Perspectives, Horizons and Life Vision
Black Label Logic | December 15, 2016 | by Black Label Logic
-------------------------
[strategic-pyramid]
[https://blacklabellogic.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/strategic-pyramid.jpg]Usually
when someone seeks to change something with their life, regardless of
whether it is a minor or major issue, the same methods tend to be
applied. Extreme methodology applied for a burst-style period of time.
For instance, people who seek to drop excess weight gained over a
period of years, seek to drop this weight in a span of weeks or
months. People who have been neglecting one part of their life for
years, seek to rectify it in a flurry of excessive effort, without a
focus on efficacy.

Likewise, people love to hunt for simple, smart solutions, to complex
and convoluted challenges, without regard for the destination they
seek. For instance, changing your life from one where you consume too
much, and too poor quality food, tends to be one where people make
radical changes rapidly, disregarding the longer term perspective.

The combination of these two tendencies, trends towards short sighted
strategies, and simplistic solutions. When one approaches a problem
that must be tackled long term, with complex and multi-variable
solutions, from the short-term perspective and a simple solution, the
inevitable failure leads to a person being worse off than they were
initially.

THE HORIZON OF TIME

As humans we perceive time as a linear mechanism, however we also have
certain biases when it comes to time. I have scarcely experienced the
person who accurately could estimate the time required to reach the
requisite goals. Few also seem to have the ability to view things in
terms of a longer time horizon, such as years over months and decades
over years. To most, a “_long term strategy_” is at most 12
months, and in many cases as little as a month or two. Not only does
this blur the line between strategy and tactics, it also imposes an
urgency that is in most cases detrimental.

Most people tend to over-estimate time spent on productive activities
such as work, working out and preparing healthy food. They also tend
to under-estimate the time spent on wasteful activities such as
watching television and gossip. To go a bit abstract, any activity
that leads to a short-term reward, will tend to be under-estimated,
any activity that leads to short-term pain but long term reward will
tend to be over-estimated.

The most obvious red pill example are the female estimates of their
fertility, often supported by western society. Female peak fertility
is in their early to mid-twenties. However, this conflicts with the
recent idea that everyone needs to first have their college experience
and then their “fun, single girl
[https://blacklabellogic.com/2016/11/07/the-lamentations-of-fun-single-girl-in-the-city/]”
years. This leads to many women pushing off having children until
their early 30s, at which point their fertility is diminished.

For men, the example comes in a miscalculation, summed up in a very
neat way in a quote I saw “_If you chase pussy in your 20s and money
in your 30s, you have wasted two decades_“. What this states is that
a man lays the foundation for chasing pussy in his 30s once his sexual
market value starts to rise, in his 20s, by engaging in lifestyle
design that allows him more freedom in his thirties.

Both of the above errors stem from an error in allocation of time. In
effect, allocating time to do something at the least optimal time in
your life.

I have a buddy that I attended High School with, lets call him Steve.
After Steve finished High School he moved around a lot all through his
twenties, he worked a string of menial and unrelated jobs. He partied
a lot, lived in 5 or 6 different cities, moved in with a string of
girlfriends, for varying periods of time. He did quite a bit of
traveling, even worked abroad for about a year. When I got back in
touch with Steve a while back, I was surprised how someone with whom I
shared so many perspectives with back in High School had chosen such a
different path from my own. Steve, will most likely spend the next 20
– 40 years of his life working around the same level as he does now,
unless he enters Monk Mode [1] and catches up.

I have no doubt that Steve has had more experiences than I have, or
that he has a higher notch count. However, by spending his twenties in
a similar way that most “_Strong, independent women_” spend
theirs, he has done much damage to his future. What feels right and
offers the greatest short-term rewards are rarely those things that
build a great future.

THE PERSPECTIVES

Few humans consider opportunity costs intuitively. For instance, in
the case of Steve, he did not consider that the time he spent working
a menial job to fund his partying and his travels, could have been
spent on a path that had a theme. Just the existence of a theme within
your life adds to the value of your unrelated skills through synergy.
This is the basis for the “_Skill Stack_” that Scott Adams speaks
of in his book “How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591847745/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=blacklabellog-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1591847745&linkId=578a1bb66e7a10294bff5cce36951b62]“,
learning skills that work well together and are applicable in most
things you are going to be doing.

People are often like a log floating down the river, they are merely
ferried through their life, being swept along without attempting to
take control over those things, which could greatly affect the
outcome.

However, while humans often ignore opportunity costs, they are very
much stuck on sunk costs. People are very reluctant to eject those
things from their life that are not conducive to their long-term goal.
People will be reluctant to change careers, end romantic
relationships, get rid of friends that are holding them back, limiting
time with family members that are not supportive of their goals and
many other things. There are a finite number of pursuits that fit
within your allotted 24 hours per day, and thus the more of those
hours that are unproductive the less you get done.

Like Steve, I had many experiences in my twenties that I would never
be the person I am today without. However, I always had a singular
goal with my life, and I still do. My perspective was always that
it’s better to use a lot of time in my twenties and my early
thirties to build skills and experience that allows me to maximize
freedom later in life. So with every activity I undertook, I elected
do so in a way that would be congruent with this goal.

Steve’s life has changed very little since High School, in many ways
his time is still split between working just enough to finance
partying, a completely average lifestyle, and a lot of gaming. The
major difference between he and I, is choice. He has elected to engage
with life on a level where he seeks out experiences that benefit him
short term, but are often detrimental to his long-term lifestyle
design.

His choices are based on his present state of mind, and what results
in the greatest experience of happiness right at this moment, without
regard for a grand vision.

THE VISION

Both of the above are not cardinal though. Both your perspective and
your horizon are means to an end, not ends
[https://blacklabellogic.com/2016/08/03/of-means-and-ends/] in
themselves, they enable your vision. The end will always by the vision
you picture for your life, this is uniquely personal, and depends on
developing a strong knowledge of self. Michael Porter, one of the
world’s foremost experts on business strategy once said that
strategy is as much about deciding what not to do as it is about
deciding what to do [3].

Steve never really had a vision for his life, he is slowly being
transported along the river of life without attempting to steer much,
if at all. This has lead to him leading an exiting life, after all
working as little as possible to finance many great experiences, does
free up much time to have such experiences. However, it also neglects
the power of compounding.

Compounding in economic terms means that the earlier you save, and put
money in the bank, the earlier you start earning interest on your
interest. This factor also applies to everything else in your life. It
applies to education, exercise, habits, and more than anything to
actions congruent to an overall strategy.

Within strategy one speaks of tactics and then of strategy. Most have
their own definitions for the two, but I draw on the original military
meaning of the term. Thus, strategy is defined as the overall goal of
the endeavor, whereas tactics are those actions required in order to
ensure that the goal is achieved.

In order to determine the strategy, it was necessary to establish what
I wanted from life. One of the things I saw at a very young age, were
men who worked 40 – 50 hours a week from the age of 18 – 20, up
until they retired sometime in their 60s or 70s, only to get 5 – 10
years out of their retirement. One of my decisions was that I wanted
to have more freedom, much earlier than that.

Another thing I noticed was that a lot of people are dependent on an
employer to earn their paycheck, and thus had to live according to the
whims of such an employer. While, I saw it as a necessary evil to get
some corporate experience, I was also certain that living for 20+
years within the corporate world was not something inherently
desirable. I’ve done work with the C-level executives of major
corporations, and while they have some degrees of freedom beyond that
of a regular 9 – 5 employee, they are not free. They are hounded by
board members, experience many a sleepless night working, and if they
lead a public company, their moods are controlled by the latest stock
price.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Time is the ultimate resource, it is the one thing we cannot make more
of, and thus the only thing we do have to ensure is spent efficiently.
In the case of Steve, he has elected (_consciously or subconsciously_)
to maximize his freedom within his means through not having a grand
vision for his life. An inherent lack of ambition leads to an
intelligent and capable man spending his life working jobs below his
abilities, in order to be flexible within his life. However, he does
not consider the opportunity cost of this liberty, and the sunk cost
that mounts over time.

This means that over time, his sunk costs mount and the opportunity
cost steadily increases as his time left on this Earth is reduced
towards zero. On the other hand, my strategy has some opportunity
costs as well, some experiences foregone are mutually exclusive with
my strategy, and thus they cannot be experienced anymore.

The two approaches reminds me of a quote I once heard on
entrepreneurship:

> _Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most
> people won’t, so that you can spend the rest of your life like
> most people can’t.”_ Anonymous

However, ultimately everyone has to determine what they wish their
life to be like. Some desire the “_standard life_” of wife,
children, white picket fence, and 40 – 50 years of their life
largely being constructed around being at work. Some like my friend
Steve, elect the opposite, working as little as possible, only to fund
the life they desire at that moment. Some elect to work very hard for
10 – 30 years, in order to buy their freedom from society at an
earlier date.

It all depends on their vision, horizon and perspective. What is the
desired end state of life? What time horizon is required? What cost
and requirements must be filled in order to realize the strategy?

A NOTE:

I recently launched a Patreon page
[https://www.patreon.com/Blacklabellogic] where I will be posting
additional content every month for those who support me and I will do
a Google Hangout for the highest tier Patrons (limited to 10 people).

I’ve also had some requests for consults, which I’ve declined up
until now, but due to demand I’ve chosen to open up for doing some
consults on request. For details please check out my Consulting and
Patreon Page [https://blacklabellogic.com/consulting-and-patreon/]

As always you can buy my book Gendernomics at Amazon.com as both
paperback and Kindle
[https://www.amazon.com/Gendernomics-Black-Label-Logic/dp/1520743750/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1539436955&sr=8-1&keywords=Gendernomics]

MORE READING

How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591847745/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=blacklabellog-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1591847745&linkId=578a1bb66e7a10294bff5cce36951b62]
by Scott Adams

HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Strategy (including featured article “What
Is Strategy?” by Michael E. Porter)
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1422157989/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=blacklabellog-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1422157989&linkId=e47992f7f32fdd7daa9ab9d6b1f7b400]
by Harvard Business Review

SOURCES

[1] Monk Mode by Illimitableman
[https://illimitablemen.com/2014/04/13/monk-mode/]

[2] How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591847745/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=blacklabellog-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1591847745&linkId=578a1bb66e7a10294bff5cce36951b62]
by Scott Adams

[3] HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Strategy (including featured article
“What Is Strategy?” by Michael E. Porter)
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1422157989/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=blacklabellog-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1422157989&linkId=e47992f7f32fdd7daa9ab9d6b1f7b400]
by Harvard Business Review

 

 

-------------------------
Archived from https://theredarchive.com/blog/Black-Label-Logic/perspectives-horizons-and-lifevision.24261