I am so glad to see this article. I have been waiving the Red flag at optimization in my coaching practice a lot lately. Partly because it keeps clients trying to control things that are actually out of their control. The leadership lacks integrity, the work load is unmanageable, the role they are in no longer aligns with the work they like to do. If you optimize the sh$&@ out of yourself each day- you don’t have to face these things- but you also stay exactly where you are. It is a “good girl” tool that keeps one feeling bad if used improperly.
Wonderful article especially the part about the substitute teacher recognizing you and your worth. All gifts are not tied up in a pretty package. The world we live in makes everyone appear to be perfect. The best optimization of our life is using our gifts to see value in others and providing encouragement along the journey. By mentoring a young girl for ten years, my soul and spirit were enriched immensely. Much of what I mention and you discuss cannot be obtained via social media or apps. Keep up your amazing work!
The insight about not knowing (or forgetting) what you're optimising for feels spot on. The issue seems to be mistaking the tool for the goal.
I'd phrase an attempt at an answer as optimising for soul availability. If your body is in tatters, your attention scattered, and your to-do list in apocalyptic urgency mode, the chances of your soul coming online, of you actually being able to see with your soul, are going to be pretty limited.
I also wonder whether this is part of a larger pattern in which we mistake abstractions for the realities they were meant to serve: stories for truth, systems for purpose, optimisation for meaning.
Wow! This is profound and so timely. It did penetrate my soul deeply. Not because there is any new concept here but came from your soul - one soul gifting another. A wake up call to all of us. SBK, you are speaking from your soul, rather than metrics. What a great gift for all of us. Thank you.
Love this Scott. Optimization is a trap. Sure, I’m all for tracking sleep and nutrition, but numbers aren’t enough. They’re no substitute for the things that really create joy and meaning - friends, family, hobbies, nature. Service to others. A sense of purpose. Thanks for sharing this piece.
I likely don’t optimize enough, but that’s a whole other discussion. 😊This article reminds me of the work of Iain McGilchrist and his point that modern culture has become overly dominated by left-hemisphere modes of thinking (analysis, abstraction, categorization, and control) vs right-hemisphere (context, embodiment, relationship, and lived experience). Your use of the two hands analogy points to the same, that BOTH are needed. Which I agree with wholeheartedly.
I just commented and then read yours, and I think we're talking about the same mechanism! My lens is more framed by linguistics, and this feels like the neuroscience behind the phenomenon. So interesting, thanks for sharing!
Powerful and much-needed reminder that the most meaningful parts of life can not be measured. Thank you for helping me start my day focusing on those things!
Your 'system hand' and 'soul hand' are exactly what I traced through neuroscience and cultural history. I recently wrote about why three centuries of analytical progress built extraordinary material infrastructure and almost none for the kind of attention your substitute teacher was using when she looked at you — really looked. I called it 'the missing graph'.
Your Penn student who forgot what an 8 feels like is the pattern I describe, in miniature. Every generation rediscovers what the soul hand knows — the counterculture, contemplative neuroscience, the mindfulness movement — and every time the system hand absorbs it, strips the depth, and sells it back as an app. I call it the Hotel California move.
Where I think our arguments connect most: you focus at the individual level — pick one thing, stop optimising it, start seeing it. My essay asks the structural question underneath: why does the culture keep producing people who've forgotten what an 8 feels like? And whether AI freeing up analytical bandwidth might finally give more people the space to develop the soul hand — or whether it just builds better dashboards.
I found a great little habit tracking app that I loved. It was so fun to use. Until it wasn’t. What I noticed over time is that my mood was always “meh”. I started overthinking my mood so much that I flatlined it by doing so. I also noticed that “meh” is how I feel nearly every single morning. And that when I wasn’t meh, and feeling good or great or awesome, I didn’t even care about tracking it.
Long story short, I ditched the app. It was creating a depression spiral rather than helping me in any way. Between all the above and the “broken streak” messages, I decided NO MORE!
So true and what I longed to re-member today! Seeing with our souls is a deep seeing into an unmeasurable wholeness. The closest I can come is the German verb einsehen (seeing into). My self-declared "heart's desire" I identified at a silent meditation retreat fifteen years ago was " to see with my soul" and I've held that desire close ever since. It is a practice to be sure (I often fail), and one that affirms us and the other in deeply meaningful (beyond mere "sense-making") ways. Thanks for your instinct to share your beautiful insights.
Thanks for the pointer back to the sailboat ⛵️, Scott. Having just done a one day sail around St. John, USVI, the metaphor is apt. I’ve been contemplating the dynamic tacking part, and it combines well with your hierarchy graphic.
My favorite article thus far! The “engineering” of happiness, health, and flow has been incredibly overstated and somewhere in the journey we have to rest in ourselves after all is done. That simply cannot be measured as precisely as a sleep score or a macro count.
I’m hesitant to write this since it cherry picks a small part of an eloquent essay with which I agree, but I feel the need to comment on the feeling of being “written off” in a special education classroom. My son is a special education teacher which may make me defensive, but the goal of his and his colleague’s classes is not to simply maintain their students’ existence but to work through sometimes extraordinary circumstances so the students can have some degree of independence in their future. You were misplaced, for sure, but in no way are others written off.
I am so glad to see this article. I have been waiving the Red flag at optimization in my coaching practice a lot lately. Partly because it keeps clients trying to control things that are actually out of their control. The leadership lacks integrity, the work load is unmanageable, the role they are in no longer aligns with the work they like to do. If you optimize the sh$&@ out of yourself each day- you don’t have to face these things- but you also stay exactly where you are. It is a “good girl” tool that keeps one feeling bad if used improperly.
Wonderful article especially the part about the substitute teacher recognizing you and your worth. All gifts are not tied up in a pretty package. The world we live in makes everyone appear to be perfect. The best optimization of our life is using our gifts to see value in others and providing encouragement along the journey. By mentoring a young girl for ten years, my soul and spirit were enriched immensely. Much of what I mention and you discuss cannot be obtained via social media or apps. Keep up your amazing work!
The insight about not knowing (or forgetting) what you're optimising for feels spot on. The issue seems to be mistaking the tool for the goal.
I'd phrase an attempt at an answer as optimising for soul availability. If your body is in tatters, your attention scattered, and your to-do list in apocalyptic urgency mode, the chances of your soul coming online, of you actually being able to see with your soul, are going to be pretty limited.
I also wonder whether this is part of a larger pattern in which we mistake abstractions for the realities they were meant to serve: stories for truth, systems for purpose, optimisation for meaning.
Wow! This is profound and so timely. It did penetrate my soul deeply. Not because there is any new concept here but came from your soul - one soul gifting another. A wake up call to all of us. SBK, you are speaking from your soul, rather than metrics. What a great gift for all of us. Thank you.
Thanks Rob, that is so kind of you to say. I feel seen, thanks!
Love this Scott. Optimization is a trap. Sure, I’m all for tracking sleep and nutrition, but numbers aren’t enough. They’re no substitute for the things that really create joy and meaning - friends, family, hobbies, nature. Service to others. A sense of purpose. Thanks for sharing this piece.
I likely don’t optimize enough, but that’s a whole other discussion. 😊This article reminds me of the work of Iain McGilchrist and his point that modern culture has become overly dominated by left-hemisphere modes of thinking (analysis, abstraction, categorization, and control) vs right-hemisphere (context, embodiment, relationship, and lived experience). Your use of the two hands analogy points to the same, that BOTH are needed. Which I agree with wholeheartedly.
Iain keeps showing up. I must dig in…
I just commented and then read yours, and I think we're talking about the same mechanism! My lens is more framed by linguistics, and this feels like the neuroscience behind the phenomenon. So interesting, thanks for sharing!
Powerful and much-needed reminder that the most meaningful parts of life can not be measured. Thank you for helping me start my day focusing on those things!
Your 'system hand' and 'soul hand' are exactly what I traced through neuroscience and cultural history. I recently wrote about why three centuries of analytical progress built extraordinary material infrastructure and almost none for the kind of attention your substitute teacher was using when she looked at you — really looked. I called it 'the missing graph'.
Your Penn student who forgot what an 8 feels like is the pattern I describe, in miniature. Every generation rediscovers what the soul hand knows — the counterculture, contemplative neuroscience, the mindfulness movement — and every time the system hand absorbs it, strips the depth, and sells it back as an app. I call it the Hotel California move.
Where I think our arguments connect most: you focus at the individual level — pick one thing, stop optimising it, start seeing it. My essay asks the structural question underneath: why does the culture keep producing people who've forgotten what an 8 feels like? And whether AI freeing up analytical bandwidth might finally give more people the space to develop the soul hand — or whether it just builds better dashboards.
Would love your thoughts: https://rajeshachanta.substack.com/p/the-missing-graph?utm_source=publication-search
I found a great little habit tracking app that I loved. It was so fun to use. Until it wasn’t. What I noticed over time is that my mood was always “meh”. I started overthinking my mood so much that I flatlined it by doing so. I also noticed that “meh” is how I feel nearly every single morning. And that when I wasn’t meh, and feeling good or great or awesome, I didn’t even care about tracking it.
Long story short, I ditched the app. It was creating a depression spiral rather than helping me in any way. Between all the above and the “broken streak” messages, I decided NO MORE!
So true and what I longed to re-member today! Seeing with our souls is a deep seeing into an unmeasurable wholeness. The closest I can come is the German verb einsehen (seeing into). My self-declared "heart's desire" I identified at a silent meditation retreat fifteen years ago was " to see with my soul" and I've held that desire close ever since. It is a practice to be sure (I often fail), and one that affirms us and the other in deeply meaningful (beyond mere "sense-making") ways. Thanks for your instinct to share your beautiful insights.
optimization is the tool, not the task. it's like the speedometer, not the destination. the hammer and saw, not the house
Thanks for the pointer back to the sailboat ⛵️, Scott. Having just done a one day sail around St. John, USVI, the metaphor is apt. I’ve been contemplating the dynamic tacking part, and it combines well with your hierarchy graphic.
My favorite article thus far! The “engineering” of happiness, health, and flow has been incredibly overstated and somewhere in the journey we have to rest in ourselves after all is done. That simply cannot be measured as precisely as a sleep score or a macro count.
Beautifully said!
I’m hesitant to write this since it cherry picks a small part of an eloquent essay with which I agree, but I feel the need to comment on the feeling of being “written off” in a special education classroom. My son is a special education teacher which may make me defensive, but the goal of his and his colleague’s classes is not to simply maintain their students’ existence but to work through sometimes extraordinary circumstances so the students can have some degree of independence in their future. You were misplaced, for sure, but in no way are others written off.
I think there is merit in optimizing for self-improvement, but as with everything, the marketing machine will kill it by taking it to extremes.