Recently, I was thinking about how many things in life are all about finding a balance between different things on a spectrum. Many times, this spectrum is two poles and we have to find out how much of each we want. The cliche “Too much of anything is bad” is found in all languages and cultures for a reason!
However, I found that just keeping in this trite version does not help to quickly see when we are swayed too much towards one side, and hence in this post, I will explore the choice in 3 aspects, Money, Happiness and Metrics.
Before we dive in, here’s a fun quote I found on this topic, attributed to Mark Twain:
“Too much of anything is bad, but too much good whiskey is barely enough.”
Let’s dive in!
Money
You might be familiar with the concept of Maslow’s Pyramid (Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs), it talks about how all of us start at the bottom of the pyramid and gradually work our way up.
I love the concept of Maslow’s Pyramid because it is a great way to conceptualize not only how money does buy happiness but also why this happiness is finite.
Looking at the picture above, you can see that money helps in achieving the bottom two stages, Psychological needs and Safety needs, as well as to some extent, Friendships and Intimate relationships. In terms of not having to worry about basic needs, money certainly buys happiness.
However, for the last two stages, money does not help.
We have all heard the rich billionaire saying money can’t buy happiness, the correct statement, in my opinion, should be “Money can’t buy infinite happiness”.
The seesaw here is choosing between autonomy of time vs making money. The basic idea is, to make money you must work for someone or towards a goal, which means you lose autonomy over time. However, to use the money you earn, you need to spend time on something you enjoy.
If you are too focused on making money, what’s the point of making it if I don’t slow down to enjoy it?
If you are too worried about losing the autonomy of your time, ask yourself, without making at least some money to take care of your basic needs, is the time you really autonomous?
Happiness
I recently read an article which talks about two types of happiness:
Hedonic: This is defined as happiness achieved through maximizing pleasure.
Eudaimonic: This is defined as happiness achieved through living a life of discipline, and contributing to a greater purpose or meaning.
Hedonic happiness is what we see in popular pop culture, the “living your best life”. It focuses on short-term pleasure.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, which places self-actualization at the top of the pyramid, is based on a Eudaimonic view of happiness.
Now it might seem we should avoid hedonic happiness altogether, however, as is the theme of this article, there is a balance to be found here.
Eudaimonic happiness helps you to play long-term games and grow as a person. It helps you to have a mindset that the actions I am doing today, although seem unfruitful today, will pay off in the longer run.
However, too much focus on Eudaimonic happiness will lead to us optimizing for the future constantly hence not letting us be in the present. Allowing yourself to enjoy the simple joys of life like a coffee with your parents or a fun brunch with friends is also an important part of life even though it might serve a greater purpose.
If you are too focused on short-term, Hedonic happiness, ask yourself, how will this affect me in the long-term?
If you are too focused on the long-term, Eudaimonic happiness, ask yourself, am I ignoring the present for a future that might never happen?
Metrics
In today’s world, data-driven decision-making, statistics and metrics are ubiquitous. They help us to make better decisions as well as help to hold us accountable by removing inaccuracies that occur due to human error.
I am all for measuring things like workouts, time spent on different activities, goals, etc.
However, I learnt about Goodhart's Law, and it gave me a new perspective on metrics.
The law says that, when a metric becomes a target, it ceases to be a good metric.
This article also talks about a probably apocryphal story, where during the British Raj in India, there was an outbreak of Cobras in Delhi. The government announces an award for bringing dead Cobras to their office. Initially, the plan worked and the population of Cobras was reduced.
However, in time, the population increased as people started breeding Cobras for the monetary reward! The metric, “How many Cobras were killed?” became the target, “How many Cobras can I kill?”.
In addition to this, too much focus on metrics might lead us to ignore intuition which can be helpful sometimes. Take for example this interview where Kunal Shah speaks with Shreyas Doshi (formerly product lead at Stripe, Twitter, Google, and Yahoo). Shreyas points out how we make most of the important decisions in our life like choosing friends, and spouses, choosing to have kids, and buying a house, mostly on intuition.
We don’t really track the trustworthiness of our friends or our spouse based on the number of times they failed to keep a secret! We simply trust our “gut feeling” in most cases.
If you are too focused on the metrics, ask yourself, am I overdoing it? Have I crossed the point of diminishing returns?
If you are not measuring anything at all, ask yourself, is intuition really enough? Will I be able to separate reality from the illusion of progress?
Even though there are many other aspects in life that we need to navigate, these are the 3 I was thinking about recently. Finding balance, I have realized is that it is not a one-time thing but a continuous process. Depending on where you are in life, the balance will keep changing. being aware of this shift will help us to better cope with reevaluating the balance as well as possibly make the decision consciously.
📜The article corner
Using the goal gradient hypothesis to help people cross the finish line
Our perception of progress can impact our overall drive to reach a goal. The goal gradient hypothesis posits that our efforts increase as we get closer to achieving a goal: when the reward is in sight, we feel incentivised to reach the finish line.
3 tips to motivate others:
Offer a head start
Track & Acknowledge Progress
Celebrate Small wins especially when the end goal is long-term
🎤 Podcast Room
Kunal Shah: Shreyas Doshi
Content regresses to the thing that gets the most likes.
World-class performance requires an innate natural ability, however not everyone wants to be world-class.
Real judgement is what to measure and what not to measure rather than what is the measure.
Intuition is underrated, especially in Product Management.
That’s it for this issue. I hope you found this article interesting. Until next time!
Let’s connect :)