It’s about time!
Yesterday I had a conversation that’s still on my mind. It was with someone I deeply respect - the kind of person who builds from solid foundations, takes time to step back and reflect, and consistently performs well across different domains: work, academics, relationships.
They’re a stark contrast to those who see success as a zero-sum game. You know the type - people who succeed by taking advantage of others. And look, being a snake is a valid strategy, just like being an eagle or an elephant is. But it’s not my way.
I prefer to split things down the middle when there’s conflict. I hate negotiating. Not because I hate the people doing it, but because I have a strong preference for simplicity. I don’t want to play games with rent-seekers and bureaucrats.
This mindset extends to everything. Take territorial warfare - I see it as fundamentally value-destroying. The only weapons worth investing in are defensive ones. If conflict arose, I’d rather pack my bags and leave than fight over a piece of land. There’s plenty of earth to go around.
But here’s what’s interesting: this person I respect, despite all their qualities, said something that stuck with me. They mentioned a minimum income they needed - an amount about 10x what they could actually survive on.
This fascinates me because it reveals something deeper. Here’s someone incredibly intelligent, emotionally aware, and accomplished, yet they’re caught in what I see as a fundamental trap: optimizing for money instead of value creation.
When you optimize for money, you make the wrong decisions. Money should just be fuel in the tank. You don’t optimize for having the most fuel - you optimize for taking the most interesting route with enough gas stations along the way to keep you going.
There are things money can’t buy: meaningful relationships, personal growth, achieving your potential. These things cost time, not money. And time is the one resource you never get back.
What really strikes me is that this person would probably agree with everything I just wrote. They might even say these exact words. Yet their behavior tells a different story. It reveals an internal conflict - a gap between their stated beliefs and their actions.
This connects to something I wrote about before - on being deeply authentic. In that post, I explored how being unauthentic often means shallow-copying behaviors or holding beliefs that haven’t truly become part of us. We might say the right things, but our actions tell a different story. True authenticity comes when we’ve deeply integrated our learnings and values into a consistent whole.
This made me wonder about my own inconsistencies in the recent past. What beliefs do I hold that contradict my actions? It’s always easier to spot these contradictions in others than in ourselves.
Maybe that’s what rapid iteration really means - getting faster at aligning our actions with our values, at prioritizing what truly matters. Because in the end, time is the most important dimension. It’s the one you never get back.
I wrote this mostly to organize my thoughts, but I hope it resonates with at least one person. These are just reflections from a bike ride, but sometimes those are the most genuine moments of clarity.