This feels very obvious but I don’t think I’ve really been living it: I need to adopt a pragmatic approach to everything.
I’ve posted many times about my idealism in the past and how I tend to think I’m going to be able to just brute-force my way through problems and achieve a level of perfection that will solve all my problems.
And that obviously isn’t a good strategy.
The only viable strategy is pragmatism.
It’s fine to want to improve, work towards goals, and imagine a future where we are better in certain ways.
But in the present, we need to be completely honest and realistic about ourselves, our opportunities, and our weaknesses.
Because none of those things change over night. If I’m weak against something now, I’m likely to continue being weak against it in the future.
The path the leads to success will take into account all pieces of information and make decisions based on that. Because why wouldn’t it?
Idealism simply ignores some data and replaces it with what you wish things were like.
Pragmatism is iterative, too. You can try something based on what you know, and alter your approach based on how that went. As you learn more, you can improve what works.
So here’s a concrete example of this.
I’m currently not drinking at all. Productivity is way up and lots of other things are greatly improved.
This is highly pragmatic. It recognizes that there are downsides to drinking and that it has very real consequences, and also that it’s difficult to just drink a small amount.
The idealistic side of me has always said, “I can limit it to weekends and it won’t affect me in the week” or, “even if I’m low on energy I’ll just power through it and it won’t affect me”.
They are idealistic and unrealistic ideas.
Whether or not I’ll one day be able to find a happy middle ground remains to be seen, but the fact remains that I definitely AM more productive now, and it is highly pragmatic and effective to give up drinking in an effort to be more successful.
But I can think of some other things that this applies to as well. Here are some of the top of my head:
- I’m not effective on low sleep, and it’s generally better to sleep late than to try to power through the tiredness
- I’m not motivated to work or be productive at night
- Looking to others for help in areas where I’m lacking is probably much more beneficial and rapid than trying to do everything myself
I need to simply give up my idealism and focus on being pragmatic in all areas.
Most importantly, this means acknowledging my own weaknesses and consistent failings and altering my approach accordingly.
My goal now is to just be more aware of times when I’m being too idealistic and take a step back to figure out what I should really be doing. And perhaps writing about it there!