Being Optimized

Can we really do it? Should we even try?

Photo by Jared Rice on Unsplash

I don’t have a morning routine. I don’t meditate regularly. I don’t do daily gratitudes or use “journal” as a verb.

Don’t get me wrong — I think all of these things are great. Except for using “journal” as a verb. That is just wrong.

I’ve even done some meditating and daily gratitudes in my time. But there’s far too much pressure to do it all. To “optimize” our lives.

The challenges of optimizing

What I wrote last week was a parody of the many tips for success I’ve seen out there in the wild world of the optimization internet. But it’s not as far removed as you might think from the actual daily routines that some “leaders” and “optimizers” are promoting.

Who among us is actually optimized? I start my days by doing things I know I shouldn’t: after checking my weather app, I take a quick look at my email and peruse social media for maybe a bit longer than I’d like, sometimes taking a detour to read an interesting article. Hey, at least I don’t do it while still in bed.

With my breakfast, which I admit is healthy (yay! score one for me!) yet always delicious, I enjoy my coffee and the daily Wordle. That’s about the extent of my morning routine, but I enjoy breakfast so much that I look forward to it every night.

After that, any semblance of routine, healthy or not, is out the window. Even waking up and breakfast don’t happen at set times, a happy benefit of being a consultant. At least, I feel happy about that. Something in me abhors a schedule. Other than work meetings that I have to attend, my weekly postcards to voters session with friends, and a fairly consistent dinner time, my schedule is always shifting to match my mood and my needs.

I’m sure I could be more efficient. I’m sure I could be more emotionally and spiritually healthy by doing all the things. To be honest, I wish I could get myself to do even a few of the things. I fit in a good amount of walking most weeks, and my diet is quite healthy. But I don’t do yoga or other exercises, meditate, or always remember to stop and think about what I’m grateful for. I don’t optimize my daily schedule.

What do I manage to fit in? I “do the needful,” as some of Rafael’s foreign colleagues say. I work enough to pay the bills, get through the endless household admin, visit elderly parents, and have some fun: hanging out with friends, going hiking, writing Flower Child posts. By the evening, I’m usually too tired for much more than watching TV or easy reading.

And I don’t even have kids.

The problems with optimizing

What I wrote last week may be an exaggeration. But it’s no exaggeration to say that there’s too much pressure to be optimized. Should this even be our goal?

I’m all for growth and self-improvement. I’m all for spending our time well. I’m not for the pressure to do these.

Part of the problem with this pressure is that it puts the onus for fixing the ills of the world on individuals. Job stressing you out? Don’t try to change the capitalist system, just meditate! Worried about our collapsing health care system? Do some yoga! Concerned about the demise of democracy and the climate crisis? Write down three things you’re grateful for! Not enough time in the day to do it all? Create the optimal schedule!

Another is that there simply isn’t time to do it all. As Oliver Burkeman reminds us in his book Four Thousand Weeks (which I’ve written about before), there’s too much pressure to spend our limited time in the best possible way — but there’s no way we can fit everything in. We simply must prioritize, and many things we’d like to do will have to fall by the wayside.

Beyond all this lies a question we need to ask: Is the optimized life really a life at all? Will it actually help us achieve our goals? Or is it designed to accommodate us to the goals and parameters of the system we live in, rather than making the system work for us?

If I followed the schedule I outlined last week, there would be serious problems beyond the damaging lack of sleep. There’s no room in a schedule like that for creativity. There’s no room for spontaneity. There’s no room for life.

Optimizing optimization

I realize there are people out there who are far more optimized than I am. Somehow, they manage morning routines, do their yoga, and meditate. They probably spend less time than I do on social media. I’m sure they schedule their days more efficiently.

They probably also have more energy than I do.

I do hold on to the hope that someday I, too, might create a healthy routine. But if I never get there, I can still have a good life. Instead of trying to optimize it, I can do my best to live it. Maybe that, after all, is the optimal way to optimize.

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As Mary Oliver reminds us in this often-quoted poem, we are fine as we are. We don’t need to be optimized to have our “place in the family of things.”

Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.