couple more hours each day to be productive, that would be tremendously beneficial in my life.

The purpose of this post, though, is just to establish that, for now, it’s really important that I sleep at least 9 hours. Whatever it takes to get that, I need to do. Otherwise I’m just setting myself up for failure in many ways.

I Need to Think of Myself Like a Plant

This post is basically just a rehash of my post from a week or two ago, but I’ve been thinking about it a lot more and it really feels extremely relevant.

Basically, I need to think of myself like a plant.

What does that mean?

Plants don’t think or feel. They simply do their thing. Some are far more successful than others, and it’s all a combination of the right conditions that allow them to thrive.

And I’m realizing more and more that we are more or less the same.

We think we’re so smart and can will our way through anything, but at the end of the day our output is almost exactly correlated with our inputs.

None of my most productive days have ever come after a terrible night’s sleep, when I’m hungover, or when I’m sick. And more than likely nearly all of my best days have followed a period of sobriety, great sleep, and low stress.

It may feel in the moment like bursts of energy and creativity are totally spontaneous, but they aren’t at all. They come when all of your inputs are optimized and you’re feeling good as a result.

I honestly feel really silly for never realizing this before.

I once wrote that it’s arrogance to be too idealistic or optimistic about yourself or your abilities; especially regarding your willpower. While calling it “arrogant” feels like a bit of a judgement, the fact remains that thinking you can still be at your best even when you’re feeling terrible is simply false.

I feel like now that I have this understanding, I need to strive to maximize my inputs as much as possible. I need to get everything in place and do just about everything right on a consistent basis to maximize my output.

Throughout this blog I’ve spoken about weight training, and one thing that I like about it is that it provides objective feedback about how I’m doing. Whereas tracking a subjective measure of how I’m feeling may not always yield valuable results, the objective nature of weight training can’t be biased and is often far more useful.

I’ve started really focusing on giving myself the correct inputs to improve at weight training, and it has started to pay off. I’m rapidly approaching the strongest I’ve ever been. I can almost immediately tell that my efforts have paid off.

These results directly prove my idea. If I eat well (and enough), provide adequate rest and recovery, and don’t drink too much or otherwise sabotage myself, I can put in a great effort in each session and the next time I’ll be able to lift more.

It doesn’t really matter how much effort I’ve put in during the workout. At least not the “conscious” kind of effort requiring me to push myself uncomfortably hard.

If all the conditions are met, I will push myself the correct amount and I will immediately be rewarded with tangible results.

This may not be as obvious in other areas of life simply because I don’t have an obvious, objective measure. But I feel like there’s no question that it’s there. The impact is likely far greater in my life more broadly than it is just for weight training. After all: while there is a limit to how much I could conceivably lift (and I’m already a good chunk of the way there), there’s no limit to how “successful” I can be.

So this may be a nearly identical re-hash of the other blog post, but I’ve just continued thinking about it and felt I needed to expand upon it a bit more.

Armed with this understanding, I may have to change many things in my life.

 

If I Have the Right Conditions, I Thrive – What Feels like Self-Discipline Often Isn’t

I’m currently dealing with my second bout with covid. Even so, today I got up early, I got my studying in quickly, I got all my work done and was productive there, and I even added in a weight training session and a sunset walk around the neighborhood.

Many of these things – especially the physical activities – weren’t really planned. I kind of just did them.

And it made me realize that a huge percentage of my behavior is really just based upon having the right conditions. I like to believe that I’m a free-willed being that strategically uses discipline and willpower to do exactly what’s needed at any given moment.

But in reality, I’m starting to think I have more in common – day-to-day – with a hamster that just needs to have enough food, water, clean bedding, and a wheel.

I think back to times when I’ve been super productive and even gone above and beyond on extra projects, and I’m realizing that it wasn’t any extraordinary effort or careful planning or anything like that. I just… Did it. I finished all my normal tasks, and still felt like accomplishing things, so I did.

And then I think about times when I wasn’t nearly as productive. And often it’s just the case that I got to the end of the day and just had nothing left in the tank. No desire to get anything done.

Now that I’m stating all of this, it seems so incredibly obvious. And yet I feel like I’ve almost never expressed in this blog before how critical it is that I get these conditions right.

Maybe it’s because I’ve so infrequently done it, so I never really knew.

Either way, I now believe that there is almost nothing more important than setting up the right conditions for myself to thrive. These are things like:

  • Getting adequate, quality sleep (treating sleep apnea is obviously key here)
  • Not drinking much or at all
  • Keeping up with exercise (both weight training and cardio)
  • Eating well
  • Staying hydrated
  • Staying on top of work
  • Keeping my home well-maintained
  • Keeping personal relationships in order and an active social life
  • Keeping up with hobbies

Of these, the first two are probably by far the most important both short and long-term. As long as those are good, I should generally have the energy to handle all of the rest.

Now clearly, self-discipline still has its place. And energy should still be used strategically, especially for things like building effective habits. But those are all multipliers.

I feel like establishing these conditions is really the base of my productivity and well-being, from which all success – in all areas – springs. Habits, willpower, and just about everything else – including productivity “hacks” – are really just going to be multipliers beyond that.

But 0 times 1000 is still 0. So if you don’t have the base established, you’re still going nowhere.

And either way, it is far easier to establish a new habit or stay on track if all of these conditions are met. When I’m well-rested and everything else is in place, it feels like I can do anything easily. There’s far less need for discipline or “willpower”.

While improvements from treating my sleep apnea haven’t come quite as quickly as I had hoped, I’m realizing now that many of them have absolutely have come.

Before treatment, it felt like I was exhausting all my willpower every day just to do the bare minimum. I didn’t have these conditions met, and so every day was kind of a struggle.

It wasn’t immediately obvious because I wasn’t “dropping the ball” on anything critical just to keep going, but long-term I think it manifested in lack of growth and other long-term initiatives stagnating.

But now… Even while recovering from covid, things are easier than they were. I can finish everything and still have energy left for more projects.

Obviously it’s better when I’m not sick, but the point remains that I didn’t have this before. It’s very subtle in that I don’t actively “feel” super different, but my behavior is totally different. I can get so much more done, my thinking is way more clear, and really it’s just all better.

Going forward, I need to prioritize getting these conditions right nearly all of the time. That may even entail near or total teetotaling. I’ve intentionally not really placed any limitations on myself in that area since ending my year-long break, just to compare. But the results seem to be clear: the benefits do not outweigh the cost.

I haven’t made any firm decisions yet, but either way: I will be much more conscientious going forward about making sure all my conditions are met to maximize my success – in all areas.

I Want to Lead a Life of Improvement and Accomplishment, not Just Enjoyment

I think the underlying concept of this post has been brewing in my mind for quite some time now, and maybe I’ve said similar things in the past. But more recently I feel that it’s come to a head.

I think I’ve been so preoccupied with my own enjoyment of the world that it has sort of distracted me from my goals.

Now, perhaps more than ever, I want to pursue grand goals and work tirelessly to achieve them. Even minor accomplishments feel more satisfying than ever, and meaningless entertainment or pleasure-seeking seems to leave me feeling more dissatisfied than ever.

Rather than lament why that is, I think it’s easier and more effective to just go with it. To start moving away from those things and, instead, really dive headfirst into accomplishing my numerous goals.

This doesn’t mean I can’t ever enjoy myself, but it does mean establishing what it will take to achieve my goals and sticking to those things.

It probably does mean avoiding some activities in favor of others. For example, I have found that nature-based activities and things that are more physically-active in general are far more rewarding than, say, just going out and drinking.

Plus they have the added benefit of being healthy and making me feel better long-term, vs. drinking which is the exact opposite.

I sort of feel like I’ve been so preoccupied with some internal things and other parts of my life in general that I’ve lost focus on my goals for quite a while now.

In the last year, specifically, I feel like I was too distracted to actually accomplish anything beyond that.

I knew that at some point I’d start feeling like I am now, and that time has come a little earlier than expected.

And I see it as a very good thing. It requires confidence, initiative, and a positive outlook to really feel motivated and disciplined enough to have this kind of focus. And those things were conspicuously absent to varying degrees for the last year.

I’m not sure if I will immediately start to turn things around but at this point I’m feeling like that should really be where my focus is.

A Missing Factor: When Outcomes Aren’t Determined by Inputs

This post is pointless, in the sense that I don’t know that it will have a firm conclusion.

Instead, I just want to bring-to-light a concept I’ve been thinking about lately.

Essentially, that sometimes the outcome is not at all determined by the inputs that go into it.

Some obvious insights from this are more or less extensions of the post I wrote about being careful what lessons you learn from failures.

First, let me explain exactly what I mean with some examples.

What made me think of this is disc golf. There are tons of examples of this.

The most obvious ones are where your throw your disc and it ends up with a fluke roll that ends up far from where it landed.

Now, at the elite level, you are always considering the possibility of these types of outcomes and doing what you can to prevent them. But even then, they will happen sometimes.

So let’s say, as is often the case, that you’re playing a hole in which most of it is blind. You only see the early portion of the flight path.

You throw the disc, and you think it’s looking good. However, once you get down there, you realize that the disc actually ended up a good 100 feet beyond the pin.

“I guess I’ll just throw it way less hard next time,” you say to yourself. You’ve come to the conclusion that you threw it way too hard this time, and you need to compensate for this next time.

The problem is, you didn’t. You actually got a fluke roll, where the disc landed, popped and perfectly on to its side, and then proceeded another 100+ feet beyond.

But since you couldn’t see this happen, you only know your inputs (how you threw it) and the outcome (where it landed). You don’t have the full story of what happened in the middle.

This result is essentially noise. Using it as a learning experience will be actively detrimental to you. As you play more, you may start to sense better when things are flukes, and not learn from them. But in the short-term, they may actively hurt your ability to progress, as you test out different inputs and seemingly get random results.

As another example, I was playing with my friend Zac and, a couple times, he let loose what was actually a perfect throw. Form was great, release was great, and the disc was launched perfectly.

And it went terribly.

The disc just barely clipped a tree and bounced deep into the woods.

Now this case is actually a bit different, because he had far more control over the inputs and actually could fix this.

The problem in this case is that he’s likely to learn the wrong lesson. Despite throwing with perfect form, the feedback that he got is that he did a bad job. He is likely to change his throw going forward.

Now, there is probably a correct lesson to be learned in this case, and it’s that he should aim ever-so-slightly more to one side to avoid that tree. But instead, he may very well blame the other aspects of the throw.

So really these are two different – but related – concepts.

In the first example, the input really was almost completely disconnected from the output. In the second, they were connected but the wrong input was likely to be blamed.

In other areas in life and business, this is likely to happen almost constantly. It’s extremely difficult to identify exactly what makes you successful in most areas. And in both successes and failures, you are quite likely to blame the wrong input for them and proceed accordingly.

It’s like when a lottery winner outlines their “strategies” for success, when they obviously were totally irrelevant. The only factor that mattered was actually dumb luck.

If I had to come up with some kind of conclusion, I would just say that it’s incredibly important to:

  1. Recognize when the results of something are caused primarily by factors outside your control
  2. Be sure not incorrectly identify which of your efforts actually caused a success or failure

I think part of what makes experience so incredibly valuable is that these things start to come naturally to you. You’ve had enough data points that you know when something is a fluke, you know what should work, and you can start to pick up what you did wrong if it really was your fault.

I think about my own business and the work we do, and how I can approach almost any situation – including ones that I haven’t directly worked on before – with way more confidence. I have an intuitive sense of what will work and what won’t, and know that I can figure most things out without messing anything up too badly.

And that comes from experience. I’ve done it all before. I’ve done a new thing for the first time thousands of times, and so I know what the process is like.

I remember when I was first starting and I would often be forced to just try things blindly without having any sense of how they would go. But that’s how I learned and gained experience. And with that experience comes wisdom.

In disc golf, I’ve noticed the more I play (especially when replaying certain courses), that I am able to sense when things are a fluke. Sometimes my disc will end somewhere and I’ll conclude, “okay that definitely rolled there, because there’s no way it went that far on the fly”. And that helps me learn going forward.

Again, I don’t have a firm conclusion for this, it’s just a concept I wanted to formally write about because it may have big consequences in many areas of life and business.

I Think I Need to Eliminate the Consumption of All Short-Form Content

Over the last few years, I’ve tried optimizing a number of things. I’ve identified tons of things that are “bad” and done everything I can to maximize productivity, happiness, and enjoyment.

I’ve had mixed results, and have often been left with things that just don’t quite line up with my understanding of how everything should work.

I’ve now come to the conclusion that short-form content of just about any kind is absolutely destroying my motivation, my energy, my focus, and even my enjoyment of, well, literally everything else.

I’m not going to claim to fully understand the interaction of dopamine and other neurotransmitters here. But I believe that whether you’re binge-watching YouTube videos, scrolling through any social media feed, or even clicking through news headlines, you are using up something that is difficult to replace.

After I’ve done any of that, I feel unmotivated, and it takes a ton of work to get anything done. I also seem to have a spike in anhedonia and don’t appreciate or enjoy most things all that much.

I like to think that I’ve pretty much avoided all of these things and shouldn’t be suffering from them. But YouTube has really been the last holdout.

Since I got rid of YouTube shorts, I figured that I could just watch the “longer” videos and I’d be fine.

But I find myself jonesing for more videos. And then it becomes hard to just sit and do nothing without constantly reaching for my phone to watch more. And by then it’s too late.

The last few days, I’ve avoided even watching YouTube, and I think I’m starting to feel a lot better. I’m feeling more motivated and starting to enjoy things more.

Granted, I just got back home to Minnesota and there are lots of additional factors. But I really think this one contributes greatly.

I’m going to continue strictly avoiding all short-form content and might even start avoiding really any shows or movies for a while (other than when I’m with a friend) just to see how I feel. I think it might make a huge difference.

If it goes well, I’ll implement these things long-term. I’m pretty hopeful it will.

And even if it doesn’t: what will I have lost? Nothing. Even if these things didn’t have longer-term impacts, I feel that they have negative value just in wasting your time.

I do not need more entertainment.

I’ve Internalized such a Radical Sense of Personal Responsibility that I See Everything as My Fault

I’ve always been attracted to schools of thought that say you should consider everything in your control and take responsibility for everything around you because, in the end, you can only truly control yourself. So if you want different results, you need to change yourself.

And it’s an enticing message and also seems totally reasonable.

I do want to note that I think “personal responsibility” as a personal strategy can be helpful (to the extent I’m going to outline), but “personal responsibility” as public policy is disastrous at best and deeply malicious at worst. I think it’s basically just used to justify the status quo, blame the less fortunate for their problems, and codify a tiered society while freeing the ruling class from any semblance of guilt (or – ironically – responsibility).

With that out of the way, I want to highlight the primary ways in which using “personal responsibility” as a personal strategy is limited or can be actively harmful:

  1. Many things are completely out of your control and if you believe otherwise you will waste your time
  2. You’ll worry about the outcome of everything around you, feeling that those outcomes are a reflection of your own efforts and abilities
  3. You’ll blame yourself and feel a tremendous sense of guilt every time something goes wrong
  4. You might feel inadequate with your abilities or accomplishments because you are downplaying or outright denying the importance of external advantages others might have had (wealthy parents, connections, etc.)

This is honestly something I never really considered before today. While I knew there were potential pitfalls to blindly believing in “personal responsibility,” I guess I never really considered how such an ideology was hurting me.

And now I have, and I’m realizing that it’s been harmful in quite a few ways.

I think it has made me a lot more anxious. Historically I’ve always considered myself an easy-going, go-with-the-flow type of person, but I’ve felt my anxiety creeping up over the years and I think this is partly to blame.

I feel responsible for everything bad that happens around me. I always think of things I should have done to prevent it, and I treat the possibility of future bad things like a puzzle to be solved. If I just work hard enough or do things perfectly, I can avoid it.

Some of the happiest people I know are the types to not take responsibility for much of anything. They see most problems as someone else’s fault, and so aren’t bothered by them.

And that’s probably what is the most harmful to me: it’s the feeling that these bad things happen because of my own inadequacies. It’s my fault they happened, and I should have been better.

Since obviously it’s impossible to prevent bad things from happening, and many of these things are completely out of your control, this leads to a rather pointless and constant barrage against your self-esteem.

And if our only goal was productivity, you could make the case that with a crippled self-esteem, you’re going to be way less capable and get much less done in the end, defeating the purpose of “personal responsibility”.

Productivity is, of course, not our only goal. And so the damage to self-esteem matters far more than just how it affects productivity.

I think that this mindset has also hurt me in that it’s hard for me to let go of things. For every failed project, relationship, goal, or performance, I can’t help but analyze what I did wrong and ultimately blame myself.

Which: of course! That’s the whole idea.

But you can’t spend all your time thinking about your failures. In reality, they may not even be your failures. Sometimes things just happen. Some things weren’t meant to be.

While looking at everything like it’s your fault may provide useful insight so you can improve in the future, it also might not.

And more importantly: it may severely cripple your own self-image to the point where you no longer see yourself as talented or capable at all. And besides making you unhappy, it may also ruin your future chances at success.

I can’t help but still keep thinking this way, but I think it’s important to seek balance. I need to learn when to dig for insight in failures, and when to simply accept them and move on. Some failures have no lessons.

I’ve spoken before about how I think we need to be careful about the lessons we learn from our failures, but I’m just now starting to realize that one of the reasons I prefer to learn lessons from successes is because it’s just a lot better for your self-esteem. And if we want to approach things from a pragmatic perspective, we need to also consider these things because they affect future performance, too.

I’m not saying that focusing on “personal responsibility” doesn’t have benefits. What I’m saying is that it absolutely has limits. It doesn’t apply to every situation.

If, in a given situation, it’s a useful paradigm: use it! But if it doesn’t serve you then you shouldn’t.

I Always Seem to Believe that there is One Thing that is Holding me Back

If you were to read through my blog posts back-to-back, you’d probably come across a general theme.

I always seem to believe that I’d be performing better, if only I fixed this one thing.

That thing, of course, changes. It might be drinking, it might be my sleeping habits, it might be my relationship, the way my business is set up, nutrition, fitness, or other self-imposed limitations.

But I always seem to believe that my true potential – not just for accomplishment but for performance – has never actually been realized.

Almost all of the things mentioned do impact my performance. And I believe I am much better for having tried to optimize all of them.

But at the end of the day… I hate to say it, but I think this is kind of it. I’m never going to be a bottomless well of energy and I’m never going to magically start performing way better than I did before.

I think at this point I basically need to accept that, and take pragmatic steps forward.

All the building blocks are there. I’ve established time and again the importance of building habits and systems that can ensure that I’m performing day in and day out.

And I’ve had lots of successes. I’ve developed lots of great habits that have, indeed, carried me through many hardships and on to various accomplishments in other areas.

But overall, I feel that there’s still a huge ebb and flow of productivity. I get motivated and I go crazy, but then I go through a rough patch and I tell myself I need to relax and take it easy because I just need to recover.

Maybe I’m just trying to do too much at once. Maybe I need to ensure that I never add on more than one thing at a time. That I just add small little things to my day that will help me move forward with various projects.

I’m not sure exactly what the answer is, but I do think that it’s important to just acknowledge that this is more or less as good as it’s going to get, and then plan accordingly.