“There are no solutions, there are only trade-offs.” This famous quote by economist Thomas Sowell serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of expecting optimal or transformative outcomes as a default. It is usually quoted in reference to politics and meta observations about socio-economic theory.
His wisdom applies equally well on an individual level, but in the hands of motivational speakers, life coaches, and desperate people seeking radical change in their lives, the caution is traded for a type of mass delusion masquerading as virtue in the form of New Year’s resolutions. The rest of the year, we call it goal-setting or living our best lives. We all do it, filled with dreams and hopes, bolstered by the nice feeling of dopamine excess as we visualise ourselves basking in the full glory of our unlimited potential. We fail to account for the opportunity costs associated with pursuing any single goal. We avoid calculating the trade-offs necessary to achieve excellence. Someone has to tell you, and it might as well be me – most of us will fail at our New Year’s resolutions by the end of February. Why is this? How can we turn generative, positive, forward-moving energy into something more rational and productive?
Let’s start with an overview of some of the most common ‘new year, new me’ goals, which tend to be related to health, money, and relationships:
- Reach my ideal weight.
- Create a successful business.
- Spend more time with friends/family.
Reality check: Only 1% of people ever reach their goal weight, and only around 15% who lose a significant amount of weight keep it off. In terms of ambitions of starting a small business in order to state-proof yourself? In South Africa, only 20% of small businesses survive, never mind thrive. Do you feel lucky? Well, you shouldn’t. These stats are relatively predictable and predictive across cultures and nations, so why do you think YOU are the special one? Who convinced you that you are different, the chosen? More importantly, what or who are you willing to sacrifice to be the 10%? That is the part people rarely take into account. Spending more time to strengthen social connections could be at odds with the time and effort needed to achieve success in terms of health and financial aspirations. You might have to pick. You will have to barter with your dreams.
Life is not unfair, but it is uneven. In South Africa, we have multiple unevennesses playing out over 400 years, resulting in a business environment that is hostile to smaller businesses. It’s a heritable trait borne from years of domination by certain groups now subject to a see-saw attempt at balancing it out. Does it mean it is impossible to succeed? No, it is possible. Elon Musk did it, and he’s from Pretoria, so you can do it, right? Wrong. Possible is not probable. Hard work and believing in yourself will not be enough; they sometimes don’t even feature when compared to the impact of global forces, timing and market needs. The journey can still be worth it, though, if you adjust your framework of what constitutes an endpoint or ‘success.’ Time to make some trade-offs. Our first concession should be in the field of expectations.
From the outset, whenever you lower your expectations, your chance of reaching your goals increases exponentially. Instead of defining ‘successful’ as having that Ford Ranger, a holiday home in Cape Town and more than R10M cash flow, be grateful when you can you can pay your rent, have a bakkie in good condition and have some time and money left to treat your family to a holiday in Margate where you can just love each other for the sheer joy and hell of it. Elon Musk, with all the money and ketamine injections in the world, cannot experience the sanctity of boundless family love. He lives in fear for his life, battles crippling anxiety, and his children are divorcing him. What are you prepared to swap out? (You can swap out Margate with Kruger National Park or your uncle with the nice swimming pool and big screen TV if you want.)
Being human is complicated and multifactorial. It is already hard enough to define what constitutes success and optimal results. Then, we generally overestimate the role our own will and motivation have to do with outcomes. It is a combination of ignorance and arrogance on our part to save ourselves from an uglier truth. Weight loss and management are good examples of all of this at play. Did you know that up to 80% of factors leading to obesity are genetic? Yip, that is quite a large percentage towards something you can’t control. We are not just talking about basal metabolic rates, but things like stomach size, ghrelin production and behavioural aspects all have heritable origins. Then, much of eating habits is about culture, convenience, access, affordability, and education. What trade-offs are you prepared to make to be amongst the 1% to 10% who achieve lasting results with weight loss? How much space in your head are you willing to allocate to this one aspect of your life? How obsessive are you prepared to get under the mantle of righteous dedication? Is it really about health, or is it vanity? How much Ozempic can you handle? Are you all in? Great. Health coaches and miracle stories on YouTube will sell you the “It’s possible! If I can do it, you can do it!” fallacy.
The Possible/Probable Paradox is a logic error, which, when combined with Post Hoc Rationalisation, becomes a powerful destroyer of authentic and realistic goals. People stop trying to improve, not because they are terrible at something, but because they realise soon enough, they will never be ‘super’ or ‘the best.’ The pursuit of excellence has become the problem, not the solution. Case studies like Elon Musk and the amazing shrinking 500-pound woman should be celebrated and marvelled at because they are so unusual and extraordinary. They are outliers, statistical freaks, but we have made them the gold standard and a baseline to which we compare ourselves – and when we don’t compare, we consider ourselves failures. It is a warped way of thinking. This does not mean that incremental improvement is not possible, probable or profitable, but it means we have to shift the point at which we deem our efforts to have been worth it.
“If you want to help people, tell them the truth,” says Thomas Sowell. Someone has to do it; it might as well be me, so here goes. Sir, you walking around at 5’7” calling yourself short – you are not short, you are just not tall. 5’7” is average height in South Africa. There is nothing wrong with your height; you are just average, like most of us will end up being in most things we ever do or attempt. Average is not failure. Average is human, average is real. It is a place of consistent forward movement with 360 degrees push and pull and balance. As you have very little control over your height, your perception of your control over your weight and financial success is as dependent on circumstance, history and luck as your unique talent and input. Sorry, life is much more complicated than just focusing on one goal in isolation. Every commitment in one direction will likely take away from targeting another. It is a form of math they don’t teach us at school, but maybe they should.
So, this year, let us embrace our (re)solutions with curiosity and authenticity. I am turning mine into more nuanced and fun explorations of active and productive trade-offs, incorporating a deeper appreciation of the vast intricacies of being human.
Instead of cursing ourselves and our loved ones with wishes of wealth and everlasting happiness, let us rather invest in the capacity to deal with relentless complexity in awe, fascination, and humour. And to deal with the unevennesses of life with courage and creativity. This last one might be the toughest, but give it a spin: I wish for us to have the audacity to be average and break the mould by being ok with it.
[Image: https://www.pexels.com/photo/graphing-paper-with-text-288394/]
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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